The Jigawa State governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, has met with President Goodluck Jonathan on the exit from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. Speaking with State House correspondents after the meeting, Lamido said Chief Obasanjo remained the father of the PDP, who happened to be angry with his children.In Lamido’s words, “Baba is more than a party man. He is an icon, a national symbol, a leader and an inventor, a creator of all the institutions today in Nigeria. From the presidency to the governors who are his own sons, we are all his creations. And so, when a father is angry with his own children, we will only say we are sorry to him. But then, we cannot be renounced for whatever it is.
“If you do any political DNA of our blood, you will find his blood in us. No matter what we are, we may not be able to live up to his expectations. We might have made some mistakes, but abandoning us is not the solution, because the country is first before anything else. So, he is our baba, even up to the president. Baba is our baba, no matter what. He is angry with us, but then, what do we do? He gave us the life at a time when Nigerians were fighting us, he stood for us. Since 2011, in 2007, he stood firm for us. He is our father. And so, if we made some mistakes, we are only human because we are heading human institutions. Wherever we are, we are right in his heart. He feels for us, he cares for us.”
Speaking on the possibility of a reconciliation even after Obasanjo had publicly torn his PDP membership card, the governor further said “When there is some kind of misunderstanding between a father and a child, you don’t go to NTA or any other media to say you are going to do this. I mean the bond between us is so strong. I know he is equally pained. I know what he is going through because he is our father, but I will not tell you the strategy, because when he was producing us, you were not there. When he was making us, were you there?”