At a retreat on inclusive security, Obasanjo talked to people from the Global Peace Foundation and Vision Africa.
In his speech, he said, "The truth is that President Buhari has done his best." He can do that. That means we're not going to do anything more than what he has already done or is doing. There's no point.
Where do we go next? We can't put our hands down. I think that is part of what we're doing here and what we're going to keep doing. Prepare for the end of Buhari: Buhari has tried to do his best. My hope is that God will let him live long enough to finish his term.
"But what should we do to make things better after Buhari? We have to take care of that now, because it affects us all.
He also said that military action alone would not be enough to stop the insurgents from taking over the country.
He said that the stick-and-carrot method should be used to deal with security issues.
"Some people talk about political will, but I talk about political action." Political will alone isn't enough to get things done. Politicians must do something in response to it to make it work. It won't get better if all we do is use the "stick" (military action). Obasanjo: "We may be able to keep it down a little, but we need to work together to solve the problems."
This is what the former leader also said: "Security in Nigeria is local and must be dealt with locally." People should be able to solve that before the next elections.
He also said that leaders should not politicise security. Alhaji Muhammadu Sa'ad Abubakar III, the Sultan of Sokoto and President of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, made the same point.
There are a lot of accusations that each party isn't doing enough to fight insecurity. There are a lot of problems in the country right now, and I think that's the main one. There is a problem that we think we can solve, and we think we're close to the answer. Peace is important. You can't even pray to God if you don't have peace. We find people who have killed their own selves. If we want long-term peace, we need to go back and work according to the holy books, he said.
Also, the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Samson Ayokunle, said that the elite should keep up their pressure on the politicians to make sure that the country's efforts to fight insecurity didn't fall apart.
Archbishop John Praise, the Deputy President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, said: "There must be justice and fairness if there is going to be peace in the country."
Hakeem Baba-Ahmed is the spokesman for the Northern Elders' Forum (NEF). He says that for him, it's important to make sure that everyone is safe.
Nigeria needs to move forward if its citizens choose leaders who are good at what they do.
People don't fight with each other. With the way the country is run, we have a lot of problems Exactly to the point where we fight and blame each other, we don't talk to that leadership. This is the most important problem facing the country.
We can talk to each other all day, but if we don't act on our decisions, we wasted our time. As a sad fact, that's what is happening in the country today."