By Lawrence Olaoye
- Grants antomatic waiver to Daniel, others
The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday made passionate appeals to former President Olusegun Obasanjo to forgive it for all mistakes it may have committed, urging him not to relent in the discharge of his leadership responsibilities to all party members.
National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Ahmed Adamu Mu’azu, made the plea while receiving the former Ogun state governor, Gbenga Daniel, who officially dumped his Labour Party (LP) and returned to the PDP at the party’s Wadata House National Secretariat in Abuja, yesterday.
Mu’azu said “Obasanjo is a pragmatic leader. All of us must beg Obasanjo to forgive us. We need to beg him. He is very prayerful and we need to ask him to forgive us; as we said in our prayers that forgive us so that we can be forgiven. We are your children. We have made mistakes and Baba, please forgive us. Come and lead us. We are your followers and we assure you that we are all good boys and girls. We have sinned. Baba, please forgive us.
“Obasanjo must forgive us; I know he is prayerful and we need him to be on our side as his children. We are your children; we made mistakes and we have apologised to you, even the President is waiting for you to come back and lead us.”
The need for the apology had earlier been made by Daniel, who explained that he had to apologise to Obasanjo for whatever wrongs he had done against Obasanjo in the past.
“I want to seize this opportunity to apologise to our father, Baba Obasanjo. The son can never be right. So, I am apologizing and pleading with him not to abandon his children”.
In his own remarks, the Senate President, David Mark, who is also the chairman of the PDP integration committee for the South-West, applauded the apology tendered to Obasanjo, pointing out that the PDP family needed the former President so much, to be able to stand strong.
Mark 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. We truly apologise to him. He should forgive us, because he cannot throw us away. He will have to forgive us and make sure we are not sheep without a shepherd”.
On the return of Daniel to PDP, Mu’azu accepted his request for automatic waivers for all those defecting to the PDP, adding however that all defecting members must apply for the waivers.
He however maintained that the party leadership must ensure that the principle of fairness and equality is applied always, in order to keep the enlarged PDP family intact.
