Why I Asked PDP Ward Leader To Tear My Membership Card - Obasanjo

As criticisms and commendations continue
to trail his dramatic exit from the Peoples
Democratic Party, former President Olusegun
Obasanjo has explained how he arrived at
the decision to dump the party to which he
belonged for 16 years.
The former president had Monday announced
his resignation as a member of the party on
whose platform he ruled the country between
1999 and 2007.
Mr. Obasanjo renounced his membership of
the PDP when some leaders of the party led
by Surajudeen Oladunjoye, the chairman of
the ward around his former residence in Ita
Eko, visited him at his Presidential Hilltop
mansion in Abeokuta home.
The former president directed Mr. Oladunjoye
to tear his membership card at a press
conference organised during the visit.
About two hours later, the PDP leadership in
Ogun State announced the expulsion of the
former president from the party.
However, in a telephone interview with
PREMIUM TIMES Tuesday, Mr. Obasanjo
explained that the PDP members visited him
to express their genuine concern about his
refusal to be active in the party.
“They were concerned that I had only one
leg in the party, and worried that since I’m
their leader in the ward, they need to hear
from me,” the former President said.
According to him, when the party members
arrived his residence, they were singing a
song in Yoruba language –
“Nigeria yi ti gbobgo wa ni, Ko ma gbodo ba
je. Eje ka sowopo kajo gbega (Meaning –
Nigeria belongs to all of us, we must not
allow it to be destroyed and we must join
hands to make it great).
Mr. Obasanjo said when they settled down
he sought to know why they came and that it
was at that point that Mr. Oladunjoye told
him that since he (Obasanjo) as their leader
became angry with the PDP and remained
inactive in the party, they had not only lost
sense of direction but also worried about
their political future.
He also said the party members informed
him that the leadership in the state was
planning to expel him and that they
wondered what would happen to them if he
was expelled because they would become
rudderless.
“You are our leader and it is you we are
following. You have remained a card-
carrying member of the the party. But since
you became angry with the party we have
lost sense of direction and now we are
hearing that they want to expel you. If they
expel you, where do we go? What do we do?”
Mr. Obasanjo quoted the ward chairman as
saying.
The former president explained that it was at
that point that he gave them his PDP
membership card and told them that they
could do whatever they want with it.
He said, “In my response, I said when you
people came you were singing a song and I
agreed that Nigeria is our own. If the issue is
the party, I will not choose the party at the
detriment of Nigeria and I will fight for
Nigeria even at the detriment of the party. I
will rather surrender my membership of the
party so you people can move on politically,”
Mr. Obasanjo explained to PREMIUM TIMES.
“If you people’s worry is that I’m a card-
carrying member of the party and I’m not
showing you people direction and you are
worried that I’m neither here nor there, this
is the card; you can keep it, you can burn it
or you can tear it, do whatever you want to
do with it.”
The former president said he then handed
over his membership card to Mr. Oladunjoye,
who immediately decided on his own to
shred it.
Mr. Obasanjo said he had no regrets for his
action despite the criticisms that have
greeted it.