If I support Atiku for anything, God will not forgive me says Chief Olusegun Obasanjo

ALHAJI ATIKU ABUBAKAR: The former President Olusegun Obasanjo has maintained his stance against his former Vice, Atiku Abubakar that nothing would make him to support his bid to become the President of Nigeria.

READ ALSO: Kano Deputy Governor Prof Hafiz Abubakar resigns (SEE LETTER OF RESIGNATION)

The former President issued a curse on himself if supports Atiku,”if I support Atiku for anything, God will not forgive me, Atiku can never enjoy my support.”
He made the statement on his arrival from Kigali on Friday afternoon. He hinged his position on the corruption of his Vice at the time he was the President.
“How can I be on the same side with Atiku?” Mr Obasanjo asked. “To do what?”
“If I support Atiku for anything, God will not forgive me. If I do not know, yes. But once I know, Atiku can never enjoy my support,” he added.
Mr Obasanjo rejected all notions that his remarks could be deemed too personal, coming as 2019 presidential campaign gathers steam with Mr Abubakar amongst the front-runners.
The pronouncement comes barely two weeks after Mr Abubakar declared his intention to run for president, touting his pro-business credentials and lambasting President Muhammadu Buhari for his handling of the country’s security situation.

READ ALSO: OSUN 2018: I wasn’t secretly invited for any negotiations, or threatened by any cabal using the EFCC – Senator Omisore

Before then, the former vice president, who has unsuccessfully run for the top office multiple times, spent the past few months criss-crossing the country as part of a strategy aimed at broadening his appeal amongst politicians and the electorate.
It also comes a little over a month after the two met at an event in Abuja and shook each other’s hands before photographers, days after reports said Chief Obasanjo was under pressure to back Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
“I do not have personal grudges with anyone,” Mr Obasanjo said. “If you do not do well for Nigeria, you do not do well for all of us.”
“It is not a question of working with or not working with an individual,” he said. “If you are working for the good of Nigeria, I am working with you. If you are not working for the good of Nigeria it does not matter who you are I am not working with you.”
In making his position clear on Alhaji Atiku Abubakar ahead of the presidential primaries in October, Chief Obasanjo has put to rest several months of speculation about whether he would soften his borderline disposition to his former vice president of eight years.
Settling old scores
The disclosure also exposed a fundamental fracture between Chief Obasanjo, who seems hell-bent at ensuring that the alleged transgressions of the past were not forgotten, and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who now appears in high spirit for reconciliation.

READ ALSO: Senator Ademola Adeleke calls for the release of Ede Muslim High School, Khadid Abass Adejare unconditionally

The former vice president is locked in a fierce contest for the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential ticket with several political bigwigs on the platform of the major opposition party.
The ever-broadening field already includes Rabiu Kwankwaso, Sule Lamido, Ahmed Makarfi and Taminu Turaki. While some of these politicians are already capable of challenging Mr Abubakar for the ticket, the recent addition of Senate President Bukola Saraki and Governor Aminu Tambuwal, both of whom are being rumoured as equally running for president, could further complicate Atiku Abubakar’s chances.
Obasanjo did not specifically say whom he would back for the PDP ticket. Already, the African Democratic Party, with which he now publicly identifies, has entered into an alliance that would see it and over 30 other political parties present a joint presidential ticket with the PDP.
After the former president said he would not support President Muhammadu Buhari for a second term, widespread conclusion had been that he would back anyone presented as the major challenger, even if this turned out to be Atiku Abubakar.

READ ALSO: Senator Ademola Adeleke calls for the release of Ede Muslim High School, Khadid Abass Adejare unconditionally

“Most of you do not understand the way I operate,” Obasanjo said. “And I thought your own paper will understand better.”
“I know Atiku very well. And I have mentioned my position with Atiku. My position has not changed,” he said.
On a personal note, he added, “If my children are getting married, he has sent representatives. If his children are getting married, I have sent representatives. That is social. That is not political.
But “on political ground, my position has not changed. If I support Atiku for a political office other than the one I supported him in the past when I did not know him,” maybe, but not “now that I know him, God will not forgive me.”
A spokesperson for Atiku Abubakar did not provide a response to Obasanjo’s statement when reached for comments Friday night, indicating that the the campaign was likely going to ignore the former president rather than engage him openly.
Obasanjo did not offer further remarks on his grouse with Abubakar, but he had repeatedly complained of his former right-hand man’s alleged sharp practices.
Obasanjo, 81, tapped Mr Abubakar as his running mate in 1999, and both went on to rule Nigeria until 2007. The pair started on a good note for Nigeria’s democracy, working together to dismantle the statist political economy imposed by successive military administrations for more liberal economic policies.
Obasanjo trusted Mr Abubakar with key government initiatives, placing him in charge of the National Council on Privatisation to midwife the sale of federal assets which were not only dysfunctional at the time but fast becoming white elephants draining national resources.
But years into the administration, Mr Obasanjo started accusing Mr Abubakar of corruption, and at a point, set up a panel to probe his deputy. Anti-graft detectives allegedly came up with damning dossiers that linked his lieutenant to a slew of financial misdeeds.
When United States authorities commenced investigation into the infamous Gate scandal, Obasanjo asked Nigerian anti-corruption agencies to cooperate fully with their counterparts from America.
The F.B.I. accused Nigerian and American officials of running a bribery racket in the award of a broadband project to expand Internet coverage in Nigeria in the mid-2000s.
Specifically, Atiku Abubakar was said to have received kickbacks for his role in helping iGate, an American firm, secure the contract. Williams Jefferson, an American politician who was a member of the U.S. Congress at the time, was identified as a political associate of Atiku Abubakar with whom the Nigerian leader allegedly connived to inflate the contract and get illicit payouts for seeing it through.
It was further reported that the infamous $100,000 cash which investigators found in Mr Jefferson’s refrigerator was intended as parts of the bribes to be paid out to Mr Abubakar. Atiku Abubakar strongly denied ties to the fraud.
Jefferson was convicted on 11 out of 16 counts of criminal charges filed against him in 2009 and sentenced to jail shortly thereafter.

