The ex-president was said to have offered the advice during one of the marathon meetings held on Wednesday, shortly after he returned from Ibadan for the continuation of the peace meeting he was having with the PDP governors in the presidential villa. Some of the governors and party chieftains, including some members of Jonathan’s kitchen cabinet, were in attendance.
Obasanjo was also said to have reconciled with Jonathan over the endless political feud concerning the 2015 poll after the latter reportedly tendered an unreserved apology to Obasanjo, who in turn vowed to discourage any aggrieved governor from defecting to the opposition.
The feud between the two have torn the PDP apart as some governors said to be loyal to the ex-president are the same “rebels” that are calling for the removal of Alhaji Bamnaga Tukur as the national chairman. They were also said to be asking for the vice president slot for one of them as a condition that could make them remain in the party.
According to a credible presidency source, both Jonathan and Obasanjo have met not fewer than four times over their differences and the one between the aggrieved PDP governors and Tukur. The source added that it was the process of restoring normalcy to the party that forced the president and Obasanjo to bury their differences in order to save both the party and the presidency from defeat come 2015 as the opposition regrouped under the aegis of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The source said, “Both President Jonathan and Obasanjo have been meeting in the last two weeks over the misunderstanding within the party. You will recall that some governors are fighting the chairman, Tukur, calling for his removal. Some are also fighting President Jonathan and, until a few days ago, both Jonathan and Baba Obasanjo too were not on the same page. All these are not helping us as a party. But I am happy to inform you that President Jonathan has apologised to Baba and he (Baba) has promised to ensure none of the aggrieved governors leave the party.”
According to him, “Baba (Obasanjo) did not mince words in telling President Jonathan the bitter truth. He told him clearly to beware of some of his aides who are making life difficult for him through their unguarded utterances that are making more enemies for him”.
Another source explained that the emergence of APC “is a blessing in disguise as it forced the two leaders to bury their differences and embrace peace since the opposition are exploiting the feud to generate relevance on the pages of newspapers. You would be hearing, 20 PDP governors are talking to us, 15 PDP governors are joining our party, but since the APC has been registered, how many governors have you heard threatening to join them?”
The source said Obasanjo has volunteered to talk to all the aggrieved governors to sheathe their swords and give peace a chance in the party since “we have no other party to go; there is no alternative to PDP”.
Presidency keeps mum
But efforts to get reaction from the presidency were abortive yesterday, as the special adviser to the president on media and publicity, Dr Reuben Abati and special adviser to the president on political matters, Alhaji Ahmed Gulak did not pick several calls made to their phones and also failed to respond to text messages.
We’re not afraid of opposition - Babatope
In a related development, former minister of transport, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, yesterday in Abuja said the PDP is not afraid of any opposition party and instead welcomes them on board and wishes them well since its leadership knows that, working together as a team, there is no party that could stop the party from retaining power come 2015.
Speaking exclusively with LEADERSHIP, Babatope said, “The PDP is not afraid of the APC, codeine, PDM or any party; we are the party to beat. We are only afraid of God and the masses who have consistently been voting PDP since 1999 and we would not let them down. We are going to retain power come 2015; President Goodluck Jonathan would record a landslide victory come 2015.”
According to him, “PDP would never underrate any political party, be it APC or PDM, but we are not afraid of them as well. Those that are threatening to quit the party should remain; there is no better party to the PDP. Where is Chief Audu Ogbeh today? He is a very brilliant politician but since he joined ACN, where do they put him? This is why we have been appealing to them to remain within the party but if they insist, let them go; the PDP would remain the biggest and the strongest party.”
He argued that parties all over the world, especially in the United States and Britain, have their trying moments too but “they resolved their differences without killing their parties. We have our differences, yes, but we would overcome it and once we overcome it, then, we would be able to prepare for the 2015 election and President Jonathan would perform better than he did in the 2011 election.”
Babatope also disclosed that a lot of actions are going on behind the scenes in the southwest with a view to reclaiming “our states back from the opposition and we would not fail. Our people are suffering under them and we would rescue them in the coming election beginning from Ekiti and Osun states. We lost those states as a result of disagreement and misunderstanding and we are working hard to put them behind us and reclaim back our states”.
Okupe, Jonathan’s worst enemy - Gov Amaechi
Rivers State governor and chairman, Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Mr Rotimi Amaechi, has described the senior special assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on public affairs, Dr Doyin Okupe, as the worst enemy of the president.
Amaechi stated this in a statement he issued in Port Harcourt yesterday in a reaction to comments Okupe made in a live radio programme in Abuja last Saturday.
In the statement, his chief press secretary, David Iyofor, said: “Again, on Saturday August 17, 2013, presidential assistant on public affairs Dr Doyin Okupe on a radio programme continued his grossly irresponsible, repugnant and contemptuous, albeit feckless, mission of denigrating and disparaging the person and office of the governor of Rivers State and the chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum(NGF), the Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.
“In the past few weeks, we elected to ignore scurrilous statements from Okupe, as we do not wish to, wittingly or unwittingly, avail him with a sparring partner as he strives, though fecklessly yet again, to elevate his act from an attack puppy to an attack dog. Moreover, like most Nigerians, we believe that Okupe is irrelevant in the political equation that no serious-minded person should take seriously. Over time, his comments and statements are akin to some sort of notice-me monkey dance in front of his boss and his band of cheerleaders.
“However, it has become pertinent to alert/notify the populace and Mr President that the likes of Okupe represent the very worst of the President Goodluck Jonathan administration. With an aide and adviser like Okupe, President Jonathan certainly does not need any enemies. Indeed, Okupe is more than a handful. Pray, what kind of advice will an aide/adviser like Okupe give to Mr President? The earlier Mr President purged the Presidency of characters like Okupe, the better for us all.
“Okupe sank to a new low when he falsely and indecorously claimed that Governor Amaechi used the police to harass, intimidate and punish people unjustly and could not provide one instance or any evidence to back up his claims. He bragged about some phantom text messages from ‘ordinary people’ whose families have suffered grave injustice in the hands of Amaechi and, yet again, did not tell us the content and senders of the text messages. What does Okupe take Nigerians for? The phantom text messages exist only in the devious mind of Doyin Okupe.
“The presidential spokesman then sank even deeper as he condescendingly descended to become the chief advocate and defender-in-chief of the commissioner of police in Rivers State, Mbu Joseph Mbu, who the National Assembly has resolved categorically should be removed from Rivers State.
“Okupe’s warped argument is that the call for the redeployment of Mbu from Rivers State by the state government is because Mbu has refused to be a ‘tool in the hands of Amaechi’. Pray, Okupe, if that is the case and Mbu is such ‘a professional with dignity’, why then did the House of Representatives and the Senate (who sent a committee to Rivers State to investigate the issues) pass two separate resolutions calling for the immediate removal of Mbu from Rivers State? If Okupe’s trend of agbero logic is anything to go by, his likely response would be that it’s because Mbu refused to be a tool in the hands of the National Assembly!
“With comments like that coming from a presidential aide and spokesman, Nigerians now have a better insight into why Mbu is still in Rivers State and continues to act with impunity, in spite of the call by eminent Nigerians and the resolution of the National Assembly that Mbu should be removed.”
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