Obasanjo’s advice to Buhari courageous, patriotic – PDP
Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo
The Peoples
Democratic Party has described the counsel by former President Olusegun
Obasanjo that President Muhammadu Buhari should not run for second term in 2019
as courageous, timeous and patriotic.
It added that the
advice had vindicated its position on President Buhari and the All
Progressives Congress.
The party however rejected the call by Obasanjo for the emergence of a third
force, saying that such would amount to repeating the same alleged blunder that
it claimed brought in what it described as the “ideologically vacuous APC and
the Buhari Presidency” which it said had wrecked havoc on the nation in its
almost three years of governance.
PDP National
Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement in Abuja on
Tuesday, said the fact that President Buhari and the APC have irredeemably
failed the nation was obvious to all, adding that Nigerians have already taken
an irrevocable position against them ahead of the 2019 elections.
According to
Ologbondiyan, Obasanjo’s counsel had rekindled the fate of the people in the
democratic process, stressing however that the solution “does not lie in
creating another political quicksand in a third force but consolidating on a
rescue mission with the repositioned PDP which Nigerians have already
embraced.”
He said Nigerians
would recall that in the heat of 2015 elections, many citizens, who claimed to
have become tired of the PDP and its government, opted for a coalition of
strange bedfellows who he said had little or no experience in governance as a
vehicle for electoral victory.
He said,
“Expectedly, in their confusion, they have plunged us into this regrettable
situation that has brought our nation to its knees.
“PDP maintained that
repeating the old mistake of congregating political strangers cannot help our
nation at this time, more so, when the few concerns raised by the former
President about the PDP no longer obtain under the refocused and rebranded PDP.
“The PDP is now
standing on a truly democratic ground that perfectly represents and reflects
the hopes and aspirations of all Nigerians
irrespective of their class, creed or tribe.
irrespective of their class, creed or tribe.
“That is why our
great party has now, more than ever before, become a centre of the new
patriotic and broad-based engagements by well-meaning Nigerians and coalitions
across the board, including past leaders, in rekindling our democratic process
that places priority on returning power to the people.
“The fact is that Nigerians overrated President Buhari in 2015 but they have
now seen that he never possessed the capacity and the required aptitude to
effectively govern our great nation and pilot a healthy economy.
“This accounts for
the reason former President Obasanjo, just like most Nigerians today, are
concerned about the quality of presidential candidates to be presented by
various parties for the 2019 election.
“The fact is that
while the APC is already caught up with President Buhari, the PDP is open for a
new engagement that will throw up the President, which our nation truly
deserves at this crucial moment.”