Niyi Odebode and Femi Makinde
The Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party’s Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, has said he has no hard feelings towards anybody.
Makarfi stated this on Friday in his response to the Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose’s interview in the current edition of The Interview magazine.
Fayose had in the interview said Obasanjo stopped Makarfi and ex-Vice-President Atiku Abubakar from emerging as the PDP presidential nominee for the 2007 election.
The Ekiti State governor, who headed the PDP National Committee that searched for the party’s presidential candidate in the said election, claimed that Obasanjo said Makarfi was too smart to be controlled.
Fayose listed members of the then-committee to include a former Governor of Gombe State, Senator Danjuma Goje; Makarfi; ex-Kwara State Governor and Senate President, Bukola Saraki; and a former Delta State Governor, Chief James Ibori.
Fayose stated that the majority of the members of the committee were disposed to having Makarfi as the presidential candidate.
He said, “As a loyal Obasanjo boy then, I went to Obasanjo and told him that in the committee that was set up, everybody seemed to prefer Makarfi, except one person and I who were in the minority.”
When asked by Saturday PUNCH if Obasanjo truly stopped him from emerging as the PDP presidential candidate in the 2007 election and if he still nursed any bitterness against the ex-President, Makarfi said, “Whatever happened is history. No hard feelings towards anybody. God gives power to whom He wishes and takes at will. President Obasanjo was my leader and remains one of my leaders.”
Meanwhile, a member of the PDP Board of Trustees, Alhaji Shuaib Oyedokun, who described Fayose as a “very intelligent” person, however, advised the governor to use his intelligence and his position as the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum to build a strong and virile party that would restore hope to Nigerians once again.
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