Blame Obasanjo, PDP for violence in the North — CPC

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo

The Congress for Progressive Change has said a former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, should be blamed for the post-electoral violence that has bedevilled northern Nigeria since after the presidential election.
The CPC, which was reacting to comments that the party and its presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Mohammadu Buhari (retd), were instigating the crisis, said on Friday that the violence was an aftermath of Obasanjo’s failed third term bid and the Peoples Democratic Party refusal to abide by the “zoning policy.”
The party said, “In genuinely unraveling what simulated the anger in the North, zoning convention is the core element. However, we must remember the web-design weaved by ex-president Obasanjo when Nigerian patriots vehemently rejected his third term gambit.”
It said that Obasanjo never forgave Nigerians, especially those from the North, for denying him the opportunity to elongate his tenure via constitutional amendment.
Speaking through its South-East Campaign Director and Enugu State governorship candidate, Chief Osita Okechukwu, the CPC said Obasanjo’s action encouraged a lot of Nigerians, mostly governors from the North, in the spirit of the zoning convention of the PDP to succeed him.
Okechukwu said, “In the contest for Obasanjo’s anointment were ex-governors Peter Odili, Adamu Mu’azu, Abdullahi Adamu, Ahmed Maikarfi, Donald Duke, Prof. Jerry Gana, et al. The Chief deceptively kept their hopes alive until the last minute, when he anointed the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.”
He added, “In anointing Yar’Adua, Obasanjo was fully aware that he was terminally ill and was not in the best frame to govern the country and was not healthy to fill up the Northern slot in line with the zoning convention of his party.
By Ozioma Ubabukoh              Courtesy Of: Punch