…Says Former VP Bankrolled Impeachment Bid, Struck Secret Power Deal With Ekwueme to Replace Him
By Emmanuel Olugua
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has reopened one of Nigeria’s most enduring political feuds, accusing his former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, of plotting to remove him from office almost immediately after they assumed power in 1999.
In a scathing open letter to former Ogun State Governor Olusegun Osoba, Obasanjo alleged that the man he elevated from governor to Vice President began laying the groundwork for his ouster from “day one” in office, sponsoring an impeachment campaign while simultaneously pursuing a political succession deal that would have eased him into the presidency.
The former President claimed Atiku secretly mobilised then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Na’Abba, to initiate impeachment proceedings against him, alleging that the Speaker was given ₦5 million to kick-start the process.
According to Obasanjo, the alleged plot unfolded while he was away from the Presidential Villa and was later uncovered by his Chief of Staff, whom he described as a professional intelligence officer.
“I brought him from governorship to Vice President,” Obasanjo wrote. “From the first day as Vice President, he raised campaigners for his presidency.”
The former President said he was neither intimidated nor distracted by the impeachment moves because he believed he had committed no impeachable offence, adding that he deliberately treated the alleged conspiracy with contempt.
Obasanjo further alleged that after the impeachment effort failed, Atiku adopted a second strategy by striking what he described as a secret political understanding with former Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme.
According to him, the plan was for Ekwueme to emerge President and hand over to Atiku in the third year of his administration, while the six Alliance for Democracy (AD) governors in the South-West would enjoy an unchallenged path to re-election in 2003 before backing Atiku’s presidential ambition in 2007.
He claimed the AD governors accepted the proposal without consulting him and were falsely made to believe that he endorsed the arrangement.
Obasanjo described the alleged pact as anti-democratic, insisting that he never authorised or supported such a political deal.
The former President made the revelations while responding to Osoba’s article titled “How Obasanjo Deceived Us in 2003,” dismissing the former governor’s account as inaccurate and insisting that many of the critical political events of the period had been misunderstood or deliberately omitted.
He also defended his decision to work with opposition figures after becoming President, saying his outreach to the Alliance for Democracy and Afenifere was motivated by his belief in national unity rather than political expediency.
Obasanjo recalled maintaining cordial relations with political rivals, including the late Alex Ekwueme during the PDP presidential primaries, and said politics should be about dialogue, inclusion and national development, not bitterness or ethnic considerations.
He also rejected suggestions that he sought accommodation with South-West leaders out of political weakness, arguing that the PDP had already established a dominant national mandate before seeking broader political cooperation.
The latest intervention by the former President is expected to rekindle public debate over the bitter collapse of the Obasanjo-Atiku alliance, a relationship that began with a joint ticket in 1999 but degenerated into one of the fiercest political rivalries in Nigeria’s democratic history.
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