You are not God, Ahmadu Ali tells Obasanjo

Ahmadu Ali, a former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says former President Olusegun Obasanjo “is not God”.

Ali said this while reacting to a statement credited to Obasanjo where he said that the PDP was dead.

In an interview with PUNCH, Ali said Obasanjo’s position was “only his own feeling.”

“He only said that during his 80th birthday. And when he said it, I grudgingly said that he is not God. But that is his own feeling,” he said.

“You know the former president has a way of saying his mind.”

He said the crisis currently rocking the PDP was because the party lost the 2015 presidential election.

“The problem of the PDP is because we lost the election and the leadership brought this problem. When I protested as a person to Uche Secondus, who was the acting national chairman then, he said Sheriff was the best candidate,” Ali said.

“The 12 governors said he was the best. We in the BoT still said no; up till the last day when we held the NEC meeting and when the NEC voted.”

He further said that he did not believe in the Seriake Dickson-led reconciliation committee which recommended a convention as part of efforts to restore peace to the party.

“Dickson’s committee was set up on the eve of the convention that failed. We were going to the convention and many of us said we should postpone the convention and wait because about seven states had yet to hold their congresses and produce delegates. But he said there was no problem; that it would be sorted out,” he said.

“In any case, if at least two thirds of the states had produced delegates to the convention, then its outcome would have been valid. So, without seven states, the convention was valid. But we said that we needed to find out and sort out the problems in those states.

“Some states in the south-west and North were part of it – that was the purpose for the Dickson committee. What is its relevance now? We have gone beyond that.”