The leadership of Labour Party has saluted the courage of former President Olusegun Obasanjo for publicly endorsing its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, describing it as a worthy New Year gift.
Obasanjo had in the said message personally signed by him stated that the former Anambra State governor had an edge in the February 25 poll.
Hours after his endorsement, the All Progressives Congress presidential campaign council berated the ex-president, describing him as a paperweight politician.
A statement signed by the Director of Media and Publicity for the PCC, Bayo Onanuga, said that Obasanjo does not have the leverage to make anyone win neither a presidential nor councillorship election in the country.
But in a phone chat with The Punch, the National Secretary of Labour Party, Umar Farouk, hailed the former president who he called a peace advocate and a nation builder.
Farouk described his open endorsement for the LP candidate as worthy “New Year’s gift” for both the party and its presidential candidate.
He said, “We are very excited. It is one of the greatest gifts that the Labour Party and our presidential candidate will ever have. Expectedly, President Obasanjo is someone who is known to be an advocate of peace and a nation builder. He has indeed proven to the world and the international community that our presidential candidate is one of the best.
“Therefore, I think Obasanjo’s endorsement is a step in the right direction. Beyond that, the castigation of his former vice president, that he is not trustworthy, indicated that Nigerians should follow Obasanjo’s recommendation by supporting our candidate.
“It has been proven that none of these people contesting against Obi can really deliver Nigeria. Is it Tinubu or Atiku? We have seen what they can do.
“Tinubu is a leader of APC and we know 70 per cent of Buhari’s cabinet is from Tinubu. What has he done for the betterment of Nigerians? Atiku too as VP has been virtually in charge of Obasanjo’s administration and sales of Nigerian assets for eight years. That’s the only thing he can talk about after all these fraudulent sales of the country’s assets. But Nigerians know better.
“We pray that this New Year’s gift by Obasanjo is something we are very happy with and we would like other elder statesmen to emulate him by endorsing Peter Obi to change the government for the betterment of Nigerians.”
In a related development, the Chief Spokesperson for Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, has tweeted via his Twitter handle that the open show of support for the former Anambra governor can’t have any effect on his principal.
While stating that it is within Obansajo’s right to endorse anybody, Keyamo also believed that his action has inadvertently put the opposition Peoples Democratic Party in bad light.
He tweeted, “Quite within OBJ’s right to endorse for anyone, but bad for PDP in two ways: (1) Atiku’s former boss does not think he deserves to be president this time around (2) The little support OBJ gave PDP in 2019 and they failed, he has taken that to LP. No effect at all on Bola Tinubu.”
Obasanjo had endorsed Obi for the February 25 Presidential Election in a six-page New Year Message and Open Letter to Nigerians, who he described as his compatriots and friends, regretting that the last seven and a half years have been eventful and stressful for many Nigerians, who have moved from frying pan to fire and from mountain top to the valley.
According to him: “None of the contestants is a saint but when one compares their character, antecedent, their understanding, knowledge, discipline and vitality that they can bring to bear and the great efforts required to stay focused on the job particularly looking at where the country is today and with the experience on the job that I personally had, Peter Obi as a mentee has an edge.
“Others like all of us have what they can contribute to the new dispensation to liberation, restoration and salvaging of Nigeria collectively.
“One other important point to make about Peter is that he is a needle with thread attached to it from North and South and he may not get lost. In other words, he has people who can pull his ears, if and when necessary. Needless to say that he has a young and able running mate with clean track record of achievement both in public and private life.
Noting that the country’s leaders had done their best, which had been inadequate for the country and her citizens at home and abroad, for whom it was hell on earth.
He said that he was constrained to write the letter to “especially young Nigerians, friends of Nigeria globally as well as our development partners because of the gravity, responsibility and implications of the collective decision Nigerians, both young and old, will be making within the next two months.”
The elder-statesman advised Nigerians to brace themselves “for the remaining few months of this administration and pray and work very hard for an immediate better future – future of liberation, restoration and great hope and expectation.”
On the forthcoming general elections, he said that he told the major contestants who he had interacted with, that the the instruments used from 1999 to 2007 and methodology are grossly inadequate to redress “the perilous situation we now find ourselves.”
