Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has made serious allegations against his former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, claiming that Atiku actively bankrolled an impeachment plot against him during their first term in office between 1999 and 2003. In a sweeping statement issued in response to recent public claims made by former Ogun State Governor Olusegun Osoba, Obasanjo rejected accusations that he deceived political leaders of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) ahead of the 2003 general elections. Instead, the former Nigerian leader chose to shed light on the intense intra-party friction and constitutional battles that defined his first administration, revealing that the drive to remove him from office was initiated within the executive branch by his own deputy.
According to Obasanjo, the former Vice-President took advantage of an occasion when the President was away from the office on a Friday to convene a private meeting with the late Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Umar Na’Abba. During this meeting, Atiku reportedly persuaded Na’Abba that Obasanjo should be restricted to serving only a single term in office. Obasanjo alleged that to kickstart the legislative machinery for the impeachment process, Atiku provided Na’Abba with financial backing in the sum of N5 million. The former president disclosed that his administration’s intelligence network promptly intercepted, recorded, and reported the exchange through his Chief of Staff, whom he described as a highly trained professional intelligence officer.
Reflecting on his reaction to the political maneuver at the time, Obasanjo stated that he treated the impeachment proceedings with utter contempt because he was confident that he had committed no impeachable offense under the 1999 Constitution. He accused his former deputy of attempting to seize control of the presidency by hook or by crook after launching an early presidential campaign from the very start of their tenure. Obasanjo further alleged that when the initial impeachment push in the National Assembly failed to unseat him, Atiku initiated a strategic two-track approach to secure the presidency in subsequent election cycles.
Detailing this alleged strategy, Obasanjo claimed that Atiku sought a political alliance with former Vice-President Alex Ekwueme, with an agreement that Ekwueme would hand over power to Atiku in the third year of his presidency. Concurrently, Obasanjo alleged that Atiku engaged with the six South-West governors belonging to the Alliance for Democracy, proposing a deal in which opposition parties would refrain from challenging the AD governors in the 2003 governorship polls in exchange for their backing of Atiku’s presidential ambition in 2007. Obasanjo criticized Osoba and other AD leaders for falling for what he characterized as an anti-democratic plot, asserting that the defeat of five AD governors in the 2003 elections was the result of local political dynamics and weak campaigning rather than federal interference or deception on his part.
The former president maintained that his outreach to opposition figures and South-West leaders during his first term was intended to foster national cohesion and governance stability rather than political manipulation. He noted that after assuming power in 1999, his administration appointed defeated governorship candidates from the South-West into key federal positions and sought dialogue with prominent Afenifere leaders like Chief Abraham Adesanya to build a government of national unity. Rebuffing Osoba’s allegations that the Yoruba leadership was hoodwinked, Obasanjo urged his political contemporaries to approach historical accounts with humility and accuracy.
The revelations add a dramatic chapter to the long-standing political feud between Obasanjo and Atiku, whose public fallouts severely impacted the ruling Peoples Democratic Party during their second term from 2003 to 2007. Over the years, both figures have traded accusations regarding corruption, legislative inducement, and constitutional breaches during the Fourth Republic. While Atiku and representatives of the late Na’Abba have previously denied receiving bribes to institute legislative proceedings, Obasanjo’s detailed recollection highlights how deeply rooted the power struggles were within the executive branch during Nigeria's early transition back to democratic rule.
