Former President Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) has remained resolute in his determination to unseat President Muhammadu Buhari from office as the permutations for the 2019 elections become clearer even as the former leader is said to be eyeing the National Unity Party (NUP) as the platform through which he will realize his dream.
This was disclosed to BusinessDay in an exclusive chat with the National Chairman of the NUP, Perry Opara, who said that Obasanjo sees the attempt by President Buhari to seek reelection as a ‘battle’ that he must win to save Nigeria from an impeding chaos, adding that Buhari may live to regret why he failed to heed Obasanjo’s advice not to seek reelection in 2019.
“Obasanjo is strong enough to dislodge Buhari from power. Each time I have meeting with him I come out emboldened. Remember that the day Obasanjo tore his PDP membership card that was the day PDP was decimated. All he is saying is that Buhari is old and must give way to young people, and after he advised Buhari to jettison his reelection bid and Buhari refused to heed it, it is instructive to remember that most people who did not heed Obasanjo’s advice have suffered the consequences and I don’t think this one is going to be different,’’ Opara said.
He stressed that Obasanjo has international clout with which he has helped install leaders both in Nigeria and in Africa, pointing out that Obasanjo is working every day on the issue of who becomes President of Nigeria, which is no longer an internal thing. “The international organisations have a role to play in who becomes the President of Nigeria. Obasanjo is talking to prominent persons in Africa, Commonwealth, United Nations and everywhere.
“He came back from America before Buhari went to America, he just came back from Ethiopia and he has been talking to world leaders on this. But people feel that he wants to put a puppet that will be answerable to him but that is not correct. He only wants a young and dynamic leader, who has the capacity to deliver good governance to Nigeria,” Opara added.
The NUP chair, who has just been elected as the President of the West African Association of Political Parties (WAAPP) declared that any party or candidate which gets Obasanjo’s endorsement will win the 2019 Presidential Election, saying “every serious political party and candidate in Nigeria must visit Obasanjo, even some APC members are also paying him a visit because he is Nigeria’s political oracle that must be consulted.”
On why Obasanjo has not adopted any party or candidate about nine months to the general elections, Opara averred that Obasabjo is not in a hurry. He said “but one thing I want to underline is that from my interaction with Obasanjo, any political party that he decides to endorse will become a national political party overnight. It does not matter the nomenclature of the party, so long as Obasanjo said that this is the party to be used for 2019.
“It is also instructive to note that the name and background of the next presidential candidate does not matter anymore, once Obasanjo picks a candidate that can turn the economy around and give good leadership to Nigerians, no matter who that person is, whether he has money or not, in 24 hours, that person becomes a national celebrity.
“He is a military general and he is keeping his strategy to his chest and when the cheeps are downs he chooses the party and the candidate and I can assure you that the candidate will win the presidential election,” Opara noted.
Opara, who is also the Secretary General of the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) and chairman of coalition of political parties in the Obasanbjo’s Coalition of Nigeria Movement (CNM), said that on the home front Obasanjo has mobilized about 9 million members of his CNM and merged them with grassroots movements that have fetched thousands from the grassroots; market women, traders association, faith-based organisations, civil societies, adding that this is the only way a new dispensation can emerge.
He noted that NUP, which was registered at the same time with the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (A.C.N) is being considered as the “Third Force,” which will crystallize the idea of the “People First Grand Coalition” because it represents the integrative force of unity among all Nigerians particularly now that the nation is grossly divided along regional, ethnic and religious lines.
He noted that the current leadership of NUP is made up younger people who have the experience and are under the age of 50, and who have no record of corrupt enrichment.
