Jonathan storms out of reconciliation meeting; accuses Obasanjo of being behind PDP crisis The president reportedly asked former President Olusegun Obasanjo to resolve the crisis he created. President Goodluck Jonathan lashed out at former President Olusegun Obasanjo, accusing him of being the mastermind of the intractable crisis in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, reliable presidency sources have said. “Obasanjo created the problem, he should go and solve it,” Mr. Jonathan was quoted as saying at a meeting he held with leading members of the Abubakar Baraje’s faction of the party on Sunday night. The reconciliation meeting was called a day after former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, seven state governors, and some other party top guns walked out of the party’s national convention in Abuja and then announced the formation of a parallel faction. Mr. Obasanjo was not at the meeting but both men had worshipped together at the Aso Rock chapel earlier that day. Sources at the meeting said after the “dissident” governors, led by Kano State Governor, Musa Kwankwaso, tabled their grievances; a livid President Jonathan fumed about how opposition elements within his party were trying to blackmail him to submission. He then suddenly rose from his seat and stormed out of the meeting saying, while going away, that he was no longer in the mood for any reconciliation talk and that Mr. Obasanjo, who created the mess in the party in the first place, should be allowed to clear it. “We were shocked when the president walked out of the meeting in anger saying he had grown increasingly frustrated by Mr. Obasanjo’s destabilizing antics,” one of our sources said. “He pointedly accused the former president of being behind the crisis.” Another source said as the president hurried away, the chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees, Tony Anenih, ran after him pleading with him to return. He eventually returned. The president’s adviser on political matters, Ahmed Gulak, as well as his senior special assistant on public affairs, Doyin Okupe, did not answer or return calls to their mobile telephones when PREMIUM TIMES sought to get their comments for this story. Mr. Obasanjo could also not be reached. Reports of the president’s comment and behaviour at the closed-door meeting came shortly before a pro- Jonathan group, Media Network for Transformation, circulated a statement in Abuja accusing Mr. Obasanjo of destabilizing the PDP and asking him to call his associates to order. >Premiumtimes
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 07:14:22 +0000
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