Obasanjo denies being military favourite

In an interview with the BBC, Obasanjo rejected suggestions that he would represented the interests of the military if elected. He also rejected an assertion by Falae, who served as finance minister under a military government in the 1980s, that an Obasanjo presidency would represent a continuation of the last 15 years of military rule in civilian guise. Obasanjo retired from the army in 1979 as a general and so far has been the only soldier to have handed power to an elected civilian president. In seperate interviews, Obasanjo told news organisations that the current military government had no candidate. If anyone had gained from the military, he said, it was his opponents in the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the All People’s Party (APP). In particular, he added, the AD benefited from a decision to ease the ruling that any party with less than 10 percent of the vote in 24 states in local polls would not qualify for the presidential elections. The easing of that rule enabled the AD to qualify, he said.