Obasanjo, Faithless Suitor, Unblinking Political Philanderer – Akande

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria, News From The State Friday, December 10th, 2021

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – A former Interim National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Bisi Akande, said in his new book that he knew former President Olusegun Obasanjo to be a faithless suitor and an unblinking political philanderer.

In his autobiography, ‘My Participations,’ which was presented in Lagos on Thursday, the former Governor of Osun State recalled how the “assassination of Bola Ige left us rudderless.”

He said, “We were like sheep without a shepherd. The AD had lost its lodestar for guidance and we were left on the open sea like a floundering ship. Soon, the sharks were circling.

“The man who came hunting for us was President Olusegun Obasanjo, Ige’s friend for many years who became our relentless foe. He and Ige met in the late 1960s when both of them served in the

government of then Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo, the second military ruler of the old West. Since then, Obasanjo had dogged Ige’s path like an evil spirit.

“During his reign as military Head of State, Ige gave him a wide berth, yet Obasanjo would not disappear from Ige’s path. In 1982, it was Obasanjo’s unsolicited intervention into the crisis in the Oyo State UPN that led to the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ in Yola which almost cost Ige his job as the governor of old Oyo State. His final dalliance with Ige eventually cost Ige his life.”

Akande, who described Ige and Obasanjo as victims of Sani Abacha’s military dictatorship, recalled that Obasanjo was sent to Yola Prison and Ige to Makurdi Prison.

He said, “When Obasanjo made up his mind to contest for the presidency, he rushed to Ige’s residence in Ibadan to seek his support. Ige declined, promising him however that they would meet on the field of electoral combat on opposing sides.

“Ige knew Obasanjo’s deep-seated hatred for our leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a public confession to which he devoted his book, ‘Not My Will’. What Ige did not reckon with was the unrelenting hostility of some members of Afenifere leadership to his aspiration to become the presidential flagbearer of our party, the AD, and its alliance partner, the APP.”

Akande noted that Chief Olu Falae eventually emerged the flagbearer of the alliance, but Ige led Falae’s presidential campaign in the South-West.

He said, “Obasanjo won and yet, would not leave Ige alone. Obasanjo visited Ige three times in his Bodija home, Ibadan, after he emerged as the President-elect, pressuring him to come and take up ministerial appointment.

“Ige finally agreed to serve when he was given the go-ahead by our movement Afenifere, and our party, the AD. It was late before he realised it was a kiss of death. All this made me wary of Obasanjo’s relentless dalliance. I knew him to be a faithless suitor and an unblinking philanderer on the political field. You trust him at your own peril.”

The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), at the book presentation, said Akande sanitised governance during his tenure.

He said, “By 2003, Chief Akande virtually sanitised governance in Osun State having cleared some of the trouble makers from his government and though elected to serve a second term, he was persuaded to try again in 2003.

“On page 400 of his book, he wrote, ‘I never gave to or demanded bribe from anyone all my life.’ He is a perfect gentleman; a perfect public officer, as it is said in Hausa, ‘labarin zucciya a tambayi fuska,’ loosely translated as ‘if you want to know what is in a man’s heart watch his face.’ Akande has a permanent smile on his face. He is the type I will go into the jungle with.

Buhari, narrating Akande’s career, described him as a decent and truthful public servant who survived various difficulties and political discontinuities.

He said, “It gives me immense pleasure to be present on this occasion of the launching and the formal presentation of Chief Bisi Akande’s autobiography. This is an authoritative account of his life and times. My being here therefore, is more than a pleasure; it is a duty.

“Chief Bisi Akande, is a decent, truthful and friendly person. He is a public servant by choice and an administrator of the first order. My first, personal encounter with Chief Akande was, if I recall correctly, in 2006, when a preliminary presentation was coming to fruition for a great coalition to unseat the Peoples Democratic Party government.

“Those efforts eventually came to nothing. Neither he nor I, nor many of us and our friends and associates gave up, because the country was going down and down under the PDP. You can see that on page 396 of ‘My Participations.’ Bisi Akande has risen to governance from his participation in the constitutional assembly established by General Olusegun Obasanjo’s military government.

PUNCH