Nigerian President Gets ‘Most Reckless’ Letter From Obasanjo

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan received a letter from former President Olusegun Obasanjo considered provocative and “very disrespectful of the highest office in the land,” presidency spokesman Reuben Abati said.

Obasanjo’s 18-page letter, dated Dec. 2 and e-mailed to reporters yesterday, accuses Jonathan of serving the narrow ethnic interests of his Ijaw people and fostering divisions between the largely Muslim north and the Christian south of Africa’s most populous country in his bid to retain power in elections due in 2015.

Jonathan will “at the appropriate time, offer a full personal response to the most reckless, baseless, unjustifiable and indecorous charges levied against him and his administration,” Abati said in an e-mailed statement late yesterday.

Jonathan, 56, has been in power since his predecessor Umaru Yar’Adua died in office in 2010 and has not yet said whether he will stand in 2015 elections. Obasanjo was Nigeria’s military ruler in the late 1970s, and served two four-year terms as elected president after military government ended in 1999.