An unending duel
BY TAIWO FAROTIMI
Former president Olusegun Obasanjo and his deputy in office, Atiku Abubakar are at war again. Just as the public assumed that the Cold War between the two leaders had ended now that they appear to have a common political enemy in President Muhammadu Buhari, Obasanjo fired a salvo. He told Premium Times, a respected online newspaper that he would never support Abubakar for public office.
In fact, the paper quoted him as saying that “on political ground, my position has not changed. If I support Atiku for a political office other than the one I supported him in the past when I did not know him … God will not forgive me”. Abubakar who is in the race for president in the camp of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP had visited Obasanjo in his Abeokuta home sometime ago. Apparently to intimate his former boss of his intention to run. The friendly meeting gave the impression that the conflict was over.
So there are people who believe that Abubakar may benefit from the campaign that the former president is leading against President Buhari. However, for Obasanjo such visits are social engagements that have nothing to do with politics. Hear him: “I do not have personal grudges with anyone. If you do not do well for Nigeria, you do not do well for all of us.”
But Abubakar responded by asking his former boss to settle with his God. Abubakar’s campaign organisation said its principal respects Obasanjo for his position in the country as former president and one with whom he shared a ticket in office. But it said, “It is a little bit suspect what Obasanjo means, that God will not forgive him if he supports Atiku. I think that is really a personal relationship between him and his God, and it will be better for him to use his later years to tidy up relationship between himself and his God, instead of hanging his judgement with God on things that concern him and Atiku.”
Segun Sowunmi, spokesman for the Atiku group who signed the statement added with some measure of diplomacy, “All the same, we will continue to wish Chief Olusegun Obasanjo well and we would want to say that nothing can be further from the truth (that) if Obasanjo follows his Christian dictate he would understand that God that he expects to judge him would not expect him to be a permanent traducer of every other person apart from himself. He has enjoyed the benefits of other people, other people must also enjoy his benefits. Obasanjo cannot be an enemy to every person except himself.”
Professor Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate said a few days ago that he had warned Abubakar that for allowing Obasanjo to kneel down for him before his second term election he may never be forgiven by the former president. But Obasanjo said during one of the meetings between them that he had forgiven Abubakar. Now he said his refusal to support his former deputy is in national interest.
