Obasanjo doesn’t want Atiku as President, says Aide

Jeremiah Adeshina

The lingering disagreement between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is fundamentally political rather than personal, a Senior Political Assistant to Atiku, Demola Olarewaju, has said.

Olarewaju made the submission on Monday while speaking on Frontline, a current affairs programme on Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese-Ijebu, Ogun State, where he appeared alongside the Executive Director of the Centre for Responsive Governance, Ayodeji Ologun.

The comments came amid renewed exchanges between the two former leaders, whose relationship has remained one of the most enduring political rivalries in Nigeria since the beginning of the Fourth Republic in 1999.

The latest controversy was triggered by remarks attributed to Obasanjo in which he described his decision to select Atiku as his running mate in the 1999 presidential election as the “biggest mistake” of his political life.

The former president also alleged that Atiku was involved in an attempt to impeach him in 2003, claiming that the former vice president paid ₦5 million to the late Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Umar Na’Abba, to initiate the process.

Atiku’s camp has rejected the allegation, describing it as part of what it called a long-standing pattern of “lies, deceit and historical distortion” against the former vice president.

Atiku has also maintained that the fundamental source of the disagreement between him and Obasanjo was his refusal to support the former president’s alleged ambition to remain in office beyond the constitutionally permitted two terms.

The former vice president has repeatedly argued that he chose to defend the Nigerian Constitution and the country’s democratic interests rather than support an attempt to extend presidential tenure.

He also denied the allegation that he paid Na’Abba to commence impeachment proceedings against Obasanjo, questioning the reliance on the account of a former lawmaker who died in 2023 and could no longer respond to the allegation.

Atiku’s supporters have also referred to accounts by political figures who were active during the period, including former House Chief Whip Abubakar Bawa Bwari and former Abia State Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, in challenging aspects of Obasanjo’s account of the political crisis.

The renewed disagreement has assumed greater political significance as Atiku remains active in opposition politics and continues to position himself ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

Explaining the relationship between the two former leaders, Olarewaju said Atiku had continued to hold Obasanjo in high esteem despite their political disagreements.

He argued that the history of the relationship between the two men suggested that their differences were more political than personal.

“The relationship between the former President Obasanjo and Atiku, in my view as a Nigerian who witnessed the administration and the post-administration, is the fact that they do not seem to have a personal issue.

“It is clear from how Atiku holds Obasanjo in high esteem,” he said.
Olarewaju, however, alleged that the major problem between the former president and his former deputy was political, claiming that Obasanjo did not want Atiku to become President of Nigeria.

“The issue between them is political and, for reasons best known to Obasanjo, it is very clear and obvious that he does not want Atiku Abubakar to ever be President of the Federal Republic,” he said.

The Atiku aide further questioned what he described as Obasanjo’s perception of his own political legacy, suggesting that the former president believed no other Nigerian leader could match his achievements or govern the country better than he did.

“I think another thing that has become very clear is his instability about the opinion that Obasanjo holds that nobody can meet his achievement and nobody can govern Nigeria better than him,” Olarewaju said.

Olarewaju also offered his interpretation of Obasanjo’s political activities since leaving office in 2007.

He described the former president’s post-presidential political journey as a “journey of redemption”, arguing that Obasanjo had, over the years, made efforts to rebuild his relationship with the Yoruba people.

He linked this political evolution partly to Obasanjo’s history during the Nigerian Civil War and his subsequent interventions in national politics.

According to him, the former president’s political interventions could, in part, be understood against the background of his relationship with the South-West and his desire to maintain political relevance and acceptance in the region.

Olarewaju also compared Obasanjo’s attitude towards successive administrations, arguing that the former president had been considerably more critical of the governments of former Presidents Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari than he had been of the current administration of President Bola Tinubu.

He further challenged the perception that Obasanjo retained sufficient political influence in the South-West to single-handedly determine electoral outcomes.
Despite what he described as Obasanjo’s opposition to Atiku’s presidential ambition, Olarewaju insisted that supporters of the former vice president remained committed to their political project.

“We are determined that this opposition won’t affect Atiku’s campaign,” he said.

