Obasanjo

Man of the moment

Posted by: Innocent DURU in Featured, News 12 hours ago

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo dominated news headlines for a good part of the week. It all began last weekend when the former Peoples Democratic Party’s  Board of Trustees (BoT) Chairman returned from a five-nation trip and faulted the postponement of the elections on the ground that the military would be engaging the Boko Haram terror group in battle.

He alleged that President Jonathan haboured a sinister grand plan to win the March 28 Presidential election by hook and by crook, adding that the president feared that Gen Buhari might jail APC candidate triumphs at the poll. He went ahead to deal a deadly blow on the President  by accusing him of  going the way of former President Laurent Gbagbo of Cote’d Voire, who kept tinkering with election dates in his country until he was humiliated out of office.

The comment attracted a swift reaction from the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organisation. The organisation, through its Director of Media and Publicity, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode on Sunday, told former President Olusegun Obasanjo to stop playing God over his numerous criticisms of President Jonathan.

The former President bounced back on Monday and publicly anounced that he had dumped the party and went a step ahead to ask his ward Chairman, Alhaji Usman Oladunjoye, who led the delegation of party executives to  his Hilltop residence, to shred his membership card.

Shortly after he made the announcemen, the Ogun State PDP executive council, headed by Chief Adebayo Dayo, announced his expulsion from the party over what it termed his series of anti-party activities.

Miffed by the former president’s action and utterances, the military on Tuesday lampooned him and described his comments as an embarrassment to the force he once served.

The DHQ said the comments credited to Chief Obasanjo, that the postponement of the general elections was to enable President Jonathan to use the Service Chiefs to plot a tenure extension, was to say the least, very surprising.

The DHQ’s comment attracted serious condemnation from some retired senior military officers, who lashed out at the military high command for describing the former president as an embarrassment to the military institution.

Chief Obasanjo continued to dominate news reports during the week whenGovernor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State on Tuesday emerged from a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, and gave  the impression that the party stakeholders might beg the Owu high chief. The action and comments of the former president remained the subject of debates and discussions both in the print and  broadcast media all through the week.