Tinubu visits an old enemy, FFK overturns on a note of the same faith
Past comments are haunting some of the key players in Nigerian politics as they prepare for campaigns for the 2023 presidential election. On Thursday, All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Bola Tinubu delivered a surprise visit to his old political enemy, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
Mr. Tinubu was accompanied on the visit by a strong delegation which included billionaire businessman Femi Otedola, two former governors of Ogun State, Olusegun Osoba and Gbenga Daniel; the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila; former Osun State Governor Bisi Akande and others.
The two main opponents of Mr Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Peter Obi of the Labor Party, had already surrendered and many more will extend the same courtesy to the statesman ahead of the election. But Mr. Tinubu's visit is significant, given that the two men had rarely been on the same side or seen head-on since the dispensation began in 1999.
In the first presidential election that year, Mr. Tinubu's Alliance for Democracy (AD) ensured that Mr. Obasanjo and the PDP lost miserably in the South West. But as sitting president, Mr. Obasanjo created a tsunami in the next election in 2003 that swept away five of the six DA governors in the area, with Mr. Tinubu the sole survivor.
READ ALSO:Their mutual animosity extended to governance when the federal government under Mr. Obasanjo seized allocations of revenue to local governments in Lagos State following the creation of new ones by Mr. Tinubu's government .
Although Mr. Obasanjo did not openly support the candidacy of the former governor of Lagos State, his campaign team celebrated the visit as a positive development.
"What I heard there - what Obasanjo said, Asiwaju's victory is assured," Mr Gbajabiamila later told supporters in Surulere, Lagos, while reporting on visit. He added that “he (Obasanjo) hugged our candidate like a brother, patted him on the back and prayed heartily for him.”
As the camp of the former governor of Lagos State celebrated the outcome of the visit, his opponents posted an old video clip on social media in which Mr Tinubu described Mr Obasanjo as the most Nigeria's biggest election rigger and that he should be thrown in the trash.
The two politicians have since remained at odds, except in 2015 when Mr Obasanjo endorsed APC's Muhammadu Buhari after the former president had fallen out with then President Goodluck Jonathan and publicly tore up his PDP membership card.< /p>
However, in 2019, after Mr. Obasanjo endorsed his former deputy, Atiku, against President Buhari, the APC downplayed the value of Mr. Obasanjo's endorsement.
At the APC presidential campaign rally in Lagos, Tinubu said: "In 2007, the late President Yar'Adua said that the election that brought him to the presidency of this country was wrong and he promised to reform it. Who ran this election? Obasanjo is the biggest election rigger in this country, throw him in the trash."
Mr. Tinubu may not be worried about such a video and many more circulating as past explosions have become a major theme in this campaign.
FFK returns to his vomit…Controversial former aviation minister Femi Fani-Kayode is campaigning for Mr Tinubu. Thursday, he replaced his Twitter banner with a photo of the meeting of MM. Tinubu and Obasanjo.
While it's easy to switch Twitter banners, Mr. Fani-Kayode will find it difficult to take back some of the things he's said in the past. For more than six years, he has been the author of damning conspiracy theories about the alleged "Islamization and Fulanization" of Nigeria.
“They are not a political party but a satanic lodge of devil worshipers and a death cult. They bring nothing but death, decay and destruction,” he said. he once said about the APC
But during his appearance on Politics Today, a Channels Television show, he struggled to defend the APC Muslim/Muslim ticket and his stance on the issue.
"We talked about Fulanization, which has been thrown out the window now because power has been shifted south by the APC, the party we blamed for this.
“Secondly, we talked about Islamization. Since joining APC, I...
Past comments are haunting some of the key players in Nigerian politics as they prepare for campaigns for the 2023 presidential election. On Thursday, All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Bola Tinubu delivered a surprise visit to his old political enemy, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
Mr. Tinubu was accompanied on the visit by a strong delegation which included billionaire businessman Femi Otedola, two former governors of Ogun State, Olusegun Osoba and Gbenga Daniel; the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila; former Osun State Governor Bisi Akande and others.
The two main opponents of Mr Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Peter Obi of the Labor Party, had already surrendered and many more will extend the same courtesy to the statesman ahead of the election. But Mr. Tinubu's visit is significant, given that the two men had rarely been on the same side or seen head-on since the dispensation began in 1999.
In the first presidential election that year, Mr. Tinubu's Alliance for Democracy (AD) ensured that Mr. Obasanjo and the PDP lost miserably in the South West. But as sitting president, Mr. Obasanjo created a tsunami in the next election in 2003 that swept away five of the six DA governors in the area, with Mr. Tinubu the sole survivor.
READ ALSO:Their mutual animosity extended to governance when the federal government under Mr. Obasanjo seized allocations of revenue to local governments in Lagos State following the creation of new ones by Mr. Tinubu's government .
Although Mr. Obasanjo did not openly support the candidacy of the former governor of Lagos State, his campaign team celebrated the visit as a positive development.
"What I heard there - what Obasanjo said, Asiwaju's victory is assured," Mr Gbajabiamila later told supporters in Surulere, Lagos, while reporting on visit. He added that “he (Obasanjo) hugged our candidate like a brother, patted him on the back and prayed heartily for him.”
As the camp of the former governor of Lagos State celebrated the outcome of the visit, his opponents posted an old video clip on social media in which Mr Tinubu described Mr Obasanjo as the most Nigeria's biggest election rigger and that he should be thrown in the trash.
The two politicians have since remained at odds, except in 2015 when Mr Obasanjo endorsed APC's Muhammadu Buhari after the former president had fallen out with then President Goodluck Jonathan and publicly tore up his PDP membership card.< /p>
However, in 2019, after Mr. Obasanjo endorsed his former deputy, Atiku, against President Buhari, the APC downplayed the value of Mr. Obasanjo's endorsement.
At the APC presidential campaign rally in Lagos, Tinubu said: "In 2007, the late President Yar'Adua said that the election that brought him to the presidency of this country was wrong and he promised to reform it. Who ran this election? Obasanjo is the biggest election rigger in this country, throw him in the trash."
Mr. Tinubu may not be worried about such a video and many more circulating as past explosions have become a major theme in this campaign.
FFK returns to his vomit…Controversial former aviation minister Femi Fani-Kayode is campaigning for Mr Tinubu. Thursday, he replaced his Twitter banner with a photo of the meeting of MM. Tinubu and Obasanjo.
While it's easy to switch Twitter banners, Mr. Fani-Kayode will find it difficult to take back some of the things he's said in the past. For more than six years, he has been the author of damning conspiracy theories about the alleged "Islamization and Fulanization" of Nigeria.
“They are not a political party but a satanic lodge of devil worshipers and a death cult. They bring nothing but death, decay and destruction,” he said. he once said about the APC
But during his appearance on Politics Today, a Channels Television show, he struggled to defend the APC Muslim/Muslim ticket and his stance on the issue.
"We talked about Fulanization, which has been thrown out the window now because power has been shifted south by the APC, the party we blamed for this.
“Secondly, we talked about Islamization. Since joining APC, I...
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