ADEBANJO - WHY TINUBU, OSOBA, AKANDE BACKED OBASANJO’S SECOND TERM

Elder statesman and chieftain of Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has accused some former South-West governors, including Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Chief Bisi Akande and Chief Olusegun Osoba, of supporting former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s re-election bid in 2003 out of selfish ambition.

Adebanjo also took a swipe at President Muhammadu Buhari for alleged poor perfromance.

“I am disappointed that he has not disappointed me,” the Afenifere chieftain  said.

The elder statesman, who will turn 90 years old on April 10, made the assertions in his autobiography, ‘Telling it as it is’, which was presented in Lagos on Tuesday.

In the 233-page book, Adebanjo detailed the political relationship between Obasanjo and a former Governor of the old Oyo State, the late Chief Bola Ige, which allegedly led to the “illegal” emergence of Ahmed Abdulkadir as the national chairman of the opposition Alliance for Democracy.

He said, “The protem National Chairman of Alliance for Democracy then was Mamman Yusuf, to whom I was the deputy. But because Bola Ige and others knew that Yusuf did not support him, he engineered Ahmed Abdulkadir, sponsored him, and held a convention of the party.

“That was what led to the court action requesting that the Independent National Electoral Commission should not recognise Abdulkadir because the convention was not constitutionally summoned.

“The case is still in court until today, undecided! The Abdulkadir that Bola Ige chose as chairman of the illegal convention was never a member of our party. He was put there by Obasanjo to destabilise the AD.

“The governors controlling AD states then (Olusegun Osoba, Ogun; Adeniyi Adebayo, Ekiti; Lam Adesina, Oyo; Adebisi Akande, Osun; and Bola Tinubu, Lagos) were with him (Obasanjo) for their selfish interest. The only exception was Chief Adebayo Adefarati of Ondo State.”

Efforts to get the reaction of Akande, Osoba and Adebayo were unsuccessful as of the time of filing this report as calls made to their phones did not connect.

Also, Tinubu’s media aide, Mr. Tunde Rahman, neither returned calls made to his phone nor replied the text messages sent to him as of Saturday evening.

Adebanjo, in another chapter of the book, criticised Tinubu for his alleged role in popularising the trend of abandoning party supremacy.

According to the Afenifere leader, as a result of the politics of Tinubu and others, “the principle of party supremacy is fast disappearing in the country.”

He added, “One of the causes of the crisis in the AD was the personalisation of the party by Tinubu and some of his colleagues, which the leaders objected to. Under him, the principle of party supremacy was abandoned, and the governors assumed overall control of the party without reference to its leadership.

“This led to elected offices and government appointments being at his exclusive control as governor.”