Obasanjo: I will never return to PDP, partisan politics

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says he has no plan to rejoin the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and partisan politics.

Obasanjo who was twice elected President on PDP platform in 1999 and 2003, had publicly torn his membership card in 2015 and quit partisan politics.

He restated his position on Saturday at a meeting with the National Chairman of the PDP, Iyorchia Ayu, and other paerty leaders who visited him in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

Ayu led former governors, Peter Obi (Anambra), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Olusegun Mimiko (Ondo), Liyel Imoke (Cross River) and Donald Duke (Cross River) to the meeting with Obasanjo.

The team first met Obasanjo under closed doors for two hours and later returned to a larger meeting with PDP members, where the ex-President restated his position.

He admitted that having governed Nigeria twice on the PDP platform, the party would continue to be part of his history.

He said, “I’m no longer in partisan politics and there is nothing that can bring me back. Anybody who wants my advice, I will always be there in the best interest of Nigeria.

“Whatever I do in my own life…because I became president on the platform of PDP, PDP will continue to be part of my life.

“Since the day I tore my PDP card, that was the day I ceased to be a member of PDP. That day I vowed not to be a member of any political party. I will continue to be a statesman.”

Obasanjo told Ayu that he has the problems of PDP and Nigeria on his shoulders, and prayed God give him the wisdom to carry it.

But Ayu told Obasanjo that “if you leave PDP, the blood of PDP will never leave you.”

He said the party would always require his fatherly advice towards governance in Nigeria.