Obasanjo - Why I Attended Jonathan Endorsement

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said he was part of the Southwest PDP endorsement for President Goodluck Jonathan's presidential bid because as a party leader he could not disagree with that decision.

Obasanjo, who spoke on Wednesday in New York in the margins of the UN Millennium Development Goals Summit, said, "I am the chairman of the PDP board of trustees, whatever is being done by my zone, I cannot disagree with it."

He said media reports to the effect that he abandoned Jonathan's camp were mischievous.

Obasanjo said Jonathan will do his best in the PDP presidential primaries but did not explain what that means. "I believe he will do his best and if he does his best and the PDP does its best, we will be satisfied with the result," he said.

He said he was not at the president's declaration in Abuja on Saturday because of a burial of a friend's father he had to attend in the United States.

"Carl Masters lost his father when he and I were together in China," he said. "I promised to honour his invitation to attend his father's burial."

On 2011 elections, Obasanjo urged Nigerians to be optimistic and to stop "condemning ourselves by the standard other people draw for us."

He said, "We have many things that we need to correct, one of them is the act of criticising ourselves. We must decide the best standard for us and use that standard truly."