In what appears to be a genuine effort at making peace with former Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on Wednesday tendered an unreserved apology to the former president, with a passionate appeal to him to come and lead the party.
Obasanjo, a former Chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees, in a widely publicized letter to the former chairman of the party, Dr. Bamanga Tukur, withdrew his participation in all activities of the ruling party over a series of disagreements.
The former president, even as the PDP BoT chairman, did not attend meetings of the various organs of the party, including its National Executive Committee.
And as the party is preparing for the 2015 general elections, Obasanjo has remained aloof to the political activities of the PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan’s second term ambition, even as he has become the proverbial beautiful bride that everyone is courting.
Just last week Friday, he played host to high-powered delegations from both the PDP and All Progressives Congress, APC, who are seeking his support for their presidential candidates.
But speaking while receiving a former governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, who defected from the Labour Party back to the PDP in Abuja on Wednesday, Mu’Azu begged Obasanjo to come back to the PDP.
The PDP national chairman, who was reacting to an earlier apology offered by Daniel to Obasanjo, said every member of the party must beg the former president for forgiveness.
He said, “I want to join OGD, I want to join my dear senior brother and indeed all the teeming members here to very sincerely apologise to our leader, to our baba, my baba, General, President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to forgive us.
“We cannot continue. I know he has been very prayerful. In the Villa, I know he used to pray every morning. Very early, 5:30 to 6am, he is praying.
“And I know he keeps on praying all the time. As we say in our Lord’s Prayer: ‘Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who trespass against us’; Baba, you have to forgive us. I beg you in the name of the Almighty God, so that you too can be forgiven. We are your children. We are making mistakes, we have made mistakes, we have apologised.
“We will not agree even if you want to throw the baby away with the bath water, the baby will not go without you.
“So, please baba, we apologise. Come and lead us. Even the President (Goodluck Jonathan) is waiting for you. Come and lead us. You are our leader, we appreciate you, we thank you for your leadership.
“We thank you for your courage. And we assure you that by the grace of God, we are all good boys and girls”.
Earlier, the Senate President, David Mark, who led the PDP delegation to Abeokuta last week, had also appealed to the former president to forgive the party and its members.
He said it would be wrong for Obasanjo to abandon the party he labored to build.
Mark, who is the chairman of the party’s Integration Committee for the party in South-West, said everyone in Ogun State ought to belong to the PDP, which he said had produced Obasanjo as a former president.
He said, “Daniel is right that older persons are always right. All of us in the PDP are begging Baba to forgive us even if he is annoyed with us”.
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