APC Taking Nigerians For Fools – Obasanjo

Obasanjo said this on Thursday evening while briefing journalists at his presidential library home in Abeokuta.

While lashing out at the ruling party, the former President said most Nigerians today were poorer than when the APC came in adding that the country had been further  impoverished with foreign loan jumping from $3.6bn to over $18bn.

He said, “The 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.

“Whatever the leadership may personally claim, most Nigerians know that they are poorer today than when the APC came in and Nigeria is more impoverished with our foreign loan jumping from $3.6bn to over $18bn 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.”

He added, “And the country is more insecure and unsafe for everybody.  It is a political party with two classes of membership.”

Obasanjo, who might have quit the CNM, said since the movement adopted the African Democratic Congress, he had completed the first phase of his assignment.

In the speech he titled, ‘My treatise for future of democracy and development in Nigeria’, the former President said, “Let me start by welcoming and commending the emergence of a renewed and reinvigorated African Democratic Congress, as a political party.

“Since the inception of the Coalition for Nigeria Movement, many of the 68 registered political parties have contacted and consulted with the movement on coming together and working together.

“The leadership of the movement, after detailed examination, wide consultation and bearing in mind the orientation, policies and direction of the movement, had agreed to adopt ADC as its platform to work with others for bringing about desirable change in the Nigeria polity and governance.”

He, however, said the emergence of ADC was the beginning of hard work to continue to consolidate the nation’s democracy and ‘to make development in all its ramifications real, relevant, accessible, popular and reaching out to all Nigerians wherever they may be.”

While he thanked Nigerians who hearkened to his scathing open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, dated January 23, “which catalogued the incompetence, nepotism, a lack of performance, among others, of the administration,” he noted that their concerted efforts had made the adoption of ADC possible.

He said the ADC would accommodate youths, women and others and would sanitise the system.

Obasanjo said he would not advise anyone to join the Peoples Democratic Party or the APC, “no matter what window-dressing reformation they may claim.”

He said the PDP offered an apology without disciplining those who set Nigeria on a course of ruin and some of them are still holding leadership roles in the party.

He said, “Nigerians may forgive, but Nigerians should never forget; otherwise they will be suffering from amnesia and the same ugliness may raise its head again.”

The ADC was formed in 2006 and adopted a renowned political economist, Prof. Pat Utomi, as its presidential candidate in 2007.

But the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, while welcoming news of the fusion of the CNM and the ADC, said Nigerians still believed in the party.

He said, “We are in a multi-party democracy and the coming together by political parties should not be considered a threat. In fact, the more the merrier, we do not see this as a threat at all.

“We are confident that Nigerians still believe in our party they are seeing the changes we are bringing on board. The Nigerian people will decide which party among the very many they will give their mandate to when the time comes.”