Obasanjo meets Buhari after Jonathan

Less than 24 hours after Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former president, received President Goodluck Jonathan at his hilltop residence in Abeokuta, he has also hosted Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Prior to the recent visits, stalwarts of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the opposition party had also gone to Obasanjo for his support in the forthcoming election.

On December 4, five PDP governors were in Abeokuta to talk the ex-president into deferring the release of his stinging memoir, My Watch, till the conclusion of the election, but Obasanjo released the book all the same. It was initially thought, though, that the governors embarked on the visit to convince the former PDP BoT chairman to support Jonathan’s 2015 aspiration.

Although he continues to affirm his membership of the ruling party, there have been reports that Obasanjo is against the re-election bid of Jonathan.

He has been very critical of the Jonathan administration in recent times. Addressing south-west market leaders at a meeting last week, Obasanjo accused Jonathan of mismanaging the country’s resources.

“When I was leaving office about eight years ago, I left a very huge reserve after we had paid all our debts,” he said.

“Almost $25bn we kept in what they called Excess Crude Account, it was the excess from the budget we were saving as reserve for a rainy day. But today, that reserve has been depleted.”

Jonathan fired back while speaking in Enugu during the second day of his re-election campaign, saying: “Some people are even saying that the foreign reserve has been stolen. That means you don’t even know what foreign reserve is.”

On Saturday, Obasanjo surprisingly attended the wedding of Inebharapu, Jonathan’s foster daughter, prompting insinuations that both leaders may have resolved their differences.

At the meeting with Buhari, the former president extolled the APC flagbearer, calling on the party to recruit people of integrity into their government if they emerge victorious at next month’s poll.

Obasanjo absolved Buhari of any wrong while he was the chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF).

He said he set up a panel of inquiry to look into the records of the agency under the leadership of Buhari, revealing that he called off that inquisition when Buhari assured him that he did not take advantage of that office.

“I asked him to tell me between the two of us and God if he benefitted from it and he said no and I told him, that is the end of the better,” Obasanjo said.