Obasanjo’s CNM indicates readiness to team up with PDP to unseat Buhari in 2019
No doubt, political alignment and realignments ahead of 2019 elections are gathering weight.
Weekend, the Director of Media and Public Communications, Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM), idealized by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, veteran media analyst, Akin Osuntokun, has given a clear indication that the group is willing to work with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and other parties to oust President Buhari from office.
Currently, the CNM is not a political party but a political platform aimed at working to ensure that Nigeria has good leadership.
Obasanjo, had in March, revealed that the organisation had over three million members ahead of the 2019 general elections and the target is to oust the present government due to observed shortcomings since election in 2015.
Osuntokun said, “You should take it for granted that we are all on the same page as far as that submission is concerned. Of course, (we will be willing to work with the PDP), why wouldn’t we be? When you are going to war, you have strategy and tactics.”
“Many Nigerians are very angry with the two parties saying that they are like six and half a dozen. There are many Nigerians who belong in that category so to capture that segment of the electorate, what you need is what some people have called the third force. If you are going to be a third force and by default, you are going to help the person you want to remove to remain in office, what is it you have achieved? That will be in vain.
“You know that Chief Olu Falae (National Chairman of the Social Democratic Party) went to see Obasanjo recently and the National Intervention Movement has been having consultations. There is no person seeking to become a presidential candidate under the platform of the PDP, with the exception of a former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, that has not gone to see Obasanjo. You have to be inclusive rather than exclusive.”
On how Obasanjo who had torn his PDP membership card in the run-up to the 2015 general elections would turn back and dine with same party, Osuntokun, recalled that “There were many people who were angry with the PDP at that time and who probably did more than tear their cards. If the APC is now the worse of the two devils, what will you do?
According to him, “Obasanjo said he would not belong to any party again so he is not under duress to join the PDP or any party. In any case, between that time and now, the PDP itself has undergone a purge so that would not be an obstacle at all.”
