Atiku Backed Ekwueme In 2003 So He Can Take Over Power – Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has explained why former Vice President Atiku Abubakar teemed up with Dr Alex Ekwueme during the 2003 PDP presidential primary election, saying it is to enable him eventually become the President after Ekwueme must have spent three years in office if he had won the primary poll and the main election.

Obasanjo said this in Ibadan on Thursday at the launch of ‘Amazing Grace,’ an authobigraphy of former Oyo State Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala.

Obasanjo said this to correct a claim made in the book which he said, was incorrect.

He said, “Atiku did not back down as you claimed until Alex Ekwueme was defeated at the primary of PDP in 2003 as Atiku’s agreement with Ekwueme was to be Ekwueme’s running mate and Ekwueme, as President, spending three years and resigning for Atiku to complete the fourth year and then for Atiku to contest election in his own right in 2007.

“It was after the result of the primary that Atiku backed down, if you put it that way, it was when there was no other choice.”

Obasanjo also said Alao-Akala surreptitiously started working for Mulikat Akande to emerge the Speaker of House of Representatives after he had proposed Ajibola Muraina and the name of the later sent to the PDP leaders.

He described that as a game of duplicity which he said he never played.

Alao-Akala described himself as a product of God’s grace, saying God used some persons to lift him up.

He said his father died when he was two years old and that his maternal grandmother, who he called Iya Alaro, reconstructed his fractured childhood.

The public presentation of the book was attended by dignitaries including Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi; Oyo State Deputy Governor, Rauf Olaniyan, who represented Governor Seyi Makinde; the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi; the Olubadan of Ibadan, Oba Saliu Adetunji, the Soun of Ogbomoso, Oladunni Oyewumi; Dr Saka Balogun, former Military Governor of Oyo State, Brigadier General Oladayo Popoola (retd), Senator Brimo Yusuf and others.