Again, former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday criticised and lambasted the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Federal Government being led by President Muhammadu Buhari for bringing hardships on Nigerians and running ineffective economic policy which cripples businesses, causing economic woes in the country.
He categorically tagged All Progressives Congress and Buhari-led Federal Government a failure and warned Nigerians not to re-elect a failed government who always gives one excuse or another for its failure to meet up with Nigerians’ expectations, saying it will be foolhardy for Nigerians to reinforce failure by re-electing All Progressives Congress and President Buhari in 2019.
It will be recalled that another round of blame game and criticisms of All Progressives Congress (APC) and Buhari-led Federal Government came barely three months to the letter which the former president wrote to President Muhammadu Buhari on his political style of governance which give room for nepotism, bad economic policy, insecurity in Northeast and generally, incompetent governance.
Speaking in Abeokuta, Ogun state capital during a consultation visit of New Nigeria 2019 Group led by Chima Anyaso, Convener and Moses Siasia, Co-Convener, Obasanjo advised Nigerians to join hands and do away with bad government and governance brought by the ruling All Progressives Congress, adding that people should not also accept reforms and apology tendered by People’s Democratic Party, just as he reiterated that neither APC not PDP could get Nigeria and Nigerians out of mess.
He said, “But this time, for us to make it, we need all hands on deck. You see, I have publicly said and I mean it, that as a party, neither PDP nor APC can get us there as they have been. Never mind about reforms and apology and all that.
“And yet we have to get there. I asked one of the foundation members of PDP, the PDP when we started, was it a grassroots party? He said it was an elitist party. Really, we have never had the so-called grassroots party. Even NEPU which we could say is the nearest was not grassroot enough. And I believe strongly that we must have a strong popular grassroots movement to bring about the change, sustainability and stability that we need in our democracy and development.
“I am happy to meet with you, but don’t take anything for granted. There will be a lot of work that we have to do. What those I call power addicts would want to do is to divide you based on gender, age, tribe, religion and region. You have one commonality – interest of Nigeria. And it doesn’t matter where you come from. We had that interest.
“The truth is this: when you have an ineffective and incompetent government, we are all victims. And don’t let anybody deceive you. Those of you who are in business, your business could have been better today if we have a competent and effective and performing government. As I said, stop giving excuses; we met challenges. If there are no challenges, then we wouldn’t need you to come. You come in because you know there are challenges and then giving us excuse that you have many challenges, that is why you haven’t achieved results.
“And then you still want to go. The first lesson I learnt in my military training is never reinforce failure. What we have now is failure. Never you reinforce failure. Let failure be failure. And if you do not see what you should see, you will then be a victim of what you don’t like because it’s only when you see what you should see and you do what you should do that you put away what you do not like. And if you don’t see what you should see and you don’t do what you should do, you will be a victim of what you don’t like.”
He however advised the youths national movement – New Nigeria 2019 backed by Nigerian Young Professionals Forum whose membership cuts across all tribes, religions, gender in Nigeria and abroad, not to throw away the baby with bathing water as some members of both political parties still have integrity and can still help the ideology and movement succeed.
“But let us bring together all these movements because we are pursuing the same thing. If we allow ourselves to be taken piecemeal, it is finished. Now if we are together… Yes, I said you cannot take PDP as it is and APC as it is; but they are not all made of evil people.
“There are good people. I said PDP is leprous hand, APC is leprous hand, but there are some clean fingers in them. So, let’s take those clean fingers in them and graft the clean fingers in ourown. That is the way to go and if we go that way, we will get there, we will move together, and we will will move fast and we will move far”, he advised them
