Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of Nigeria, on Thursday, May 10, 2018, took his plot to wrest power from incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019 a notch further with the fusion of the Coalition of Nigeria Movement, CMN, with the African Democratic Congress, ADC.
Obasanjo who made the disclosure at a press briefing held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, OOPL, Abeokuta, Ogun State, reiterated his call on Nigerians not to be deceived by the “window-dressing” reformation of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the “unrepentant mis-governace” of the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC.
The ex-president, who was flanked at the briefing by his former Senior Special Assistant on Political Affairs, Gbolade Osinowo and one time Secretary to the Government of Oyo State, Olayiwola Olakojo, expressed confidence that ADC would consolidate Nigeria’s democracy and make development in all its ramifications real, relevant, accessible and popular.
Although the first phase of his job had been done with the emergence of ADC as a political party for the movement, Obasanjo said he would not renege on his decision to quit partisan politics but would continue to create an avenue for ordinary Nigerians to have a say on how their country is governed.
He charged the electorate to shun the leprous hands of the PDP and the APC and embrace the ADC in order to usher in a new dawn in Nigeria.
According to him, while PDP offered an apology without disciplining those who set Nigeria on a course of ruin, APC has left Nigeria poorer than it met it in 2015 and plunged Nigeria into more division along ethnic and religious line.
“I will advise others to join this political party platform to usher in a new dawn for Nigeria, but I may not be able to advise anybody to join PDP or APC no matter what window-dressing reformation they may claim.
Although PDP would seem to have realised the mistakes of its immediate past of the last eight years or so, its present evolution would, by itself, not give confidence to well-meaning Nigerians who are interested in a new Nigeria in the hands of God that will have leadership, governance, development and values within our culture as its guiding principles with the attributes of honesty, integrity, patriotism, love, unity, industry, incorruptibility, good neighbourliness, faithfulness, trust, courage and love and fear of God held aloft.
“PDP offered apology without disciplining those who set Nigeria on a course of ruin and some of them are still holding leadership roles in their party. Nigerians may forgive, but Nigerians should never forget, otherwise they will be suffering from amnesia and the same ugliness may raise its head again. APC, as a political party, is still gloating and revelling in its unrepentant misgovernance of Nigeria and taking Nigerians for fools. There is neither remorse nor appreciation of what they are doing wrong.
It is all arrant arrogance and insult upon injury for Nigerians. Whatever the leadership may personally claim, most Nigerians know that they, Nigerians, are poorer today than when APC came in and Nigeria is more impoverished with our foreign loan jumping from $3.6 billion to over $18 billion to be paid by the present and future generations of Nigerians.
“The country is more divided than ever before because the leadership is playing the ethnic and religious game which is very unfortunate. And the country is more insecure and unsafe for everybody. It is a political party with two classes of membership.”
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