Obasanjo, Walid Altercation Over Atiku Unnecessary – Makarfi

Former governor of Kaduna State and chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Mohammed Ahmed Makarfi has said that the altercation between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman Senator Walid Jibrin over the party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar is unnecessary.

“What former president Olusegun Obasanjo and Senator Walid Jibril said were unnecessary and they shouldn’t have spoken in that form. All we need now is how to move our party forward for the task of forming government in 2023.”

While expressing optimism that the party will win the 2023 general election in the country, he urged the leaders and other stakeholders to close ranks and resolve all political problems and avoid all forms of distractions.

Makarfi who was a former caretaker chairman of the party and spoke with journalists in Kaduna yesterday, also debunked rumours that he was planning to defect  from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress (APC), stressing that what will make him leave the PDP is when he retires from active politics.

According to him, all hands should be on deck to resolve all the misunderstandings associated with the outcome of the presidential primaries and the choice of the running mate, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State by the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, while asking all the aspirants that contested the primaries to close rank and work for the party’s success in 2023.

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He called on Atiku, as the flagbearer of PDP to meet with the governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike with a view of resolving any problem that may have risen from the choice of his running mate.

“I won’t blame Wike For feeling bad. Because he has been one of the pillars of the party. Let the presidential candidate, Atiku sit down with Wike to discuss issues because he is the only one that knows why he picked his running mate. The matter is resolvable,” he said.

Makarfi who said that PDP will bring back true democracy to Nigeria in 2023, explained that “we have learnt our lessons and we will do more than we did when we are in power.”

He insisted that “as long as elections will hold, PDP will win, but we need to work hard for us to win in 2023.” He noted that, “PDP is set to bring back true democracy to Nigeria, and we have learnt our lessons.”

Meanwhile, while debunking the rumour of his alleged defection from PDP, the former national caretaker committee chairman of the party said, “Honestly, I am hearing this for the first time that I am defecting from PDP to APC and I don’t know what can be the basis.”

“Why should I make investment in terms of time and whatever you can mention in PDP and now decide to leave. Why should I go through the stress and just when we are getting it right, then I now leave the PDP for APC or any other party? What will be the attraction for me to leave the PDP? Well, people don’t approach me with such a rumour because they know the type of person that I am.  If they want to come, they come to me with substance. What could be the basis because in every rumour there must be a basis.?

“Is it because members of the opposition party attended my son’s wedding and that is the basis of that rumour? Even then people of my own political party were all there. Is this the kind of country that we want to build that because people from all shade of life attend wedding ceremony, burial that they will now start flying rumours of defection,” he said.