Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s political future became clear yesterday. He is leading his Coalition for Nigeriia Movement (CNM) into the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
But Obasnjo is not done with attacking the Muhammadu Buhari administration, which he said was “taking Nigerians for fools”..
He said Nigerians’ fortunes had taken a turn for the worst and called on Nigerians to vote out the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government.
He also chided the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for introducing corruption and “bad governance for eight years”, saying Nigerians should not give them another opportunity to govern. Obasanjo was president on the platform of the PDP from 1999 to 2007.
The former President urged Nigerians to embrace the ADC.
The former president spoke to reporters at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, where he unfolded the CNM plans.
The CNM coordinator, former Osun State Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, yesterday resigned his membership of the APC and his appointment as chairman of the Nigeria Identity Management Corporation (NIMC) .
Oyinlola informed President Muhammadu Buhari of his resignation from NIMC in a letter. He also wrote the APC Chaiman in Ward I Okuku in Odo Otin Local Government on his exit from the party.
Obasanjo warned people not to take the appeal for forgiveness by the PDP for its past mistakes, seriously because the party had not deemed it fit to discipline its members who led Nigerians to the path of “ruins” through eight years of poor governance.
He said political parties that emerged in the country since 1999 had not only been too elitist, but also gradually lost internal democracy, leaving room for corruption and dictatorship.
He said he was shocked to learn from a PDP insider that the party spent around $3 billion on the 2015 elections, adding that it was all directly or indirectly pulled from the government treasury.
“It also introduced corruption into the system. At one of the PDP primaries within the last eight years, one candidate distributed $10,000 per delegate, the one who distributed $15,000 per delegate won the primary,”Obasanjo said.
He berated Buhari and his APC government, saying Nigeria is more impoverished with the foreign loan jumping from $3.6 billion to over $18 billion, which is expected 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.
“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.
“Before I leave this point, it is pertinent to make the point that PDP and APC are not actually made of men and women who are totally evil. There are sprinkles of good men and women out there and among them. But as political parties and the government they led or they are leading in the last eleven years, they have failed and failure should neither be hoisted for embracement nor reinforced.
“What must be done is to take what is best from all to come together on a new alliance platform that will take us to the promised land. There must be basic and fundamental ground for change and for people to change. What is not desirable is to take the leprous hand of either PDP or APC as the instrument to clean Nigeria up.
“The clean fingers in either of them can and must be grafted to the clean hands of new entrants and participants to move up and move on and that is what I understand the reinvigorated party platform is all about – change, new order and progress.
“The National Assembly must rid itself of corruption; and it can do it. It must also make its remuneration relevant to Nigerian economic and social reality. It can also do it. Then it must make laws and amend the Constitution to have one INEC for all elections in the country, strict and scrupulous funding and accounting of all electoral campaigns and all elections.
“The INEC must be given power to supervise, control and regulate campaign funds and funds and contribution to political parties. The National Assembly must amend the Constitution to allow Nigerians in diaspora with current Nigerian passports to vote in all Nigerian elections at Nigerian Embassies abroad.
“The National Assembly should also legislate 30 per cent youth of under 40 and 30 per cent women into all organs of political parties and into all institutions of governments. It should be a great step forward. The Executive which emerges on the platform of one political party must avoid ‘winners take all’ especially in utilising the best brains available in running the affairs of the country.
Canvassing for the ADC, Obasanjo said the party had embraced the policy of 30 per cent youth of under 40 and 30 per cent omen in all organs which is a significant paradigm shift in the power equation.
Obasanjo said: “The ADC is a reformed and reinvigorated party. It will embrace all the features and policies which make CNM attractive and a source of hope and inspiration to millions at home and abroad. The ADC welcomes associates, other parties, groups and civil society organisations, such as cultural, township unions and social organisations and interests.”