Sule Lamido, a former governor of Jigawa, claims that former President Olusegun Obasanjo erred when he openly criticized Atiku Abubakar, his former running mate. According to him, Mr. Abubakar made a significant contribution to the platform used by Mr. Obasanjo to run for office in 1999.
Messrs. Obasanjo and Abubakar were elected president and vice president on the PDP platform, respectively, but their relationship was strained and hasn’t fully healed since their terms in office.
“Obasanjo is a senior man, somebody who is elderly. He has the right to talk down on his own children, but that should be an in-house accusation. He can say Atiku you are this or that but when he says it publicly to the country he led, it is wrong,” said Mr Lamido in an interview with Vanguard newspaper.
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Mr. Lamido was responding to Mr. Obasanjo’s remarks from a few weeks prior, in which the former president of Nigeria claimed that appointing Mr. Atiku as his deputy was a grave error, but God preserved him.
“I don’t want to sound rude, but when PDP was formed, Obasanjo was in prison and the formation of the PDP had history,” Mr Lamido, a longstanding politician, said. “We had a group led by Atiku and many others and also the progressives as symbolised by Solomon Lar, Abubakar Rimi, Jim Nwobodo and many others. It is right to say that when PDP was formed, Obasanjo was not politically known.”
Messrs. Obasanjo and Abubakar split out after the latter aborted his unlawful third term bid in an effort to succeed his leader.
Although efforts have been made over the years to improve their relationship, Mr. Obasanjo’s characterization of Mr. Abubakar as a severely corrupt politician remains a source of friction.
