Obasanjo walks out on emissaries Buhari sends to Abeokuta to solicit his support

FORMER president Chief Olusegun Obasanjo walked out of a meeting with several emissaries sent to plead with him by President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday telling them that he could not back their principle because he was incompetent.

Over recent months, Chief Obasanjo and President Buhari have become estranged after the former repeatedly criticised his predecessor as having failed since assuming office in 2015. With elections looming next year though, President Buhari has decided to send a team of aides to Abeokuta to elicit Chief Obasanjo's support but it appear that the overture was rebuffed.

According to sources at the venue, the emissaries who visited the former president in his office at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library were told by Chief Obasanjo that his opposition to President Buhari was not personal but a matter of his incompetence. He told them that President Buhari’s incompetence is destroying Nigeria and this cannot be allowed to continue.

President Obasanjo who was reported by the sources to be visibly angry that the emissaries had the audacity to keep stressing their cause and warned them not to push the case further. He was said to have wondered why the emissaries would even accept to deliver such a message and was reported to have asked them if they could not see or perceive what is happening to the country.

They were said to have been led by a retired general who has enjoyed a cordial relationship with Chief Obasanjo for the past 50 years. Chief Obasanjo who was said to have been initially infuriated by the request of the emissaries to have a more private audience with him, refused to excuse his four guests who were with him before the emissaries arrived, including two veteran journalists and two close aides.

“This is a Nigerian issue. There is nothing secret about it,” Chief Obasanjo was reported to have said.

After this exchange, he then walked out on the emissaries for insisting on persuading him and left them in his office. He was reported to have come back into the office and asked the emissaries Are you still here?

Chief Obasanjo said: "You are just wasting your time. No one, including Muhammadu Buhari, has the right to destroy this Nigeria we all laboured to build.”

He then walked past them to use his restroom and after that walked out of the office, refusing to give the emissaries further audience, attending to other matters. In January this year, Chief Obasanjo had written a scathing open letter to President Buhari on the latter’s presidency, detailing concerns about the well being of Nigerians but none of the matters in it have been addressed.