I wanted Atiku to succeed me but… –Obasanjo
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AYODELE OJO 28/11/2011 00:58:00
image Former President Olusegun Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has disclosed why his deputy, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar narrowly missed the opportunity to succeed him in office. Chief Obasanjo explained how he initially made efforts to allow Abubakar to succeed him in 2007.

I think it is the normal thing to expect that if you have a good number two and the nation wants him, if he shares your orientation, mission and vision, then there would be an element of continuity. So, my plan was to ensure that Abubakar succeeded me, Obasanjo told National Mirror. In an exclusive interview with National Mirror, the former President said he was grooming Abubakar for the presidency as shown by the enormity of responsibilities given to him. He said: My number two (Atiku Abubakar) even said to me once that you have given me too much to do.

I didn complain when I was the number two, but my own number two complained that I was giving him too much to do. But I knew that he had never had any experience of even running a local government and one of the reasons was that if this man will have the opportunity to succeed me, he needs to be exposed. My thinking was exposure, initially domestically and later on externally.

Many people came to me and said why did you give him (Atiku) so much to do and I said, it was not your business, it was mine. Some people even told me that it was because I didn know anything that was why I was given Atiku much to do. I said that was alright, I didnt know anything, leave me with my ignorance.

Obasanjo explained that he foreclosed Abubakar ambition because of several factors, particularly for destroying the foundational trust. “Within two years, I knew that he was unlikely to be the man because he had shown that he was not that type of man. Many things later happened. If he tells you something, you have to check and cross-check whether what he has told you is what is holding. So, the trust wasnt there. I think Atiku destroyed the trust within the first three years of our working together.

So, if you are the number two, you must behave as number two, failing to behave as the number two, is courting disaster, he added. The former President also told National Mirror that he never begged Abubakar to realise his second term ambition. He said: Well, if anybody said that, I dont know who prostrated for him. Atiku was actually the one who wanted me, not only him but his own people because on the eve of the presidential primary for my second term, I went round. And in Adamawa State, they actually begged me and said, we want our man to remain your number two.

He had already gone to team up with one of the candidates and that candidate told him that if he became the president, he would spend three years and after that Atiku would do one year and after that, it would be easier for him. That is now history.

Obasanjo also denied ever nursing ambition for a third term in office. His words: “When some people said that I wanted a third term, there is nobody in Nigeria, dead or alive that would say that I called him or her and said, go and work for a third term for me. I didn’t stay on when I don’t really have to consult anybody.

If I wanted a third term, I would have prepared a bill that I would have sent and if a bill emanated from me, I would have made sure that I got the bill passed but there was no bill that emanated from me in that regards. Even when I had the National Political Reform Conference, all the things they recommended, I took them as they were and gave them to the National Assembly. Obasanjo also opened a chapter in his life, saying he never thought his voice would be heard in Nigeria talk less of becoming president.

He said: While growing up, I never thought that I would even be any man to be heard of beyond my village. If you know my village, no matter how big you make the map of Nigeria, my village will never appear on it. And my father and mother were pure illiterates and for a man like me to be extremely favoured, it makes me to be extra humbled. It makes me to appreciate God more. “At times when I am joking with people, I say to them, you better pray in the name of the God of Obasanjo because the God of Obasanjo is a special God who dispenses favour very bountifully without you deserving it.

The former president told National Mirror that all he desired in life was becoming a mechanic, saying that whatever he later became in life was by accident. He said: All I thought of becoming in life was a vehicle mechanic, I have said it a number of times that almost everything that I have been in life had been by accident. I went to school by accident because I have told you how I had wanted to be a vehicle mechanic, following the footstep of a senior cousin who left the village to become a mechanic in Abeokuta. My father told me one day: you dont want to do anything. I said that I want to be a vehicle mechanic and he asked: you dont want to go to school. I said, if you send me to school, I will go.

He made the first attempt but it didnt work but the second attempt worked. “I later became a member of Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s cabinet and from there became the number two man in the country after a coup. After Murtala Muhammed died, I became the number one. All these achievements are by accident. “Perhaps the only thing that I can say that I have done voluntarily and conscidone voluntarily and conscientiously by myself is being a farmer which is going back to where I started from.

The Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, said his conviction for a phantom coup against Sani Abacha military government almost ruined his life, stressing that for me to do a coup against Abacha is to be dignifying Abacha; it was not worth it. My farm has been ruined; my family was on the verge of being ruined. I had three children in universities abroad who couldnt pay their school fees and one Nigerian and an American had taken a child of mine each to help. Even the NGO that I have, African Leadership Forum, had to move to Ghana to escape the destruction of Abacha. But I quickly sorted things out Obasanjo told National Mirror. The ex-President explained that he had good relationship with all living Nigerian former rulers.

According to him, I have good relationship with all of them. Lets start from Gen. Yakubu Gowon; anything that he is doing and he invites me, I will go. Next to him is President Shehu Shagari; I hold him in very high esteem. There is no time that I have gone to Sokoto that he was in town that I havent called on him. I havent visited Muhammadu Buhari in his house because there is no cause to; he hasnt visited mine either. But Muhammadu served under me loyally and I have respect for him. Ibrahim Babangida is a man who talks to me and I talk to as often as there is need for us to talk to ourselves.

Abdulsalami Abubakar is a man in whose vein the interest of Nigeria flows. Chief Ernest Shonekan is of course an Egba chief just as I am and we talk when there is an opportunity to meet and talk. “I have a perfect relationship with President Goodluck Jonathan. One good thing about a president in Nigerian is that any Nigerian that you want to call, you can call. There is no time that President Jonathan will call me that I will not go. He is the president of Nigeria and a product of my party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).


http://nationalmirroronline.net/news/25847.html

Some of his comments were kinda funny! In any case, I am not a fan of OBJ, but he seems to have done better than most of the other "educated" people who became presidents! One thing for sure is he knows how and when to be diplomatic and when to be brutal. Another thing is that like someone said in one recent posts, Gbawe I think, all these former rulers and politicians in Nigeria know themselves and relate well behind the scenes. However, the citizen fodder catches fire anytime they sneeze and while everyone on NL is fighting, OBJ, IBB, Jonsathon, etc are having a drink on Nigerians! O