Stop playing God, PDP cautions Obasanjo

The Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Or­ganisation, (PDPPCO) has again replied former Presi­dent Olusegun Obasanjo over his allegation that President Goodluck Jonathan was scheming to perpetu­ate himself in office.

Speaking with newsmen in Abeo­kuta, the Ogun State capital at the weekend, Chief Obasanjo had alleged that Jonathan, who is also the PDP pres­idential candidate, was bent on creating a constitutional stalemate that would abort the conduct of the forthcoming general elections.

The former president, who likened Jonathan to former president of Cote d’Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo, who was forced to abdicate office through popu­lar revolt wondered how the military intends to tame the insurgency in six weeks, a feat it could not achieve in the last four years.

But addressing newsmen yesterday in Abuja, Director of Media and Publicity of the PDPPCO, Femi Fani-Kayode, accused Chief Obasanjo of raising the false alarm and challenged him to substantiate his weighty allegation with concrete proof.

“President Olusegun Obasanjo’s allegations are serious and grave. They are also reckless. He has raised issues and made assertions that are capable of derailing our democracy and creat­ing chaos in the land. It is vital that we consider his motives for this latest outburst and his credentials as a leader and an elder statesman.

“The truth is that he knows that Presi­dent Jonathan will win next month’s presidential election and that is why he wants to destroy the credibility of the whole process right from the outset. What he is trying to say in his latest contribution, is that if President Jona­than wins, then the election must have been rigged right from the outset. This is not only wrong, but it is also unfair and uncharitable. If President Obasanjo has any evidence to prove his weighty allegations he ought to present it before the Council of State and take it up there.

“He should also report to Indepen­dent National Electoral Commission (INEC) itself and present the data of whatever sinister plan he believes that President Jonathan has to stay in power ‘’by hook or by crook’’ to them. He should tell INEC whatever it is that Jon­athan is doing in order for him to stay in power by all means and he should give them all the details. That should be the starting point.”

Fani-Kayode, who recalled that elections were shifted by INEC in 2011 by two weeks under Prof. Attahiru Jega and the electoral body still conducted the exercise, asked Nigerians to demand from Chief Obasanjo his motive for raising eyebrow over the shift in polls dates, which he noted, was within the powers confined on the electoral body.

“The record shows that this is not the first time that INEC has postponed elections. In 2011 during the National Assembly elections, INEC not only cancelled the elections just after they started, but they also postponed them by two weeks. The heavens did not fall then and neither did President Obasanjo accuse INEC or the President of having any grand plan to stay in power by hook or by crook at that time. One wonders what has suddenly changed? What INEC has done by postponing the elec­tions is firmly within the confines of the law and they have probably saved thousands of lives by doing so. They have also given the 34 per cent of Nige­rians that had not collected their PVCs as at the relevant time the opportunity to do so. Without this postponement all those people would have been dis­enfranchised and it would have placed a dark cloud over the whole process. Why should President Obasanjo have a problem with that? President Jonathan has re-affirmed his commitment to the democratic process over and over again and he has also said that the handover date of May 29th is sacrosanct,” he said.

Fani-Kayode who was Aviation Min­ister under the Obasanjo administration, attributed the mutual hostility between Jonathan and his estranged godfather, Chief Obasanjo, to the former’s refusal to be teleguided by him.

He further expressed consternation that Chief Obasanjo could speak ill of Gbagbo, as he alleged that the former chairman of PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) made desperate efforts to sustain the former president in office.

The statement further read in part:”In view of these assurances, one wonders why President Obasanjo is creating such a hue and cry over nothing. What is he seeing that no one else can see? One wonders what his motives are? Does he have to rule every gov­ernment by proxy? Must every leader take instructions from him? Is it a case of “if I cannot control you and tell you what to do then you must go?”

“President Obasanjo spoke about President Laurent Gbagbo and he claimed that President Jonathan was attempting to do a Gbagbo in Nigeria. The question that must be put to him is this: “who got Gbagbo out?” Was it not Jonathan’s government that played a key role in ensuring that democracy was fully established in the Cote d’Ivoire and did he not play a key role in ensur­ing that the Gbagbo plan “stay in power forever plan” did not work? If anyone doubts this, they should ask President Alhassan Outtara of Cote D’Ivoire the role Jonathan and Nigeria played in helping to restore democracy and stabil­ity back to his country. They should also find out the role Obasanjo played in attempting to keep Gbagbo in power at all costs and the deep friendship that exists between the two men.

“It is a matter of fact and public record that when he was President of Nigeria, President Obasanjo, perhaps more than any other African Head of State with the exception of President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, propped up and supported President Gbagbo and it is an irony of fate and history that he is now condemning the actions of his old friend and accusing others of trying to emulate them.

“Again, it is ironic that President Obasanjo has accused President Jona­than of having a grand plan to stay in power at all costs and by all means yet it is the same Obasanjo that tried to stay in power for a third term even though the Nigerian constitution specifically forbade it. “He tried all he could to change the constitution but the whole thing failed and he was compelled to leave power”, he said.