JUST IN: After Rejecting Tinubu, Obasanjo Finally Backs Peter Obi For 2023 Presidency

…Calls LP Candidate ‘Mentee’

Less than two months to the 2023 general elections, former president Olusegun Obasanjo has endorsed the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, as his preferred candidate for presidency.

Obasanjo in a new year message he personally signed and made available to newsmen through his spokesman, Kehinde Akinyemi, described the LP candidate as his mentee.

The former president maintained that Obi has an edge in the February 25 polls and that no other candidate comes close to him.

Obasanjo said, “None of the contestants is a saint but when one compares their character, antecedent, their understanding, knowledge, discipline, and vitality that they can bring to bear and the great efforts required to stay focused on the job, particularly looking at where the country is today and with the experience on the job that I personally had, Peter Obi as a mentee has an edge.

“Others like all of us have what they can collectively contribute to the new dispensation to liberation, restoration and salvaging of Nigeria.

“One other important point to make about Peter is that he is a needle with thread attached to it from North and South and he may not get lost.

“In other words, he has people who can pull his ears, if and when necessary. He has a young and able running mate with a clean track record of achievement both in public and private life,” he said.

THE WHISTLER recalls that Obasanjo’s endorsement of Obi came about four months after he revealed that he didn’t have a “special presidential candidate” despite receiving some of the leading aspirants at his residence in Ogun State.

Notably, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, had visited the two-time former president presumably to seek his endorsement for the 2023 election.

Obasanjo had denied endorsing Tinubu after the APC candidate’s protégé and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, suggested after a meeting between Obasanjo and Tinubu that the former president had endorsed the APC candidate.

“Those claiming to be insiders at the meeting issuing statement on the discussion and those crediting to me statement I had not made are enemies of the visitor and are not doing the visit any good,” Obasanjo said in a statement issued by his media aide, Kehinde Akin Yemi, in October.