The Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to the African Democratic Congress, ADC, presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, Phrank Shaibu, on Friday revealed how the former vice president save President Bola Tinubu from ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003.
Shaibu disclosed that Atiku prevented Obasanjo from removing Tinubu as governor of Lagos State due to the former President’s grievance with the then Alliance for Democracy, AD.
Tinubu was governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007 under the platform of the AD.
Tinubu encountered crisis with Obasanjo’s administration after it stopped federal allocation to Lagos State due to the creation of 37 new local council development areas, LCDAs, in addition to the 20 local government areas, LGAs, he met.
Obasanjo deemed the creation of the new councils unconstitutional and withheld allocations to Lagos, demanding that Tinubu revert to the original 20 LGAs.
Lagos State government challenged the development in court and the Supreme Court ruled that withholding the allocations was unlawful. Obasanjo, however, maintained the freeze for the remainder of his term.
The withheld allocation was eventually released by the late former President Umaru Yar’Adua.
Shaibu said Atiku’s intervention preserved Tinubu’s second term.
Posting on X, Shaibu said Obasanjo launched an offensive against AD governors in the South-West as part of efforts to break the party’s grip on the region.
He wrote: “@ARISEtv, the historical record of 2003 is not ambiguous, and it cannot be rewritten for present-day political convenience.
“President Olusegun Obasanjo was determined to break the Alliance for Democracy’s control of the South-West. The political offensive succeeded almost completely: five of the six AD governors were swept out of office. Bola Tinubu, then Governor of Lagos State, was the only one left standing.
“That exception was not accidental. Lagos did not escape because Obasanjo suddenly lost interest, lacked the political machinery or abandoned the South-West project. Tinubu survived because Atiku Abubakar intervened on his behalf and persuaded Obasanjo to leave Lagos alone.
“Put plainly, when the Obasanjo political machine was determined to finish the AD across the South-West, Atiku drew the line at Lagos. He stood between Tinubu and the same political fate that befell the other five AD governors, and that intervention preserved Tinubu’s second term.
“That is not folklore. It is a defining episode in the political history of the Fourth Republic. Before anyone attempts to rewrite the relationship between these men, one fact must remain firmly on the record: when Tinubu’s political future was under threat in 2003, Atiku was the man who intervened to save it.
“History may be inconvenient, but it does not disappear because its beneficiary now finds it politically embarrassing.”