On concerns over Atiku’s age, given that the former vice president is now 79, Olarewaju argued that the national debate should go beyond the age of individual political candidates.

He said the more fundamental issue confronting Nigeria was the structure of governance and the excessive concentration of powers at the federal level.

According to him, Nigeria’s political system has become too centralised, making the Federal Government in Abuja excessively powerful at the expense of the federating units.

“One of the biggest problems that we have in Nigeria is that the Federal Republic of Nigeria is not actually federal.

“That’s why we have so much power concentrated on Abuja, and over time it has continued to be a problem,” he said.
Olarewaju also challenged the tendency to explain Nigeria’s developmental problems solely through the alleged corruption or wickedness of individual political leaders.

He argued that changing the person occupying the presidential office without addressing the fundamental structure of governance would not solve the country’s problems.

“I know a lot of Nigerians want to believe that anybody who has governed Nigeria since 1960 has always been corrupt or wicked.

“But if we look at it from another dimension, I have a model that we are wrong. It’s not the way Nigeria was supposed to run,” he said.

He added: “Anybody you put there, unless they go back to fixing the fundamentals, they will continue; we will continue to have the same problem.”

Also speaking during the programme, Ologun backed Olarewaju’s position, arguing that Obasanjo’s current posture towards Atiku represented a significant departure from some of his earlier comments about the former vice president.

Ologun recalled that Obasanjo spoke positively about Atiku during the build-up to the 2019 presidential election, particularly regarding the former vice president’s understanding of governance.

“In 2019, Obasanjo spoke well about Atiku, saying that he knows well about running the affairs of the country,” Ologun said.

He argued that the working relationship between Obasanjo and Atiku during their eight years in government demonstrated that the former vice president played an important role in the administration.

Ologun said it was therefore significant that Obasanjo later opposed Atiku’s presidential ambition, particularly during the 2023 election, and had continued to express reservations about his political aspirations.

“But no matter what happens, we want Nigerians to understand the truth that Atiku never did a thing to Obasanjo,” he said.

“Obasanjo is attacking Atiku for political reasons; he doesn’t want him to become the president,” Ologun added.

Ologun also dismissed concerns about Atiku’s age, describing the former vice president as one of Nigeria’s most experienced political figures.

He argued that Atiku’s long involvement in national politics had given him considerable knowledge of the country’s political and economic challenges.

“It’s indisputable that former President Atiku Abubakar remains one of the brightest and one of the most blessed of all the politicians that this country has produced in recent times,” he said.

According to Ologun, Atiku also possesses what he described as a pan-Nigerian political outlook, making him capable of understanding the interests and concerns of different sections of the country.

He further praised the former vice president for investing in younger Nigerians, describing him as one of the political figures who had contributed significantly to youth development and empowerment.

The renewed exchange has once again brought the complicated relationship between Obasanjo and Atiku to the centre of national political discourse.

The relationship between the two men was once regarded as one of the strongest political partnerships of the early Fourth Republic. Their joint ticket in 1999 helped usher in Nigeria’s return to democratic rule after years of military dictatorship.

However, their relationship deteriorated significantly during their time in office, particularly over political succession, the third-term controversy and other disagreements surrounding the running of the government.

Since leaving office, the two men have occasionally appeared to move towards reconciliation, only for old disagreements to resurface during subsequent political seasons.

The latest exchange suggests that the political wounds between them remain far from completely healed.

For Atiku, the disagreement has assumed additional significance because of his continuing involvement in opposition politics and his reported determination to remain relevant in the race for national political power ahead of 2027.

For Obasanjo, his interventions in Nigerian politics have continued to attract significant public attention, given his status as a former military head of state, former civilian president and influential elder statesman.

Whether the latest confrontation will further deepen the political divide between the two former leaders or eventually lead to another attempt at reconciliation remains uncertain.

What appears clear, however, is that the Obasanjo-Atiku relationship remains one of the defining political rivalries of Nigeria’s democratic era.

And as the 2027 political contest gathers momentum, their disagreement is unlikely to disappear from the national conversation anytime soon.