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Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is suffering from a dearth of vision, conviction and consistency required of a statesman.
This was the verdict of the Secretary General of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Mr. Anthony Sani, after Obasanjo somersaulted over his former views and announced the endorsement of former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
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Sani, an elder statesman, however noted that with the level of Obasanjo’s inconsistency, he may change his mind again and withdraw his support for Atiku before 2019.
Sani said Obasanjo as a statesman is expected to be an embodiment of national ideals and moral values for the nation.
The ACF scribe catalogued Obasanjo’s inconsistency, from tearing his PDP card and saying he would no more play partisan politics. Then Obasanjo formed a movement which he said is the third force only for him to convert it into a political party of ADC. Then the final act, the endorsement of former Vice President Atiku.
Sani said the actions of Obasanjo reek of inconsistency which comes with a dearth of vision and conviction required of a statesman.
“It is democracy in action which at once confirms the saying that the only thing that is permanent in politics is interest; no permanent friends or enemies.
“If you consider what the former President has written about his former Vice President Abubakar Atiku to the extent of saying God would not forgive him if he endorsed Atiku for president, then you can hardly avoid the conclusion that common decency is yet to take root in our democracy, especially when regard is paid to the place of the former president in the order of things in Nigeria.
“President Obasanjo is a statesman who is expected to be an embodiment of national ideals and moral values for the nation. But the way he has conducted himself by tearing his PDP card and saying he would no more play partisan politics and forming a movement which he said is third force only for him to convert it to a political party of ADC, culminating in the endorsement of former VP Atiku reeks of inconsistency that comes with dearth of vision and conviction required of statesmen.
“That may explain why most Nigerians may be curt and dismissive of the former president out of fear that he is just like a reed who can change his mind before the day of elections in 2019.”
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Asked whether the North will go with Obasanjo in endorsing Atiku, Sani said: “It is not possible for the whole North to be with former President Obasanjo in that endorsement precisely because the former Vice President is a major challenger of the incumbent President who is also a Northerner and a Hausa/Fulani Muslim.
“As a result, politics of identity as symbolised by ethnicity, religion and of region would give way for those of real issues of real concern to real ordinary Northerners and by extension Nigerians.”
*Adapted from The Nation