According to him: “I have interacted with the major contestants and I find it interesting that, in one form or the other, each of them claims to want to do what I did during my Presidency and to take Nigeria back to where it was at the height of my Presidency and immediately after.
“I was pained that most of them do not realise that the Nigeria of today had been dragged down well below Nigeria of the beginning of my Presidency in June 1999. Although at that time, Nigeria was in very bad shape and was tottering on the verge of collapse and break-up.
“Even then, Nigeria was not faced with the level of pervasive and mind-numbing insecurity, rudderless leadership, buoyed by mismanagement of diversity and pervasive corruption, bad economic policies resulting in extremes of poverty and massive unemployment and galloping inflation.”
He knocked the ‘Emi Lokan’ (It is my turn) and ‘I have paid my dues’ as wrong attitude and mentality for the leadership of Nigeria now, and which “cannot form the new pedestal to reinvent and to invest in a new Nigeria based on an All-Nigeria Government for the liberation and restoration of Nigeria.”
According to him, the country urgently needs a government that must have representation from all sectors of the national life including the public, private, civil society, professional, labour, employers, and the diaspora. For this, he advised his countrymen and women to assess the candidates judiciously and choose wisely in the coming polls.
He urged the electorate to vote a president with outstanding leadership qualities of selflessness, courage, honesty, patriotism, character and fear of God beyond what the country has had in the recent past.
Obasanjo advised Nigerians against being confused, gullible or fooled by the candidates’ promises, as he challenged the youths particularly warning: “If we fall prey again, we will have ourselves to blame and no one can say how many more knocks Nigeria can take before it tips over. To be forewarned is to be fore-armed.
“Future is not emotion. I challenge the youth to arise. Let nobody pull wool over your eyes to divide you and/or segregate you to make you underlings.”
“Nigerian youth, wherever they come from, North or South, East or West need education which is now denied to over 20 million children; Nigerian youth also need skills, empowerment, employment, reasonably good living conditions, welfare and well-being.
“My dear young men and women, you must come together and bring about a truly meaningful change in your lives. If you fail, you have no one else to blame. Your present and future are in your hands to make or to mar. The future of Nigeria is in the same manner in your hands and literally so.
“If for any reason you fail to redeem yourself and your country, you will have lost the opportunity for good and you will have no one to blame but yourselves and posterity will not forgive you. Get up, get together, get going and get us to where we should be. And you, the youth, it is your time and your turn. ‘Eyin Lokan’ (Your turn).
“The power to change is in your hands. Your future, my future, the future of grandchildren and great grandchildren is in your hands. Politics and elections are numbers game. You have the numbers, get up, stand up and make your numbers count.”
Obasanjo said that Nigeria has no business with the problems rocking her saying: “Let me say it again, loud and clear, Nigeria has no business with insecurity, poverty, insurgency, banditry, unemployment, hunger, debt, division and disunity.
“We are in these situations because advertently or inadvertently, our leaders have made the choices. They have done the best they could do. Let them take their rest deservedly or not and let them enjoy their retirement as Septuagenarians or older.
“I became Head of State at 39 and at 42, I had retired into the farm. When it was considered necessary, I was drafted back into active political life after twenty years of interregnum. I came back at 62 and by 70, I was on my way out.
“Others like General Gowon and Enahoro became national leaders at 33 and 27 respectively and General Gowon at the helms of leadership of Nigeria at the highest level. The vigour, energy, agility, dynamism and outreach that the job of leadership of Nigeria requires at the very top may not be provided as a septuagenarian or older.
“I know that from personal experience. And it is glaring out of our current experiences. Otherwise, we will be fed with, “The President says” and we will neither see nor hear him directly as we should. Yes, for some, age and physical and mental disposition are not in tandem. But where and when they are with obvious evidence, they must be taken into account for purpose of reality.
“And yet it is a job in our present situation where the team leader or captain of the team should be up and doing, outgoing inside and outside and speaking to the nation on almost daily basis visibly and as much as possible interactively and meeting his colleagues all over the world on behalf of Nigeria.
“Youth of Nigeria, your time has come, and it is now and please grasp it. If not now, it will be never. I appeal to you to turn the tide on its head and march forward chanting ‘Awa Lokan’ (Our turn) not with a sense of entitlement, but with a demonstrable ideological commitment to unity and transformation of Nigeria.”
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