Facts have emerged on why Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo have assumed an anti-Goodluck Jonathan stance, even as the 2015 intrigues continue to gather steam.
A source privy to a recent meeting where Obasanjo openly expressed his displeasure to some close allies on how President Jonathan has been relating with him, said it all started when:
Obasanjo indicated his intention to resign as the chairman of the Board of Trustees of PDP. The situation was allegedly handled poorly by President Jonathan and this angered Obasanjo.
According to the source, the former president had expected the president to engage him in order to seek clarification on why he was leaving the office beyond the excuses he had advanced.
Commenting on the Obasanjo/Jonathan grudge, the source said the former president was shocked when about a week after serving the notice of his intention to resign, he received a letter from Jonathan, accepting his resignation without either an attempt to persuade him against it or give personal attention to the plan.
Obasanjo was said to have described President Jonathan’s action as both insensitive and a display of poor understanding of the nuances of power.
“Baba had expected that given his place in the party and especially the role he played in the emergence of Mr Goodluck Jonathan as President, he would have prevailed on him not to go but stay back and help moderate things at the highest level in the party,” the source said.
Another source told Thisday that Jonathan just “acted naively” without knowing the implications.
The source, who gave a rundown of Jonathan’s alleged many infractions against Obasanjo, confirmed that the former president is not happy with the way the Jonathan groups were going about his re-election bid.
According to him, Obasanjo had put a lot at stake by brokering a one-term deal that is now being vehemently denied, adding that even if there was plan to seek re-election, the brazen approach is certainly counter-productive in the light of the prevailing political developments in the country.
The source recalled that apart from easing out former governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola of Osun State as national secretary, Bode Mustapha, as auditor-general and former Ekiti State governor, Segun Oni, as vice-chairman of the PDP, South-west zone, the PDP in Ogun State had also been taken away from Obasanjo and handed over to someone regarded as “unrepentantly anti-Obasanjo”, Mr. Buruji Kashamu.
Worthy of note, the source mentioned, was that Obasanjo didn’t take kindly, the way Jonathan took his position on the issue of insecurity, especially when the President was reported as saying he would not handle the issue of terrorism the military way, alluding to Obasanjo’s invasion of Odi and Zaki Biam.
Another instance, according to the source, was that Obasanjo sometime ago visited one of his farms in Cross River State and observed that the road to the farm was in deplorable state.
“So, Baba expressed his disappointment to the Cross River State governor on the state of the road but the man replied and said it was the President that had not approved of it being a federal road.
“Right there, Baba called the president and narrated his encounter with the governor and told the president that he had appealed to the governor to go ahead with the road and that he’ll be reimbursed by the president, to which Jonathan was said to have replied in the affirmative.
“But Baba was later shocked to hear that the president had sent for the governor and dressed him down for what he considered ‘reporting him to Baba’. So, these are some of the things that people do not know that are annoying Baba. If not for these infractions, the source said, “Baba was not and never would have been against the president because of the role he played in his emergence. It is depressing for Baba.”
