2023: At meeting with General Abubakar, who handed over power to him, Obasanjo says, ‘I have no special candidate, only national agenda’
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has returned from the United Kingdom visit, where he went to meeting some Nigerian gladiators wanting to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari as next President of Nigeria.
Upon return in Abuja, he made it to Minna, Niger State, country home of the last Nigeria’s Military Head of State so far, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, whose regime in 1998 brought him out of prison and handed him ticket of the then newly created Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on which platform he rode to becoming the first civilian President of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic.
At the meeting with General Abubakar, Chief Obasanjo, who is however senior to Abdulasalami having attained the rank of four-star General and position of military head of state before him, said he had no preferred candidate for the 2023 presidential election but a national agenda for the country.
Making the declaration on Sunday at the meeting held at the Uphill residence of the former Nigerian Leader, Obasanjo, “I don’t have a special candidate,” but that “I have a national agenda”.
Continuing, he said: “I have come to see my brother who was a bit indisposed and when he was abroad I had wanted to visit him, and the day I arrived in London to visit him was the day he left.”
The statesmen earlier had a closed-door meeting which lasted for about 30 minutes.
Sunday’s event is the latest in a series of recent meetings Obasanjo has had with notable personalities and politicians.
Earlier in the month, Obasanjo hosted the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Bola Tinubu at his Abeokuta, Ogun State residence, a meeting he described as “more brotherly than political”.
Days after that, he met with Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi in London, UK. Details of the meeting were not disclosed but reports suggest that discussions at the event were centred on next year’s poll.
Following the meeting, Governor Wike re-echoed Obasanjo’s comment, saying his consultations – including a meeting with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential flagbearer Atiku Abubakar – are in Nigeria’s interest.
“What we are talking about is for the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians. It is not a parochial thing – being centred on a person or group of persons,” the governor said Friday at the VIP Lounge of the Port Harcourt International Airport following his arrival in the country.
“We believe that what is going on will be in the interest of Nigerians at the end of the day. Consultation is still ongoing. Nothing we have said now has been concretised. Discussions are going on.”
