Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose, has made some startling revelations about the years in office of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, saying the former Nigerian leader once went down on his knee to beg the late president of Lybia, Moummar Ghaddafi, to assist him in actualising his third term bid.
He said the scale fell off his eyes when on a trip with Obasanjo to Tripoli, the capital of Libya, where Obasanjo had gone to ask the late Moummar Ghaddafi to support his third term bid, the former Libyan president treated the former Nigerian leader like a serf.
In the current Interview obtained Eyes Of Lagos gathered that, Fayose also confessed that Obasanjo used him to wreck the presidential ambition of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as well as ruin former Kaduna State governor, Ahmed Markafi’s chances of becoming the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in 2007.
Fayose told the magazine in an exclusive interview that in his naivety, Obasanjo also used him to attack former Abia State governor, Orji Kalu, among other political foes of the ex-president.
Recalling Obasanjo’s encounter with the late Ghaddafi , Fayose said, “It was such a pathetic scenario, so shameful. Obasanjo was speaking rapidly like a parrot. I was shocked beyond words. I never knew Obasanjo would be that humble.
“He was on one knee till the end of the conversation. Gadaffi kept quiet and was just watching Obasanjo. When Obasanjo stopped rambling, Gadaffi said, ‘Have you finished? Just know that I will not attend that meeting. I have other engagements”.
He also revealed how on two major occasions when he went to visit Atiku at the height of Obasanjo’s third term bid, security details promptly reported him to the former president, even before he left the venue, leaving him feeling spooky and vulnerable.
On the Obasanjo-Atiku saga, Fayose said, “Obasanjo told me that when you capture a general and you don’t kill him, he’ll come back and kill you; that since Atiku tried to stop him and failed, he must pay for it. And he (Atiku) is still paying for it.”
Fayose said he knew, as an insider at the time, that Obasanjo betrayed former Liberian President, Charles Taylor, to induce U.S. support for his third term bid, after promising Taylor safe haven in Nigeria.
He revealed how the current caretaker committee chairman of the PDP was sidelined in favour of a sick and stubbornly reluctant Late President Umaru Yar’Adua as well as his role in it as chairman of the presidential selection committee.
Fayose further warned Kalu against “selling” the Igbo down the river “for cheap politics”, even as he blamed President Muhammadu Buhari’s government for making IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu popular.
He also spoke on several other burning issues like his attempts to reach President Buhari directly, former governor Kayode Fayemi’s relationship with APC leader, Bola Tinubu and the futile attempt to discourage former Governor Peter Odili from accepting Obasanjo’s dummy that he was heir apparent.
Eyes Of Lagos reports that there has been no love lost between Fayose and Obasanjo since the former’s controversial impeachment as Ekiti State governor in 2006, a development openly driven by the latter.
Attempts to reach former President Obasanjo for his reaction to Fayose’s latest claims was not successful as at press time last night.
Managing Director/Editor-In-Chief of The Interview, Azu Ishiekwene, described the edition as “a window on a dark and troubling past and a must read for any important political figure who has crossed Fayose’s path in the last 18 years”.
