Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday denied media reports
suggesting he attended an event convened by his former party, the
Peoples Democratic Party in Abuja.
In a text message he personally sent to Premium Times on Saturday
morning, Mr. Obasanjo said the reports were a ploy by their masterminds
to score “cheap political gains”.
He also said the reports were manufactured to embarrass or annoy him.
He said he was at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre as guest of
Senator Abdullahi Adamu, the Senate Committee Chairman on Agriculture,
when some PDP leaders stormed the venue to great him.
“Chief Obasanjo’s resignation from party politics is final,” the statement said.
Premium Times’ correspondent in Ogun State also quoted the former president as saying, “Those
who know me, know that I have publicly announced my quitting partisan
politics and those who will believe the purported story will believe
anybody who tells him that his or her mother is not a woman.
“If I quit a party when it was alive and seemingly united, how
could I go back to a now divided, factionalized party grasping for
breath?”
Later on Saturday afternoon, Mr. Obasanjo’s office issued a more detailed statement saying, “The
attention of the former President, His Excellency, Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo has been brought to the photonews story, which has
gone viral on the social media on Friday, August 5, 2016 of his
purported being “spotted” at a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) event at
the Shehu Musa Yar’adua Centre, Abuja’,the statement reads.
’While ordinarily his first reaction to the news was that
those behind it targeted to get him annoyed and embarrassed him, his
conclusion was that he has told the world that he has quit partisan
politics and that is final. Anybody hoping to drag him back will fail
like any man feeding mice to a dead cat’,the statement added.
“To clear the minds of doubting Thomas’s and those behind the
orchestrated news in circulation and particularly those who had been
calling to ascertain what actually happened at the Shehu Musa Yar’adua
centre. On the invitation of the Commodities Association Stakeholders,
His Excellency, was invited to the “Zero Hunger Nigeria” event at the
Centre’, the statement said.
“He arrived at about 10.00am and immediately moved to the
meeting. The meeting commenced but few minutes into the session, his
attention was drawn to the presence of some people walking up to where
he was seated.
“At closer glance, he recognized them to be politicians and
they exchanged pleasantries, saying they came to greet him and they
walked out again from the meeting. The former President cracked joke
with them calling them “invaders and gate crashers”.
The statement said the programme ended and immediately Mr. Obasanjo and his entourage headed back to Lagos.
He said he was barely hours in Lagos when he started receiving
calls from far and near wanting to find out about his presence at a
political party programme in Abuja.
The statement added, “The photo news in circulation, which
claimed that he was spotted at a political party event is therefore
mischievous, as a responsible journalist ought to have gone further to
ascertain his actual destination in among the number of venues at the
centre and not taking photograph of his alighting from his vehicle to
read another meaning. Shocking also to note that the picture was
actually taken while on his way out of the Centre after the programme he
had attended had finished”.
“This is the height of irresponsible journalism, which the
former President is calling for its investigation and sanction on
anybody involved in order to serve as deterrent to others who may want
to be used either by omission or commission to misinform the public on
such sensitive issue.”
There were reports on Friday that Mr. Obasanjo was sighted at the Yar’Adua centre in Abuja, the same venue used by the leadership of the PDP to inaugurate its national convention committees.
It later turned out that the former president was at the venue for an entirely different engagement.
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