Obasanjo’s counsel to Buhari has rekindled Nigerians faith, says PDP

The Peoples’ Democratic Party has reacted to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s statement, in which he scored incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari performance in office poorly and urged him not to seek re-election in 2019.

Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, in a statement, said Obasanjo’s counsel has rekindled the faith of the people in the democratic process, stressing however that the solution does not lies in creating another political quicksand in a third force but consolidating on a rescue mission with the repositioned PDP which Nigerians have already embraced.

The statement also stated that the choice of Buhari by “many citizens, who claimed to have become tired of the PDP and its government” have “plunged us into this regrettable situation that has brought our nation to its knees”.

However, the PDP rejected Obasanjo’s call “for a third force”, which it said “would amount to repeating the same blunder that brought in the ideologically vacuous APC and the Buhari Presidency which has now wreaked havoc on the nation in its almost three years of governance”.

The opposition party further said: “President Buhari and the APC have irredeemably failed our nation is obvious to all, adding that Nigerians have already taken an irrevocable position against them ahead of the 2019 elections.

The party said Chief Obasanjo’s advice to Buhari had vindicated the opposition party. The PDP described Obasanjo “as courageous, timeous and patriotic”.

The opposition party said, “The PDP is now standing on a truly democratic ground that perfectly represents and reflects the hopes and aspirations of all Nigerians irrespective of their class, creed or tribe.

“The fact is that Nigerians overrated President Buhari in 2015 but they have now seen that he never possessed the capacity and the required aptitude to effectively govern our great nation and pilot a healthy economy.

“This accounts for the reason former President Obasanjo, just like most Nigerians today, are concerned about the quality of presidential candidates to be presented by various parties for the 2019 election.

“The fact is that while the APC is already caught up with President Buhari, the PDP is open for a new engagement that will throw up the President, which our nation truly deserves at this crucial moment.”