Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that Nigeria needs a strong party in power and a strong opposition party, if the country’s democracy must become stronger.
He said this after a closed door meeting with factional National chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Ali Modu-Sheriff on Saturday, at the former president’s residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
“For our democracy to thrive we need strong political party in government and strong political party in opposition,” Obasanjo said.
“Today, PDP cannot claim to be a strong party in opposition, I don’t know if APC can claim, at the national level, to be a strong party in government either.
“Now that is part of the misfortune of this country today,” he added.
Obasanjo described the PDP as a dying, if not dead party whose soul has been taken away.
He said: “When I was in PDP, I tried and encouraged him to come and join PDP, but he did not come, but the PDP they have given him now is a dying PDP, a dying baby, it needs to be in intensive care, otherwise, he will just be an undertaker.
“The PDP of today, if you can talk of a party again as PDP, its soul has been taken out of it and those who allowed that to happen are, unfortunately, either in the country or out of the country unperturbed about the fate of the party and indeed the fate of the country.”
The also former president reiterated that he is done with partisan politics.
“Let me make it absolutely clear once and again, I have renounced partisan politics, I don’t belong to any political party, not to talk of his own faction of PDP or any other faction of PDP,” Obasanjo said.
Modu-Sheriff, who praised the leadership qualities of the former President, said that his visit was part of the ongoing consultation aimed at finding lasting solutions to the leadership crisis in the PDP.
“Baba has spoken everything,” Sheriff said.
“Baba said the PDP given to me is a dying PDP, he built the PDP that everybody cherished.
“Whether today in politics or outside politics, he has a role in the Nigerian nation and to every one of us that is looking up to him,
“You know, Baba is very correct, so many things have gone wrong and it will be alright Insha Allah,” he added.
The PDP is currently divided into two factions, one led by Modu-Sheriff and the other by a Caretaker Committee headed by former Kaduna State Governor, Ahmed Makarfi.
Efforts to bring about a peaceful resolution to the leadership tussle have so far not yielded the desired result.
Modu-Sheriff insists he remains National Chairman of the party, maintaining that the only condition for peace to return to the party is the dissolution of the Makarfi-led committee.