The national chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Adamu Mu’azu, on Wednesday led the Senate president, David Mark and former governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, to apologise to the former president for all sins committed against him. The party appealed to the former President Obasanjo to return and lead the party.
Obasanjo, who has refuse to identify with the party due to the disagreements he has with President Jonathan and the leadership of the PDP under Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, resigned from active participation in the party’s activities. The former chairman of the board of Trustees refused to identify with the party.
The former President had criticised President Jonathan on many occasions and even written an open letter to him, in which he accused him of many atrocities.
He had also criticised the way the President had handled the insecurity crisis in the North-East, an action that had made the President to also reply the former president.
Mu’azu made the plea while receiving former governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, who was accompanied by Ondo State governor, Olusegun Mimiko, back to PDP at the party’s national headquarters yesterday.
Daniel, who led other members of Labour Party back to PDP, started the apology session as he begged for Obasanjo’s forgiveness for any wrong done to him by the party.
Mu’azu then joined, saying, “I want to join OGD, I want to join my dear senior brother and indeed all the teeming members here to very sincerely apologise to our leader, to our baba, my baba, General, President Olusegun Obasanjo to forgive us.
“We cannot continue. I know he has been very prayerful. In the Villa, I know he used to pray every morning. Very early, 5:30 to 6am, he is praying.
“And I know he keeps on praying all the time. As we say in our Lord’s Prayer: ‘Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who trespass against us’.
“Baba, you have to forgive us. I beg you in the name of the almighty God, so that you too are forgiven. We are your children. We are making mistakes, we have made mistakes, we have apologised, we will not agree even if you want to throw the baby with the bath water, the baby will not go with you. So, please Baba, we apologise.
“Come and lead us. Even the president is waiting for you. Come and lead us. You are our leader, we appreciate you, we thank you for your leadership. We thank you for your courage. And we assure you that by the grace of God, we are all good boys and girls.”
Daniel, on his part said, “Let me seize this opportunity to publicly apologise to the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo. Whenever there is a quarrel between a son and a father, the son can never be right even if it is a battle of principle.
“We therefore plead that President Obasanjo should be called upon that he cannot abandon his house. All we the children are standing by to apologise and apologise and apologise again,” he said.
While he noted, “we have learnt our lesson,” he however added he has returned to “my party and all the challenges we have in PDP have been settled.”
According to him, “What we are talking about is automatic waiver and this issue of automatic waiver has been guaranteed. I, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, former governor of Ogun State for eight years, is now back to the PDP.”
The Senate president, Senator David Mark, who is also chairman of the PDP South-West Integration Committee said, “if Baba is annoyed, we offer our apology. This is in line with the Yoruba tradition because it is proper for the young ones to offer apologies to the elderly.”
He added “Ogun State gave us a former president and therefore, there should not be any reason why the whole of Ogun State should not be entirely PDP.”
Mark however noted that there is a new wind sweeping all the six states of the zone back to the PDP as all the former members who are returning back to the party were on self exile.
He guaranteed all returning members of a level playing ground, adding, “when the level playing ground doesn’t favour you, please don’t go away. Don’t go away, remain within and fight to get the level playing.
“There must be proper integration. Not one group swallowing another. The integration must be genuine. If we are united, we win, but divided we lose.”
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