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Former President Olusegun Obasanjo (Image source: Wikipedia.org)
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Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has
rebuffed repeated pleas from concerned members of the Peoples Democratic Party
to help revive the party following its defeat in the March 28 presidential
election.
President
Goodluck Jonathan, who flew the PDP flag in the March 28 election, lost to his
All Progressives Congress challenger, Muhammadu Buhari, a former military head
of state.
The
party, which has ruled Nigeria since the return of democracy 16 years ago, also
lost its majority status in the National Assembly just as it won a fewer number
of states unlike in the past election.
PREMIUM TIMES report continues:
With
the defeat, the ruling party will now take on the opposition role as from May
29 when Mr. Jonathan hands over power to Mr. Buhari.
Since
the defeat, the party’s senior members have been bickering with one another
with some demanding the exit of its National Chairman, Adamu Mu’azu and other
officers, who are accused of working against the party during the election.
Concerned
about the future of the party, some of its leaders have been reaching out to
Mr. Obasanjo to return to the party and help build it ahead of future
elections.
The
former president had in February directed a fellow PDP member and ward leader
to openly tear his party membership card at a forum in Abeokuta, the Ogun State
capital.
PREMIUM
TIMES gathered that among those persuading him to return to lead the party were
serving governors and federal lawmakers who believed the party should play
viable opposition in the next dispensation.
Mr.
Obasanjo’s close allies said the anxious party men have been pressuring the
former leader, who was the first elected president on the party’s platform, by
either visiting him or through telephone calls.
This
newspaper learnt that the former president, who was also the PDP leader and
Chairman of its Board of Trustees, has repeatedly rebuffed the request to
return to the party.
Sources
close to him said at some point he told those mounting pressure on him that
rather than returning to the party he would encourage viable opposition from
other standpoints.
“I’m
done with party politics here on earth and in heaven. Period,” Mr. Obasanjo was
overheard telling a PDP chieftain who telephoned him recently to raise the
matter.
Mr.
Obasanjo was also said to have told some people pressuring him that he could
have considered returning to the party had his membership card not been
publicly thorn before the general elections.
He
was quoted as saying his membership card has been shredded and that “as it is
now, a goat has eaten up the pieces”.
Mr.
Obasanjo confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES in a telephone interview that he has been
under pressure to return to the PDP but vowed not to do so.
“I’m
not ready to discuss partisan politics because I’m done with it,” he said.
After
a meeting with Mr. Jonathan sometime in February, the outgoing governor of
Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, had assured that the PDP would beg Mr. Obasanjo to
return to the party.
“When
a father is angry with his children, the children should beg him. Baba is more
than a party man. He is an icon, a national symbol and a leader and inventor, a
creator of all the institutions today in Nigeria from the president to the
governors, who are his own sons, are all his creations.”
“And
so when a father is angry with his children, we will only say we are sorry to
him. But then, we cannot be renounced for whatever it is…. We might have made
some mistakes, but abandoning us is not the solution because the country is
first before anything else. So, he is our Baba even up to the president.”
But
Mr. Obasanjo told PREMIUM TIMES he has foreclosed any possibility of returning
to the PDP.
“I agree that Nigeria needs
a strong and viable opposition and I will continue to encourage that,” the
former President said. “I will continue to do that even without belonging to a
political party. I have moved beyond party politics.”
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