Complete details of What the PDP Chairman Discussed With Obasanjo In Abeokuta has emerged.
NewsOnline reports that the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Iyorchia Ayu, has accused President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration of destroying everything one of his predecessors, Olusegun Obasanjo, had achieved.
Mr Ayu said this during his visit to the former President in Abeokuta, capital of Ogun State, on Saturday.
The opposition party chairman said the Buhari administration has plunged the country into generational debt, adding that generations unborn had been thrown into the servitude of slavery.
He also blamed Mr Buhari for Nigeria’s reputation globally as an insecure country and the poverty capital of the world, stressing that the narration was the opposite during former President Obasanjo’s government.
“As the first President in this Republic, your period as president on the platform of PDP is seen as the golden era of the PDP and Nigeria,” Mr Ayu said.
“Because not only did you lay the foundation to grow the economy to become the biggest in Africa, you were able to remove Nigeria from slavery by negotiating and cancelling so much of our foreign debts that would have made it very difficult to run the country.
“By the time you left office, Nigeria was totally set free, direct foreign investment was on the increase on a daily basis and we were respected in the international community and everywhere we went.
“Today, this clueless APC and President Muhammad Buhari has undone that and has plunged Nigeria into eternal debt. The new debt overhang created by this wicked government is going to create massive problems for the coming generations.”
Mr Ayu also claimed that Nigeria had lost its respect in the international community.
“I remember when I accompanied you as your minister to a number of countries – Germany and India – I saw the respect they accorded you and I was very proud to be a Nigerian.
“Today, unfortunately, we don’t have the same recognition because what we have become has fallen short of good leadership that Nigeria deserves.
“This is on account of worsening insecurity and Buhari’s creation of a Nigeria regarded as poverty capital of the world.
“Apart from Infrastructural intervention which you did, most of the very useful institutions like EFCC, the ICPC and so on are now being used to hound people.”
The former minister promised Mr Obasanjo that the party would oust the ruling All Progressives Congress in the coming general election.
“We want to assure you that the new leadership of the PDP with the rest of PDP family will do everything possible – ward to ward, local government by local government across the country to restore the lost glory of Nigeria of which your era was a shinning example because anytime we talked about the history of the PDP there is no way we talk about the PDP without mentioning between 1999 and 2007.”
‘I remain non-partisan’
Earlier, Mr Obasanjo told his visitors that he would be available to offer advice to people who seek it but remains committed to his stance that partisan politics was no longer for him.
“I have been with the party right from inception,” the former president began.
“Whatever I do in my own life, because I became president on the platform of PDP, PDP will continue to be part of the history of my life.
“But having said that, the day that my ward decided to tear my PDP card was the day I ceased to be a member of PDP and that day I vowed that I will not be a member of any political party again and but I will remain a statesman in Nigeria, in West Africa, in Africa and indeed in the world.
“But if I retired from partisan politics, if politics is welfare of the people, I must not retire from the welfare and wellbeing of people whether in my own community, in my own state, in my own country, anywhere in Africa or indeed anywhere in the world and that is why I have the type of responsibility that I have now.
“I must tell you now that your own responsibility is not an easy one either, but it has to be done.”
In the convoy of the PDP National Chairman were the former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi; former governor of Ekiti State, Olusegun Mimiko; National Secretary of PDP, Sam Anyanwu; Deputy National Chairman, South, Taofeek Arapaja; and former governors of Cross River and Jigawa states, Liyel Imoke and Sule Lamido.
Others include the former police affairs minister, Adamu Waziri; National Women Leader of PDP, Stella Effah-Attoe; Deputy National Chairman (North), Umar Iliya Damagu; former minister, Special Duties, Tanimu Kabiru Turaki; former governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, and others.
