Few days after he accused President Goodluck Jonathan of orchestrating a tenure elongation plot, which he dubbed the “Gbagbo treatment”, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo has dumped the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), saying he is no longer interested in partisan politics as he is now a statesman.
Although this is a developing story, there are reports the ex-president allegedly tore his PDP membership card in public.
You may recall that the Presidency and PDP had made various attempts to appease Obasanjo to no avail, which led to speculations that the ex-president may be suspended for anti-party activities.
Perhaps his dumping of the ruling party is a pre-emptive move.
Details later…
***UPDATE***
According to Daily Trustreport, Obasanjo handed over his PDP membership card to the leader of his Ward 11, in Abeokuta North local government, Alhaji Surajudeen Oladunjoye and instructed him to tear it.
Oladunjoye, who led about 350 members of the ward on a fact-finding mission to the ex-president’s residence, tore the card into shreds to the admiration of the party followers, some of whom also tore their cards in solidarity.
Addressing members of the press in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, Mr. Obasanjo said if his involvement in partisan politics would stop him from having a better Nigeria, then he is ready to sacrifice membership of the PDP and become a statesman.
The former Nigerian leader, who was responding to questions on rumours to expel him from the ruling party, directed his aide to get his membership card and few minutes after he was given, threw it away, declaring that “if this is why we cannot have the Nigeria we desire, I am no longer part of this”.
Obasanjo ruled Nigeria from 1999 to 2007 for two terms of eight years on the platform of PDP. He had previously led the country as a military head of state from 1976 to 1979 before he voluntarily handed-over power to a civilian president, Alhaji Shehu Shagari.
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