Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has lied that he did retirement from partisan politics fourteen years ago. There is no shred of truth in his claim.
The former head of state received a delegate of People’s Democratic Party yesterday at his residence in Ogun State. The new national chairman of the PDP, Iyorchia Ayu led the team to Obasanjo’s residence.
They must have informed the former president and he must have prepared an appropriate response to them knowing full well that they would come to seek his political help.
He told them that he had retired and he would remain retired from politics. He informed them that he did so fourteen years ago. But there are evidence that shows he was politically active at least seven years ago.
Obasanjo finished his second and last term in 2007. That is actually fourteen years ago. But did the former president stop at that? No, he ensured that the late Umar Yar’adua emerge as his successor.
Even when the late former president died in power, Obasanjo didn’t just stop his politics. He did work for the election of Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, who won the 2011 presidential election.
Did Obasanjo actually announce his retirement from partisan politics? There is no public announcement to that effect. He might have it at the back of his mind that he had left politics. Yet he didn’t publicly tell Nigerians.
Any analysis about how Jonathan lost 2015 election is incomplete without a reference to Obasanjo’s contributions. Prior to that election, Obasanjo had denounced the PDP. That was less than eight years ago.
Obasanjo warmly received a delegate led by the then APC candidate Muhammadu Buhari. Did he tell them that he had retired from politics? The former president didn’t perhaps in order to spite Goodluck Jonathan.
The former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, could have told the delegate yesterday that he had simply retired without making references to when he did so.
Obasanjo was active beyond 2007 when he left power and handed over to the late Umar Yar’adua.
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