How AD govs, Afenifere saved Obasanjo from being impeached in 2002 - Osoba reveals
- A chieftain of APC, Olusegun Osoba, has said that the timely intervention of AD governors, saved former president Olusegun Obasanjo from being impeached in 2002
- Osoba was one of the 6 governors elected under the platform of AD in the southwest in 1999
- The former Ogun state governor also noted that despite Obasanjo's disregard for Afenifere, the pan Yoruba group, ensured the ex-president was not impeached
Former governor of Ogun state, Chief Olusegun Osoba, has revealed how he and other governors elected under the platform of Alliance for Democracy (AD) saved former president Olusegun Obasanjo from being impeached in 2002.
Nigerian Tribune reports that the APC chieftain said the six governors from the southwest elected on the ticket of AD frustrated the bid.
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Legit.ng gathered that Osoba in his reminiscence contained in the book, "Battlelines: Adventures Journalism and Politics," said the governors, together with the AD caucus in the National Assembly then, moved swiftly to abort the plot, despite the love lost between Obasanjo and the AD/Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba organisation.
He said the House of Representatives under the leadership of the speaker Umar Ghali Na’Abba had initiated the impeachment process against Obasanjo over allegations of constitutional infractions.
Osoba explained that their decision to save Obasanjo was neither borne out of ethnic solidarity nor prompting by Obasanjo but because of the enormous sacrifice Nigerians paid to have the civil rule.
“Everyone knew that there was no love lost between governors of Afenifere/AD and former president Obasanjo. Even though we did not want the relationship between the state and the federal government to be antagonistic, we were not Obasanjo’s friends in any way.
“I never had any one-on-one private meeting with him throughout the four years he was in office. All the AD governors too were not Obasanjo’s friends. The AD governors were committed strictly to implementing the programme of our party,” Osoba stated.
The former chieftain of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) also gave details concerning the core terms of the accord Obasanjo entered into with the Afenifere and AD governors in his desperate bid to secure the second term in office and how the former Nigerian leader reneged on the agreement.
He said betrayed the trust imposed in him by the Alliance for Democracy (AD) governors and Afenifere leaders, adding that it was not true that only governors in AD were the brain behind southwest’s support for Obasanjo.
Osoba recalled: “As it turned out, unwittingly, we gave Obasanjo a breather and tool with which he later dealt with us too. I told him to “stoop to conquer.” After doing that with the National Assembly and surviving the impeachment plot, he also later “stooped to conquer” against the AD governors and Afenifere.
“After he survived the impeachment plot, he never showed any sense of remorse. To all of us involved, we could not believe his new bellicose approach when in a national broadcast he described the impeachment plot as joke carried too far."
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that the former president Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday, May 18, alleged that the dreaded Boko Haram sect's plan was to ‘Fulanise' the West Africa and Islamisation of Africa.
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Obasanjo said the insurgents have both incubated and developed beyond what Nigeria can handle alone.
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Obasanjo bombs Buhari again, says FG is empowering Boko Haram | - on Legit TV
Source: Legit.ng
