‘Real Reasons Why I Hate Atiku’ – OBJ Finally Reveals..See How Atiku Offended Him Many Years Ago
Stories by: Temilade Shakespeare
It is no longer new that Ex-president, Olusegun Obasanjo does not like his former vice president, Atiku Abubarkar one bit. Since they both left office, Atiku had repeatedly made overtures to Obasanjo for him to mend fences between him and his former boss But all of his efforts proved futile. For reasons best known to him, Obasanjo refused to forgive Atiku who was his VP for his 8 years. But how did things actually go awry between these two power brokers who were once allies and who ruled the country side by side for good 8 years?
For one, Obasanjo didn’t like how suddenly all power and influence revolved around Atiku. He also didn’t like how Atiku had immense control over a lot of political players at that time. OBJ didn’t like this, it was as if Atiku went against one of the major Laws of Power, which is, never to outshine your Master. And although Atiku had repeatedly OBJ, Obasanjo insists that his opposition to Atiku was based on principles.
OBJ had accused Atiku of corruption despite the fact that Atiku had never been tried for corruption by the EFCC or any anti-corruption agency. Yet, this has been OBJ’s repeated accusation. In his book, My Watch, OBJ made many damaging allegations against Atiku which Atiku had ignored since the book was published. From investigation, OBJ’s open hatred for Atiku stems from what OBJ sees as the humiliation he suffered in the hands of Atiku when OBJ had to beg Atiku and some of the serving governors in his tenure for support for his 2nd term bid. Many will recall that as the general elections drew nearer at the time, OBJ had difficulty rallying round the governors for his 2nd term aspiration. Governors like James Ibori (Delta), late Alamieseigha (Bayelsa) were opposed to him but loyal to Atiku.
As the story goes, OBJ convinced Atiku to support his 2nd term bid. Atiku convinced the governors and invited them to a formal meeting where OBJ had to practically beg them and almost prostrated for them. OBJ never forgave Atiku and all the frontline governors who tackled him. Then came OBJ’s 3rd term bid which Atiku as his vice reportedly opposed. Why did OBJ settle for Atiku when he did in 1999? At that time, Obasanjo revealed what he was looking for in a possible running mate. “I had received different pieces of advice,” wrote OBJ in volume 2 of his book, My Watch. He continued:”Some had suggested picking a man of my age who would not have ambition to succeed or upstage me. Some had suggested a person who by his ability and political position would not be an heir apparent. However, I decided to look for a person who could work with me for my full terms in office and understudy me so as to learn to take over and maintain consistency and continuity. I considered all candidates that were available and what I knew about them. I had earlier collected information about some to beef up knowledge of them. That night, I settled for Atiku Abubakar. Some of the reasons were: he worked hard for the project. He never indicated interest in the job to me, he had worked closely Shehu Yar’Adua and Shehu never passed an adverse comment on him. He had been elected as a governor which already put him on the pedestal to move up politically. But he had been short changed in the election that would’ve put MKO in power and he seemed to have a national outreach.” These were the reasons OBJ gave for choosing Atiku.
And they seemed to have worked quite well together for a while until things went awry. The same OBJ who had praised Atiku to high heavens now wrote, “what I did not know, which came out glaringly later, was his parental background which was somewhat shadowy, his propensity for corruption, his tendency to disloyalty, his inability to say and stick to the truth all the time, a propensity for poor judgement, his belief and reliance on marabouts, his lack of transparency, his trust in money to buy his way out on all issues and his readiness to sacrifice morality, integrity, propriety, truth and national interest for self and selfish interest.”
OBJ wrote that Atiku’s appointment was an error. “I fully accepted responsibility for the genuine mistake.” He then added: “And knowing all that I discovered about him, what would’ve been an unpardonable mistake and sin against God would’ve been to foist him on Nigeria.”
Part of why OBJ is unhappy with Atiku is, according to OBJ, Atiku’s moves to succeed him. According to OBJ, Atiku took it to the level of obscenity. “Right from the moment we were sworn in at Eagle Square, Atiku’s banner for 2007 was hoisted and displayed everywhere in the arena. I, of course, ignored it. He had showed his hand much earlier when his marabouts assured him I would not complete the first term before he took over. He believed it and acted accordingly. He touted the Mandele model, in expectation that he would take over in the 2nd term. The final prank he played was trying to get Na Abba to impeach me…..”
(Watch out for the concluding part of this article soon)
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