The visits of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Ibrahim Dankwambo, governor of Gombe state who is seeking the presidential ticket of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) to the residence of former President Olusegun Obasanjo within 48 hours interval has been eliciting and drawing reactions and counter- reactions from politicians, political analysts and the general public.
While Saraki at the end of the meeting told journalists he was in Abeokuta to see Obasanjo because he missed the official opening of the multi -billion dollar project of the library, Dankwambo, National Daily gathered visited to solicit Obasanjo’s support for his presidential ambition.
Also, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s presidential aspirant, on Monday also visited the former military President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, in Minna, a statement said.
However, they all came to the conclusion that the visit signified a new political rapprochement, alignment and part of build up to the 2019 general election.
Political pundits said the visit signified that the presidential aspirants and opposition see Obasanjo a force to be reckon with in the Southwest politics comes 2019, couple with the fact that the former president has been at logger head with President Muhammadu Buhari.
When Obasanjo in his famous letter earlier in the year, launched the salvo against President Buhari and his government, observers of Obasanjo’s fortunes in the annals of Nigeria’s politics saw it as foreboding trouble for Buhari and his government.
The visit to Akure some few weeks after collapsing his Coalition for Nigerian Movement, (CNM) into African Democratic Congress, (ADC) further confirmed the determination of the former President to mobilise critical forces behind his objectives of ensuring that Buhari never returns in 2019 as President, even if it entails mobilising his critics in achieving this venture, and to Obasanjo, the end will justify the means.
One of the analysts said, “This was also followed by the visit to Otuoke Bayelsa State, where Obasanjo met former President Jonathan in his country home in what may be an unwritten memorandum of understanding between known political enemies to get Buhari out in 2019.
Obasanjo’s earlier visit to Markurdi and laying wreath at the site of the grave of the victims of herdsmen killings, was an eloquent body language in support of accusation of condoning, if not possible complicity, of the Buhari government of the activities of the murderous herdsmen.