Many chieftains are of the opinion that the “usefulness” of the party’s former Board of Trustees (BoT) chair was long gone, and that he had “outlived his stay” in the party.
Obasanjo had on Monday announced his decision to quit the PDP and directed a party official from his ward to tear his membership card of the ruling party on the premise that he wished to remain an elder statesman.
But Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido, while fielding questions from State House correspondents, after a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Tuesday, said PDP stakeholders would beg Obasanjo to rescind his decision. Lamido, who is the North-West Coordinator of Goodluck/Sambo Presidential Campaign, said Obasanjo remained the father of all, particularly as Jonathan and all the state governors were his “creations”.
He said: “Baba (Obasanjo) is more than a party man. He is an icon, a national symbol and a leader and an inventor, a creator of all the institutions today in Nigeria, from the President to the governors who are his own sons.
“And so, when a father is angry with his own children, we will only say we are sorry to him. But then, we cannot be renounced for whatever it is. If you do any political DNA of our blood, you will find his (Obasanjo’s) blood in us.
No matter what we are, we may not be able to live up to his expectations.” However, Fayose while commenting on Lamido’s statement, said those saying they would go and beg Obasanjo were on their own.
Speaking on a radio/ television programme in Ado-Ekiti on Thursday, the governor said he wished such people the best. He said: “Grey hair is very good but it does not mean wisdom. I have no personal issue with him.
He is a cancer that needs more than radioactive rays to cure. He became the beneficiary when General Murtala Muhammed was killed and he also benefited when Chief MKO Abiola died. When a pointer is leading you to Golgotha you are dead. Do you see other leaders behaving like this, there must be decorum.”
Also, the National Vice- Chairman of the PDP in the South-West, Chief Makanjuola Ogundipe, said the exit of Obasanjo from the party was good riddance to bad rubbish.
“There is no need to beg him, beg him for what? Since he felt it was time for him to leave the party, when nobody forced him to leave. The PDP is bigger than any member and we will never condone indiscipline and anti-party activities from anybody.
“Obasanjo ceased from being a member of the PDP since last year. He only formalised his exit from our party today (yesterday) and we in the PDP are relieved now that we no longer have a mole among us. “In the first instance, he has never contributed a dime to the PDP, a party that made him President.
Rather, he has promoted strife and rebellion among members for his own selfish interests. “It was his selfishness that caused us the governorship election in Ogun State in 2011 and it was his high handedness that led to the exit of key members of the party.
We are, therefore, happy that he has finally bid us farewell and we will not miss him,” he said. A chieftain of the PDP and a retired customs officer, Chief Francis Fadahunsi, said no member of the party would beg Obasanjo as claimed by Lamido.Fadahunsi in a telephone conversation with Saturday Telegraph, said it was not even advisable to beg Obasanjo, who had compulsorily retired himself from politics to be able to rest.
He said: “Obasanjo is even too old and quitting the political stage this time would help him to rest. I advise him to use this opportunity of his bowing out of politics to rest.
“Obasanjo had dumped PDP long time ago and I think he should be left alone to rest because he has even resigned his membership of the BoT of the party, and had never attended any meeting called by the PDP.
I congratulate Obasanjo because at about 80 years, he needs to rest. PDP will not worry him, the All Progressives Congress (APC) will not worry him, it is only his conscience that will worry him now.” Also, Osun State chapter of the PDP said Lamido was only expressing his own view and that there was no crime in somebody expressing his view on a matter.
The party’s Publicity Secretary, Mr. Bola Ajao, said Lamido was only trying to mediate between the party and Obasanjo, hence he did not say it with total affirmation that PDP would beg Obasanjo. Another party stalwart in the state, Chief Abiola Ogundokun, said Lamido expression was not shocking or surprising as he was Obasanjo’s political son.
Ogundokun said: “It is not compulsory to beg Obasanjo because nobody is an island and he should know that he is a father that should not be too annoyed with a son. God truly used him for Jonathan but that has not said that he should run him down also at all cost.”
He added that: “What Obasanjo did was uncalled for and he should know that whether he runs Jonathan down or quits the party, what will be will be. Obasanjo should be told that God, the Almighty one, will do what he will do whether anybody likes it or not.
If God ordains Jonathan to be next president, no man can stop or disturb him from being the president.” Also speaking in an interview with Saturday Telegraph, the state PDP chairman, Chief Adebayo Dayo, described the tearing of the party’s membership card by the former president as “a criminal act.”
He said: “Baba Obasanjo decided to leave the party when he heard from his people that a letter has already been written to the state secretariat from his ward, telling us a lot about his activities and he did not know what was going to come out of it. And that was why he quickly called an emergency meeting and decided to leave the party in that manner.
“What Baba Obasanjo did is a criminal act and I am going to follow it up; because tearing our membership card would have even been okay if the card was torn by himself and not by a member of APC.” However, the leadership of the PDP yesterday said it would continue to appeal to Obasanjo to rescind his decision to leave the party.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, in an interview with New Telegraph, said the policy of the party to persuade members who leave the party is still applicable in the case of Obasanjo. “Our policy is the same.
We want more people and we will continue to appeal to our members who left the party to come back. Our umbrella is big enough to accommodate everybody especially very important people like Obasanjo.
We need him, we worked for him for eight years and we want him back,” Metuh added. Meanwhile, Oba of Lagos, Oba Rilwan Akiolu, has said Obasanjo’s recent accusation against President Jonathan’s administration smacks of hypocrisy.
Fielding questions from journalists at the inauguration of four naval warships in Lagos, Akiolu said Obasanjo illegally withheld the state’s (Lagos) allocation for many months and refused to release it even after the Supreme Court ordered him to do so.
He said: “If I want to do something, I don’t pretend. God gives many people long life so that they can get enough punishment. Let me tell you something; all the injustices they committed against Lagos State from 1999 to 2007, God Almighty is punishing them now.
“All the accusations former President Obasanjo is making now, he initiated them, nurtured them and masterminded them and now he is complaining. God has a way of doing something.
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