Former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s sudden resignation yesterday as chairman of the PDP board of trustees was a measure carefully taken to avoid any embarrassment in his bid to continue playing a major role in affairs of the party, senior party members told Daily Trust in Abuja last night.
Obasanjo yesterday issued a statement which he personally signed, announcing his resignation as chairman of the influential organ of People’s Democratic Party, just over a week after the election of new party leaders.
His five-year tenure as BOT chairman will expire in July and there would be an election to fill the post for which he is no longer the solely qualified person.
Obasanjo would have had little or no opposition to continue in that capacity but for the amendment to the party’s constitution in 2009, which opened up the qualification for being chairman of the board of trustees.
Sources within the party said apart from the fact that the BOT chair is now open for other party leaders to contest for, Obasanjo’s influence in the board has also gradually waned such that he is most likely to lose the election in July if he decided to stand for re-election.
In the statement announcing his resignation, Obasanjo yesterday said he was leaving in order to focus on his presidential library project, seeking investments for Nigeria, mentoring of politicians and on international assignments.
But senior party leaders, some of them close to Obasanjo, told Daily Trust that there was more to the resignation than the former president’s statement had said.
A member of the BOT, who does not want to be named, said with the current state of affairs and Obasanjo’s political standing among members of the board, the former president will certainly be defeated by anyone who challenges him.
“I am one hundred percent sure that anybody who challenges him will defeat him, given his dwindling political standing at the moment,” the source said.
He described the resignation as “good news,” saying that the former president had become a “necessary evil” not only to the board but also to the party. He said he was not surprised that Obasanjo failed to even confide in the board about his intension to quit three months ahead of the expiration of his tenure.
Another source close to the BOT said Obasanjo has not been “exactly a happy man” in the board as his influence has waned immensely.
The source said because the former president has been losing ground, even attendance at the BOT meetings has declined sharply.
He also said people have been summoning courage to challenge Obasanjo during BOT meetings, citing an example with sometime in January 2010 when board members opposed his bid to ask then sick president Umaru Yar’adua to resign.
The source said it was after the board rejected Obasanjo’s bid that he came out publicly at a Daily Trust event in Abuja to ask Yar’adua to “take the path of honour.”
Before he left office in 2007, Obasanjo oversaw the amendment to the PDP constitution making the position of the BOT chairman the exclusive preserve of former presidents produced by the party. He is so far the only surviving former president produced by the party.
But this provision was removed in 2009, opening up the post to all members of the board, following internal revolt by party leaders.
Focusing on library project, others
In his statement, quoted by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), yesterday, Obasanjo said: “I have formally sent in my letter of resignation as the Chairman of BOT of PDP to the National Chairman of the party as prescribed in the party’s constitution.”
“I have formally requested the President to allow my bowing out and to issue a short statement to that effect,” he said.
“By relieving myself of the responsibility for chairmanship of BOT of PDP, I will have a bit more time to devote to the international demand on me.”
He said his resignation would give him time “to give some attention to mentoring across the board nationally and internationally in those areas that I have acquired some experience, expertise and in which I have something to share.”
Obasanjo said his exit would also afford him more time to develop “my Presidential Library and to mobilising and encouraging investment in Nigeria and Africa.”
He noted that before the last general elections, he believed that if PDP produced the President, it would be time for him to reduce his partisan political activities.
Obasanjo recalled that he was actively involved in bringing forth “my successor president from PDP in 2007. In 2011, I was in the vanguard of working for PDP to produce a president for Nigeria. God answered our prayer.”
‘It’s time he left’
When contacted for comments last night, secretary of the PDP’s BOT, Senator Walid Jibrin, said he was neither aware of the resignation nor of Obasanjo’s reasons for it.
“We finished the national convention fine; everything went on well; we even went to the venue in same car. But he has not told me about this, so I have no idea,” Jibrin said.
In his reaction, former Senate President Ken Nnamani, who spearheaded the bid to strip Obasanjo of being the only one qualified for the board chair, told Daily Trust yesterday the former president could not have taken a better step.
“He has done well. A new chapter will now be turned in the party where we will experience true democracy. We must give away the concepts of consensus and affirmation, this has not helped the party. We need a better approach so Obasanjo has behaved like a statesman.
“Though I won’t say the ovation is loudest, but it is still not too late. It is good that he is leaving the stage for those with fresher ideas to move the party and the country forward. I think he can play more role by the sides,” Nnamani said.
PDP chieftain in Ogun State, Elder Joju Fadairo, said Obasanjo’s resignation was “normal and a sign of a great democrat.”
“Baba left when the ovation was loudest. We are very proud of him and as a democrat; he has demonstrated that he is actually a great democrat. He had served well in that position,” he said
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