According to Punch, Former
President Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, described Imo
State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, as a “failure.”
Obasanjo said this
just as the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur,
likened the current crisis rocking the ruling party as a “surgery” which must
bring some pain to members.
Obasanjo who was
responding to guests who spoke during the grand finale of a civic reception
organised in his honour by the South West Zone of the PDP said there was no way
he could associate with Okorocha who had jokingly referred to the former
President as his “colleague.”
Okorocha, a governor
on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance had defected from the
PDP to the All Nigeria Peoples Party where he contested for the presidential
ticket of the party in 2003 but failed to secure it.
The Imo governor had
earlier in his speech talked about his days as Special Adviser on Inter-Party
Affairs to Obasanjo, saying he gave the ex-President advice that resulted in
the good decisions that Obasanjo took while in office.
The Imo governor
said, “Obasanjo is indeed PDP. But in the actual sense, he’s a national leader.
He does not belong to the PDP alone but a national leader of Nigeria. If I have
another opportunity to advise him, I will tell him to be the national leader of
the country and not the national leader of the party.
“We are here to give
honour to whom honour is due. Obasanjo will remain immovable and unshakable. He
is a man that is very difficult to describe. He represents different things to
different people. But for me, he represents a former colleague. We both ran for
the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And later when
he appointed me as his adviser, I gave him all the good advice.
“All the good things
he did for those eight years, I advised him but all the bad ones he did, I
travelled out of the country. I want to join Nigerians to celebrate this icon —
this great and steadfast Nigerian, who is not afraid of fighting any battle.
But when he starts fighting he doesn’t stop until he finishes fighting. He’s a
general’s general and a soldier’s soldier.”
But the Governor of
Akwa Ibom, Godswill Akpabio, in his message immediately came to Obasanjo’s
defence and told Okorocha that, “I was not as lucky as Governor Okorocha to
work with him Obasanjo. So I did not give him advice. I’m very sure that even
the few things that he did were actually taken out of the bad advice of APGA
where Rochas Okorocha must have represented. Baba, I say the good ones are from you, not
from him (Okorocha).”
In his reaction, the
former president said he could not be a colleague to Okorocha.
He said, “I met
Okorocha a long ago by virtue of the fact that he was brought up in Jos — one
of the few cities that I found in the fifties and seventies as a genuine
melting pot in Nigeria. He is a true Nigerian and when he wants to pull
me down, he will say we are colleagues. How can I be a colleague of a failure?
You are a failure in contesting the presidency of Nigeria!”
Tukur in his speech
said the crisis-ridden PDP was undergoing a surgery in which pains must be felt
for the ruling party to get over its current unhealthy state.
He said, “Let us
fight and win unity, peace, development for our dear nation. The surgery we
have started in our party, the PDP is in line with our vision for a better
society and the aspiration of all Nigerians. In this surgery we are aware we
must lose some blood, undergo some pains and challenges but surely the result
will eventually be one sacrifice that we made for ourselves.”
Vice-President Namadi
Sambo who used the occasion to talk about the achievements of the Jonathan-led
administration, described Obasanjo as a true nationalist.
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