Former Military Head of State, retired General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, and former President Olusegun Obasanjo have told President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to halt the slide in the country as they said Nigeria has never been more divided than now.
Babangida and Obasanjo, who were at the meeting Jonathan held with the governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, including those who have been termed rebel governors, in the wake of the fictionalization of the party, told Jonathan that it was time for him to set the country on the road to harmony.
Presidency sources at the meeting, attended by 16 governors elected on the platform of the PDP, said the two former leaders said this was the worst period for Nigeria in terms of division along ethnic and religious divides.
Babangida, who was said to have expressed deep sadness at the development, told Jonathan at the meeting, held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, that the unity for which himself and some other Nigerians fought the Nigerian Civil War was being lost gradually.
Babangida, sources at the meeting said, showed Jonathan the bullet wounds on his leg, which he sustained during the civl war that lasted between 1967 and 1970, advising the President to do whatever was required to keep Nigeria one.
Babangida, himself a member of the PDP, was said to have been livid that Jonathan watched until the country split along religious and ethnic divides, with the formation of a factional PDP being the height of it.
A Presidency source told The Eagle Online: “Babangida spoke in a no-holds-barred manner at the meeting.
“He was quite clear that his reading of the situation in the country and the PDP was that Jonathan has not been able to manage the politics of the PDP properly, knowing that any rumpus in the PDP would affect the whole country.
“He even went to the extent of showing the President the bullet wounds he sustained during the civil war.”
Obasanjo was also said to have spoken in the same vein, citing the Boko Haram insurgence as another example of the division in the country.
The Presidency source added: “Obasanjo too told the President that he has to immediately arrest the drift.
“And this was without mincing words.”
Babangida and Obasanjo were said to have become more livid when a former Federal Minister of Information and Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark, who was also at the meeting, spurned the idea of inviting former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who is the arrowhead of the factional PDP led by Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, to the next reconciliation meeting.
Clark was said to have opposed the idea of inviting the former vice president, proposed by the dissenting governors at the meeting, because Abubakar was not holding any office, be it party or appointed.
Both Babangida and Obasanjo were said to have also asked Clark if he was holding any position to have warranted his being at the meeting.
They told him that in terms of qualification, Abubakar was even better positioned to have been invited to the meeting being a founding member of the PDP and having served as vice president, with Clark not having held any position since the return to democratic rule in 1999.
They said it was such people as Clark that have succeeded in pushing the country towards religious and ethnic divides by ill-advising Jonathan and that the President had fallen for such cheap talks by his likes.
Their contention at the meeting was that it was such talks that had further polarized the country, creating the impression that only a certain section, especially the Ijaw ethnic stock, to which Jonathan belongs, was in charge of leadership and that no contrary opinion or position must be listened to.
The duo were said to have told Jonathan that resolving the crisis in the PDP would almost be impossible if the President continued listening to the advice of people such as Clark, reminding him that without the support of the entire country, it would have been impossible for him to emerge the president.
A Presidency source further told The Eagle Online: “The two leaders were of the opinion that if someone like the Rivers State Governor, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, could be on the war path with the President, it shows that something was basically wrong.
“This was because Amaechi was one of those who ensured the emergence of Jonathan as the running mate of late President Umaru Yar’Adua and by extension his becoming the president.
“If at the time former Governor Peter Odili was dropped by Obasanjo as Yar’Adua’s running mate Amaechi had agreed to become the vice president and not insisted that he should be allowed to become the governor of Rivers State and that Jonathan should be picked, Amaechi would have today been occupying that seat.
“So, their contention is: why fight a man like that.
“The President was then advised by Babangida and Obasanjo to spurn the advice of Clark not to invite Abubakar to the next reconciliation meeting that was scheduled for last Tuesday.”
The meeting, however, did not hold because Abubakar was not invited and the dissenting governors decided to boycott it.
Jonathan though still met the with governors elected on the platform of the PDP who are perceived to still be loyal to him.
As at press time, no solution has been found to the crisis in the PDP, with both sides still throwing brickbats.
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