I will never return to PDP – Obasanjo vows

By Ese Awhotu with agency report

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has vowed never to return to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Obasanjo made the vow yesterday after a closed meeting with a PDP delegation led by the chairman of the party’s caretaker committee, Ahmed Markafi,. The meeting was held at the at the Green Legacy Hotels and Suites located in Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta.
Makarfi was accompanied by some party stalwarts such as Sarafa Isola, a former minister and had a closed door meeting with ex president Obasanjo. The entourage was said to have arrived the venue of the meeting at about 10a.m yesterday.
While the purpose of the meeting was not made public, however, Obasanjo told journalists after the meeting that he would never return to PDP.
The former president said his decision to quit partisan politics would not, however, affect his passion for Nigeria’s growth.
It would be recalled that Obasanjo had resigned his membership of the PDP in October, 2014 after he wrote a letter to the then President, Goodluck Jonathan accusing him of, among other things, being a betrayer, and splitting the country along ethnic lines.
His withdrawal from the PDP was greeted with a public uproar as his party membership card was openly torn. The PDP had made frantic efforts to woo the ex president back to the party, begging him for forgiveness.
The then National Chairman of the PDP, Adamu Mu’azu, had while receiving former Ogun State governor, Gbenga Daniel, who returned to the party after leaving in the build up the 2011 elections, begged Obasanjo for forgiveness.
Daniel had himself quit the party following disagreements with Obasanjo, who was then the chairman Board of Trustees of the party.
Mu’azu, had begged the former president to return to the PDP to ‘lead’ the party to victory in 2015 general elections.
Mu’azu’ efforts did not, however, yield any result.
A PDP source hinted yesterday that Makarfi’s visit to Obasanjo was part of the strategies to strengthen the party towards the 2019 election.
The source said Obasanjo who ruled Nigeria under the platform of the PDP from 1999 to 2007 is considered one of the party’s big wigs and his return would help a long way in the party’s reconciliation efforts.