APC OFFICIALLY Blasts Presidency's Exchange With Obasanjo

Today, the All Progressives Congress (APC) have released an official statement regarding the hot exchange of words between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Goodluck Jonathan. The statement was signed by the party's Interim National Publicity Secretary Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and defined the public exchange as "unhealthy for the polity".

The party, while expressing disinterest in joining the scandal, said Jonathan's decision to go personal in hisreaction crossed the threshold of decency and brought both the presidency and the country into disrepute. 

The APC said in the statement the President should have simply issued a terse response to such a letter. The former President's observations have been noted, the APC added, and the Government would study them and then engage with the former President in private, while assuring that the ship of state is on course.

''Instead, the President's response read like the stuff of gossip magazines, and the exchange of words felt like what one would have expected in a beer parlour. At the end of the day, the Presidency allowed Obasanjo to take the higher moral ground by simply insisting on the allegations he made in his letter and saying he would not respond to the presidency's reply," the statement read, in part.

''The President, who accused Obasanjo of doing him a great injustice, has himself done a great injustice to the Presidency, which is an institution in which he is only a tenant. In the end, the President of Africa's most populous nation, the leader of the foremost black nation on earth and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria simply desecrated his own presidency and allowed those who can only be likened to gravy train passengers, rascals and knaves to seize the initiative from him.

''This is what happens when a President is surrounded by self-serving, boot-licking and dishonest people, at the expense of seasoned technocrats and veteran policymakers, who would have reminded the President that while critics can afford to fire all sorts of darts at him, as the custodian of the presidency at this point in time, he cannot afford to respond in kind because, in doing so, he would be debasing the presidency as an institution,'' APC said.

The party said the President was not unaware of this because he struggled in his letter to maintain some minimum level of decorum, and then quickly lost control and engaged in a bare-knuckle fight.

''The President himself knows that he ought not to have engaged in such exchange when he wrote early on in his letter: 'It is with the greatest possible reluctance that I now write this reply. I am most uneasy about embarking on this unprecedented and unconventional form of open communication between me and a former leader of our country because I know that there are more acceptable and dignified means of doing so'.

''However, he quickly jettisoned such reluctance and, in an unfortunate debasement of the tone and quality of statecraft, went full blast, calling the former President a liar, a conflict instigator and an unreliable ally, among other inferred derogatory labels that may have now shut the window to reconciliation between him and his political God-father, in addition to portraying Nigerian leaders as delinquents.

''To worsen matters, President Jonathan could not restrain himself from using even the revered and ecclesial platform provided by his appearance at a Church service on Christmas day to further lambaste his critics and spew out hot words. This, surely, is not what is expected of a President, a leader and anyone who wants to be a nation builder," the statement said.
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