A national Ijaw leader and elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark, has called on the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party to sack former President Olusegun Obasanjo from the party.
Clark, who spoke with journalists at his residence in Abuja on Friday, accused the former Chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees of working with the opposition against President Goodluck Jonathan.
He said it was wrong for Obasanjo to be working for the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Maj.Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).
He alleged that Obasanjo was defending Buhari over the N25bn allegedly unaccounted for by the Petroleum Trust Fund, which was headed by Buhari during the military government of the late Gen. Sanni Abacha.
Clark said Obasanjo wants Jonathan to lose the presidential election slated for February 2015.
He said, “Obasanjo is defending him (Buhari) because he wants APC to win. How much corruption have you found in Jonathan that you are calling him corrupt?”
Clark observed that Muslims and Christians must live together in the country to hasten its development.
He said, “What is wrong with PDP? That man (Obasanjo) should not be allowed to be in the party. You beg him all the time, (but) he has made up his mind. He gathered APC women to abuse President Jonathan.
“If you’re saying that a man you dissolved his committee (PTF) and could not account for N25bn is not corrupt, (then) Buhari and Obasanjo are the same. They are in a marriage of convenience just to remove Jonathan (from office).
“Because Obasanjo is corrupt, he doesn’t know what the definition of corruption is. There is big trouble in this country when corrupt people call others corrupt.”
According to him, the irony in the country was that those who were corrupt were also calling others corrupt, probably because ‘’they don’t know what the definition of corruption is. That is the big trouble in this country….’’
Speaking further on the accord, Chief Clark said that it did not mean anything to him, but quickly pointed out that he would however be glad if it could engender the necessary peace before, during and after the elections.
Clark further noted the recent statement by the United States of America that the increased Boko Haram attacks in the North East were likely connected to the impending elections, pointing out that if Buhari said he could stop the insurgents, he may not be far from the truth because they obey him.
“If Buhari comes and it (insurgency) stops, it is because they listen him. It is easier for them to stop it. But Jonathan is working on it. He has toured the area but they have given it another meaning. They are saying it is too late. Nigeria belongs to all of us and together we can salvage it.”
Clark said he had no confidence in the Independent National Electoral Commission, alleging that its Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, was biased against the return of President Jonathan to office.
“I have lost confidence in INEC. How can a university professor be so biased and not want Jonathan to return for second term? It is so disgraceful that he has allowed ethnicity and religion to take control of him,” Clark said.
Source: Vanguard
