» Obasanjo Turns Down Pleas To Help Revive PDP «

EXCLUSIVE: Ex-President, Obasanjo, turns
down pleas to help revive PDP
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has
rebuffed repeated pleas from concerned member
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.
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.”