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•Endorsement by Nigerians is all we desire- PDP campaign

•Don’t be deceived by Obasanjo, says Senator Owie

•Obasanjo trying to play God—The Patriots Roundtable

•Nigerians must avoid another shipwreck — Conscience Bureau

By Dapo Akinrefon, Henry Umoru & John Alechenu, ABUJA

MORE reactions have greeted the recent endorsement of Labour Party, LP, Presidential Candidate, Mr Peter Obi by former president Olusegun Obasanjo for the 2023 presidency.

While the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Presidential Campaign Council said it was not bothered by the endorsement, a former Chief Whip of the Senate,  Senator Rowland Owie, who berated Obasanjo for endorsing Obi, said no Nigerian should allow him or herself to be deceived by the former President’s action.

Also, the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ondo State and a group, The Patriots Roundtable, berated the former president saying he is trying to play God.

Endorsement by Nigerians is all we desire- the PDP campaign

Reacting to the endorsement, the spokesman of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, Mr Charles Aniagwu, yesterday, said the party is encouraged by the stream of endorsements it has received and continues to receive from Nigerians across the board.

Aniagu, who spoke on an AIT Programme, Kakaki, monitored in Abuja, said the party was not in the least bothered by former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s endorsement of Labour Party Presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi.

His words: “We have organic convergence of Nigerians in all our rallies and at the end of the day their vote is what matters more than any other thing.

“We would have loved to have Obasanjo’s endorsement just like he did in 2019 when he endorsed and supported Atiku Abubakar because he believed that he had what it takes to take Nigeria out of the current situation.

“We don’t have any problem with Obasanjo endorsing anybody because that is his democratic right and you can’t take it away from him but Nigerians at the end of the day will make the ultimate choice of who governs them for the purpose of recovering Nigeria from where we are at the moment,”

Don’t be deceived, Owie tells Nigerians

Also, former Chief Whip of the Senate,  Senator Rowland Owie, in a statement, accused Obasanjo of showing dislike for those who always say the truth and stand by it.

Owie said: “Beloved, let nobody  be deceived by Obasanjo. He is a major destroyer of   Nigeria. He hates those who say the truth. He was in prison, when a great Nigerian, General Ibrahim Babangida invited his close friends including my humble self to  Minna sometimes 1998. 

“After a meeting that lasted 8 hours, a prisoner, an ungrateful one for that matter was adopted and at the PDP Presidential Primaries in Jos an ex-convict became candidate.

“He should go before God and start atoning for the sins he committed against those who brought him out of prison, his Tribe, the PDP, Nigeria and Nigerians.”

Obasanjo trying to play God—The Patriots Roundtable

Similarly, a group, The Patriots Roundtable, yesterday, berated the former for endorsing Obi saying the former president is trying to play God.

The group, in a statement by its  Director-General, Prince Uthman Shodipe -Dosunmu said: “Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the eventual pacifier of the murderous fields of shattered Biafra after Benjamin Adekunle had triggered the twilight, flung to martial leadership by the hands of fortune, unjustly imprisoned, resurrected again in a democratic presidency in two tenures- he has become an iconic avatar of the national emblem and greater possibilities.   He should stay there.

“But Balogun of Owu is often restless, hurried by impatience, spurred by a flawed sense of omniscience, woven in the hubris of the gods, ploughing into every fray without temperance. 

“He has done it again. His flawed, biased partisan intervention in the choice of the Nigerian presidency betrays a puzzling insistent on self-perpetual relevance.   Icons must always hover above the fray in eclipsed neutrality, never stampeding into the conflict  in loud, rambunctious noisome intrusion of an un-instructed neophyte.”

Nigerians must avoid another shipwreck—Conscience Bureau

Also, a South-West Political Group, the Conscience Bureau, CB, yesterday, tackled Obasanjo saying that Nigerians must be wary of such an endorsement.

It also declared that only the presidential candidate of the PDP, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, can be trusted with the onerous task of salvaging Nigeria during this period.

In a statement by Conscience Bureau’s General Secretary, Mr Said Ologuneru, said: “We are under no illusion therefore that Obi’s endorsement by Obasanjo this time is tottering on the same lane as when the APC designated Obasanjo as its navigator in 2013, a development which Prof. Soyinka described as heading for a shipwreck.

“As widely reported by the national newspapers in Nigeria on December 23, 2013, the Nobel Laureate, Prof. Soyinka, had noted that Nigeria might be heading for a ‘shipwreck’ after the APC said it was choosing Chief Obasanjo as its “Navigator” in its   touted effort to wrest power from then President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015

“As nature had it, the ‘Navigator’ led the APC into Aso Rock Villa, and President Muhammadu Buhari replaced Goodluck Jonathan. Today, we all are witnesses to the wreckage the nation’s ship had experienced.”

“It is curious that the same Tinubu, who led Buhari and other leaders of the newly-formed the APC to Abeokuta in 2013, to consult former President Obasanjo, describing him as the ‘Navigator’ and the ‘political compass’ of APC’s false attempt to rescue Nigeria, could turn around to describe Obasanjo’s take on the Nigerian polity as ‘worthless and meaningless.’

“Nigerians have to be wary of Tinubu, APC and Obasanjo, who colluded in 2015 to bring the clueless APC administration and the resultant hardship upon the country.

“This time round, Obasanjo has endorsed Obi, but he appears to be working secretly to foist the APC on Nigerians, in an avowed commitment to lead Nigeria to destruction.

“Atiku represents Nigeria’s best opportunity to get out of the economic doldrums. He remains the best and most prepared candidate on offer.

“The former Vice-President represents the best opportunity for Nigeria to exit the economic woes foisted on it through Obasanjo’s miscalculated endorsement in 2013, which brought in General Buhari, and the only way APC would not continue in office beyond May 2023.”