Political commentator and former presidential aide, Obol Okoi Obono-Obla has slammed former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for suggesting that Nigerian opposition parties should learn lessons from President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s victory in the Senegalese general elections.
Atiku had, in a post on his X handle, said Faye’s emergence gives hope for the future of constitutional democracy in Nigeria and other African countries.
“For us in Nigeria and elsewhere, there’s a huge lesson to be learnt from the Senegal experience,” he wrote.
However, reacting in a statement on Saturday, Obono-Obla said the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2023 general elections has a poor sense of history.
According to him, Atiku lacks the presence of mind to reenact what happened in Senegal or the discipline to form an opposition political party.
Obono-Obla said, “Atiku left the PDP in 2007 to join the Action Congress formed by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which gave him the platform to contest the 2007 presidential race against President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
“Atiku was therefore initially part of the discussion between Former President Muhammadu Buhari, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and other opposition figures way back in 2009 to come together and form a broad national coalition to defeat the behemoth which the PDP had become then.
“A rolling stone never gathers any moss. He certainly lacks the presence of mind to reenact what happened in Senegal or the discipline to form an opposition political party reminiscent of what happened in Nigeria in 2013 with the formation of APC by the merging of opposition political parties.”