READ ALSO: VIDEOS: Pathetic plights of disengaged Fidelity Bank Staff without retirement benefits

But Abubakar was never arraigned, much less convicted of any crime. During Jefferson’s trial, prosecutors failed to prove him guilty of allegations of bribing foreign officials, which meant that there was no evidence to link Abubakar to the $100,000 bribe.

Still, the claims that Atiku Abubakar was involved in the bribery remained widespread. They were also largely linked to the mystery surrounding the former vice president’s ability to travel to the U.S., which was perhaps the biggest of his alleged political baggage until the position of Chief Obasanjo.
Atiku Abubakar strongly denied having any questions to answer in the U.S., and repeatedly said he applied for U.S. visa but was not granted. The U.S. Embassy in Abuja often declines comments on visa matters involving Atiku Abubakar.
Obasanjo, whose two terms were on the platform of the PDP, has since become estranged from the party. In 2015, he abandoned former President Goodluck Jonathan and threw his support for President Muhammadu Buhari, after years of tension over which direction held better promise for the country’s future.

Although Obasanjo said he regretted supporting Mr Buhari, and now said he would work to ease him out of office in 2019. He also wrote a public letter aimed at the president in January, urging him not to run for reelection and or risk being disgraced out of office.
Yet, he felt that Abubakar would not be appropriate as his stand-in candidate next February.
“If Jonathan had performed, we would not have had Buhari,” Obasanjo said.

READ ALSO: VIDEO: Watch Sen Melaye pleading the cause of gang up against Buhari

Mounting vulnerabilities
Atiku Abubakar defected from the ruling All Progressives Congress last November. It would be his third time of leaving a political party in a quest to actualise his presidential ambition which began in 1992.
He contested against Moshood Abiola for the Social Democratic Party’s ticket in the 1993 elections, but said he stepped down for the late business mogul after being pressured to do so.
After completing his two terms as vice-president under the PDP, Abubakar moved to then-newly-formed Action Congress after it became clear that Obasanjo will not tip him as his successor.
He won the ticket of the AC, now defunct, but lost to Umar Yar’Adua in the 2007 presidential polls. He later returned to the PDP, in time for his disclosure of interest in the then-ruling party’s presidential ticket for the 2011 elections. He was, however, beaten to this by Jonathan, whose status as acting-president following the death of Yar’Adua in May 2010 placed him in a better position to use the party’s machinery to his advantage.
In 2014, Abubakar again abandoned the PDP and joined the APC, which was a merger of at least four political parties. He vied for the party’s ticket and lost to President Buhari at the December 2014 convention in Lagos.
Abubakar made his way back to the PDP in November 2017, after it became clear to him that Buhari would seek re-election and it would be difficult to stop him as an incumbent.
Abubakar’s apparent inconsistencies, the raging controversy around his U.S. visa status and now the unambiguous position of Obasanjo could all make for a devastating political cocktail, said political analyst Gbola Oba.

READ ALSO: VIDEOS: Mass protests, mass dumping of PDP for APC in Kwara against Bukola Saraki dynasty in the state

Oba said the short term consequence of Obasanjo’s comments is two-fold: “One, he is now vulnerable to easy shots from those contesting the primaries with him. And secondly, there would be genuine fears amongst the kingmakers within his party that Obasanjo might work actively against the PDP if Atiku gets the ticket.”
Oba, chief executive at Automedics in Lagos, said Obasanjo’s statement was not entirely surprising.
“Once you have offended him, you can never get rehabilitated to the point that he will like you again,” Oba said, implying that the former president is vindictive. “Atiku is politically dead if Obasanjo is still around.”
Oba expressed strong doubts that Obasanjo’s reasons for not supporting Abubakar was strictly based on alleged corrupt personality traits.
“It was because of what Atiku put him through in 2003 when governors said they did not want Obasanjo to return as president,” Oba said. “Once Atiku accepted the pleas of his boss at the time, many concluded that his future in politics would be very tough.”