Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, on
Tuesday said he adjusted his itinerary to suit
and honour the presidential candidate of the
All Progressives Congress, APC, Muhammadu
Buhari, who was in Ogun State for his
campaign ahead of the February poll.
APC leaders pose for photo ops with former
president Olusegun Obasanjo after the
meeting.
Mr. Obasanjo made this known when Mr.
Buhari led chieftains of the party on a courtesy
call to him at his private residence in
Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
"But let me in a special way welcome
Muhammadu," Mr. Buhari said. "Our paths
have crossed on a number of occasions and
when I was told you are going to be coming to
Ogun State, I wasn't sure whether you will
come here or not. But I told my boys -I said
well, whatever programme we have outside
Ogun State for today, let us shelve it just in
case Muhammadu and his party and his team
decide to call here.
"You will remember when you decided to
contest you wrote me a letter this time
around. And I replied your letter. When you
became the flag bearer of your party, you
wrote me another letter. And I replied your
second letter because I believe that you have
honoured me by writing and I should of course
reciprocate by also responding to your letter."
The former president said what was
paramount to him was who would make
Nigeria better irrespective of the party the
candidate belongs to.
Mr. Obasanjo, however, declared that he
remained a member of the Peoples
Democratic Party, PDP.
"I have always said that party or no party, what
is paramount for me is Nigeria. And that will
remain paramount as far as I am concerned.
There is no political party in the world that is
made up of saints and our own political parties
in Nigeria will be no exception. All the political
parties have saints and devils among them.
But because what you are campaigning for is
the votes of saints and devils to be able to win
an election, and I wish you well," Mr. Obasanjo
said.
Mr. Obasanjo added that politicians should do
away with trivialities and face issues, to tell
Nigeria what would be done to better their
lots.
"I thought that I should say it today. I will just
beg all of you who are contesting to add one to
it; you mentioned economy, you mentioned
corruption, and you mentioned security. All of
you, I will beg of you, to add infrastructure. It's
very important. You may take it as part of
economy but I will take infrastructure as
special and give it special attention.
"For all political parties that are trying to woo
us to vote for them in the coming election;
let's go away from red-herring, let's go away
from trivialities, let's face issues and tell the
people of this country what we will do to deal
with these crying problems of our country.
Having said that, I will also say that while a
party must be microcosm of a nation – and in a
nation you will have near saints, devils, rapists,
armed robbers and a good party must have all
this in them.
"But what matters is that when that party has
to go into government, it must look for men
and women of character. And we have them in
all parties; we have them throughout the
nooks and crannies of this country. Again, I
wish you well as you go around. I thank you for
this visit. I cannot end without reminding you,
even though I saw some old faces, but some of
us will remain firm at least at the ward level
where I am very active in my party."
In his speech, Mr. Buhari said he came to
appreciate the roles Mr. Obasanjo played in
his career. He said he needed to further solicit
for his support.
"When I set about the programme of going
round the states, it was decided that we should
be taking two states per day. I think we have
so far succeeded in doing the South-South and
the South East. Whether we can maintain that
success I don't know. But somebody had the
temerity to ask me that when I come, shall I
call on Chief Olusegun Obasanjo? I don't think I
answered the man. I just looked the other
side. I think that I should not come here in
whatever capacity without calling to pay my
respect.
"Sir, it's a fact that you know more than all we
know about the problem that we are in. But
what we'll do is try to convince you to believe
us that we are going to do better. We expect
your understanding and support, although you
insist in remaining in PDP. I have reached a
certain degree of frustration in my attempt for
you to try to shift a bit but you have refused.
"Briefly, we have been going around three
fundamental issues: security, economy,
corruption. This vicious circle is what the APC
is determined to break. Because without
security, there is no way the country can settle
down not to talk of living in it. So many
people, educated and uneducated, some said
up to 60 per cent, will say Nigeria is sitting on
a keg of gun powder.
"And then corruption; we believe that if we are
able to stop corruption, a lot of resources will
be available to invest in infrastructure, get the
factories to reopen, get jobs, and get goods
and services. So security, economy, in terms of
employment, production, manufacturing,
goods and services, and then agriculture will
again give impetus to employment. We have
to be systematic and work to make sure that
the vast land we have is cultivated not only to
produce food, but to produce raw materials
for agro-allied industries, which used to be
very viable but which we allowed to die
because everybody has concentrated on
getting oil money.
"Now the oil money is dwindling rapidly; I
think we better come back to our senses. Sir,
briefly, this is what we intend to do and this is
contained in our manifesto. We are not going
to be inflexible the way some people accused
us of doing it. We are going to be dynamic as
we go along and that's why I said we are here
to seek for your understanding, for your
support, in spite of the political card you hold."
After the visit, Mr. Buhari led his political train
to the campaign ground at Moshood Abiola
International Stadium, where he and other
chieftains of the party emphasised the need
for voters to cast their votes for the party at
both states and national levels.
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