Obasanjo: I Didn't Attend PDP Convention

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday
denied media reports suggesting he attended an
event convened by his former party, the Peoples
Democratic Party. in Abuja.
In a text message he personally sent to
PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday morning, Mr.
Obasanjo said the reports were a ploy by their
masterminds to score “cheap political gains”.
He said he was at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua
Centre as guest of Senator Abdullahi Adamu, the
Senate Committee Chairman on Agriculture, when
some PDP leaders stormed the venue to great
him.
“Chief Obasanjo’s resignation from party politics
is final,” the statement said.
PREMIUM TIMES’ correspondent in Ogun State
also quoted the former president as saying,
“Those who know me, know that I have publicly
announced my quitting partisan politics and
those who will believe the purported story will
believe anybody who tells him that his or her
mother is not a woman.
“If I quit a party when it was alive and seemingly
united, how could I go back to a now divided,
factionalized party grasping for breath?”
Later on Saturday afternoon, Mr. Obasanjo’s
office issued a more detailed statement saying,
“The attention of the former President, His
Excellency, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has been
brought to the photonews story, which has gone
viral on the social media on Friday, August 5,
2016 of his purported being “spotted” at a
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) event at the
Shehu Musa Yar’adua Centre, Abuja’,the
statement reads.
’While ordinarily his first reaction to the news
was that those behind it targeted to get him
annoyed and embarrassed him, his conclusion
was that he has told the world that he has quit
partisan politics and that is final. Anybody hoping
to drag him back will fail like any man feeding
mice to a dead cat’,the statement added.
“To clear the minds of doubting Thomas’s and
those behind the orchestrated news in circulation
and particularly those who had been calling to
ascertain what actually happened at the Shehu
Musa Yar’adua centre. On the invitation of the
Commodities Association Stakeholders, His
Excellency, was invited to the “Zero Hunger
Nigeria” event at the Centre’, the statement said.
“He arrived at about 10.00am and immediately
moved to the meeting. The meeting commenced
but few minutes into the session, his attention
was drawn to the presence of some people
walking up to where he was seated.
“At closer glance, he recognized them to be
politicians and they exchanged pleasantries,
saying they came to greet him and they walked
out again from the meeting. The former
President cracked joke with them calling them
“invaders and gate crashers”.
The statement said the programme ended and
immediately Mr. Obasanjo and his entourage
headed back to Lagos.
He said he was barely hours in Lagos when he
started receiving calls from far and near wanting
to find out about his presence at a political party
programme in Abuja.
The statement added, “The photo news in
circulation, which claimed that he was spotted at
a political party event is therefore mischievous,
as a responsible journalist ought to have gone
further to ascertain his actual destination in
among the number of venues at the centre and
not taking photograph of his alighting from his
vehicle to read another meaning. Shocking also
to note that the picture was actually taken while
on his way out of the Centre after the
programme he had attended had finished”.
“This is the height of irresponsible journalism,
which the former President is calling for its
investigation and sanction on anybody involved in
order to serve as deterrent to others who may
want to be used either by omission or
commission to misinform the public on such
sensitive issue.”
There were reports on Friday that Mr. Obasanjo was sighted at the
Yar’Adua centre in Abuja, the same venue used by the leadership of the PDP to inaugurate its national convention committees.
It later turned out that the former president was at the venue for an entirely different