Obasanjo restates importance of national agenda ahead of 2023 polls

A former president Chief Olusegun Obasanjo says he has no preferred candidate for the 2022 presidential election but a national agenda for the country.

Obasanjo made the declaration when he paid a visit to former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar at the Uphill in Minna, Niger State on Sunday.

“I don’t have a special candidate,” he said. “I have a national agenda”.

Continuing, he said: “I have come to see my brother who was a bit indisposed and when he was abroad I had wanted to visit him, and the day I arrived in London to visit him was the day he left.”

The statesmen earlier had a closed-door meeting which lasted for about 30 minutes.

Sunday’s event is the latest in a series of recent meetings Obasanjo has had with notable personalities and politicians.

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Earlier in the month, Obasanjo hosted the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Bola Tinubu at his Abeokuta, Ogun State residence, a meeting he described as “more brotherly than political”.

Days after that, he met with Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi in London, UK. Details of the meeting were not disclosed but reports suggest that discussions at the event were centred on next year’s poll.

Following the meeting, Governor Wike re-echoed Obasanjo’s comment, saying his consultations – including a meeting with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential flagbearer Atiku Abubakar – are in Nigeria’s interest.

“What we are talking about is for the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians. It is not a parochial thing – being centred on a person or group of persons,” the governor said Friday at the VIP Lounge of the Port Harcourt International Airport following his arrival in the country.

“We believe that what is going on will be in the interest of Nigerians at the end of the day. Consultation is still ongoing. Nothing we have said now has been concretised. Discussions are going on.”