Posted by By Jacob Edi, Abuja on
Foremost contender in next year's presidential election, Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, has described President Olusegun Obasanjo as a bad product.
Foremost contender in next year's presidential election, Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, has described President Olusegun Obasanjo as a bad product.
Speaking in Abuja, at the weekend, at a meeting of all the coordinators of the Orji Uzor Kalu campaign organization, the governor said that when three years ago he alerted the nation that the President was planning to exceed his constitutionally allowed two-term, nobody believed him.
"Three and half years ago, when I said the president wanted a third term, nobody believed me.
From the South, the North, the East, the West, nobody believed me, but today the indicators are there. I do not need to dwell on this issue. The truth is the only thing that can stand the test of time," Kalu told the coordinators.
The Abia governor also told the coordinators that President Obasanjo should not be looked at as pushing a Yoruba agenda, pointing out, "he is doing what he is doing not because he is Yoruba but because he is Obasanjo."
The governor stressed that it was criminal to seek tenure elongation, while berating some lawmakers who had tried to liken the situation in Nigeria to what obtained in Britain where the Prime Minister is running a third term.
Kalu said Tony Blair, as the leader of the Labour Party, could continue to be prime minister as long as his party remains popular, "but it is a different thing in a presidential system of government."
He maintained that President Obasanjo should be reminded that "the power of the people is bigger than anybody. It happened in Thailand. It happened in Nepal. We do not have a gun, but we have the power of strike and to say ‘no' to bad government and anything bad in a democratic system."