Akinnola Recalls Atiku’s Defense of Loyalty to Obasanjo, Urges Former President to Own Up to Third Term Bid
Veteran journalist and lawyer Richard Akinnola has recounted a 2008 meeting with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in which Atiku cited two personal interventions he said proved his loyalty to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo.
In a statement titled “LOYALTY: BETWEEN OBJ AND ATIKU”, Akinnola said he contacted Atiku’s then spokesperson, Garba Shehu, after Obasanjo publicly questioned Atiku’s loyalty. Shehu, he said, arranged a breakfast meeting with Atiku in Lagos.
According to Akinnola, Atiku declined to go into every detail but pointed to two incidents.
The first, Akinnola quoted Atiku as saying, occurred in 1995 during the Sani Abacha era. Atiku said he received intelligence that Abacha planned to arrest Obasanjo over an alleged coup plot and rushed to Ota to warn Obasanjo to leave the country immediately. Obasanjo was arrested shortly afterward.
The second instance related to the late Major-General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. Atiku told Akinnola that while Yar’Adua was in prison, he informed Atiku of a strange injection administered by a prison official later referred to as “Dr. Death”. Atiku said he immediately sent a message to Obasanjo, who was also imprisoned in Yola, warning him not to accept any injection. Akinnola quoted Atiku as saying Obasanjo later told him he escaped harm by telling the official, “I’m not sick o, I’m not sick o.”
“If he was not loyal but saved him from death, he wondered what loyalty meant,” Akinnola quoted Atiku as concluding at the meeting.
Akinnola used the recollection to criticize Obasanjo’s handling of history. He accused the former president of “a penchant for twisting narratives to suit his purpose,” citing Obasanjo’s late rejoinder to Aremo Segun Osoba’s memoirs and a rebuttal he said was issued to the late Brigadier Alabi Isama over accounts of the civil war.
The journalist also revisited the failed third term agenda. He said he first raised the alarm in an interview with _INSIDER WEEKLY_ magazine on November 8, 2004. He added that events escalated afterward, including security agencies sealing the Ladi Kwali Hall at Sheraton Hotel, Abuja, where a third term coalition was to meet, and allegations of legislators being offered N50 million each. He noted that former South African President Nelson Mandela had also cautioned Obasanjo against the move.
“I respect Baba for his accomplishments but sir, you are a human being and susceptible to making mistakes. Admit your errors and stop twisting narratives,” Akinnola wrote
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