Forget it, Obasanjo and Buhari will never be cool again

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammadu Buhari have a relationship that you really can’t understand, hard as you may try.

One minute, they are photographed sharing a laugh, the next, a bitter letter has gone out from one of the parties.

One minute, Obasanjo is in Buhari’s office for a continental assignment, the next minute he’s calling Buhari a failure.

Not even Tom and Jerry had us this confounded.

Actually, Obasanjo and Buhari used to be cool.

Both men played huge roles in weaving Nigeria’s sorry history after independence. Buhari was military president in the ‘80s; just a few months after Obasanjo handed over the reins of power to an irredeemably flawed Shehu Shagari.

As young army officers back in the day, they rolled in similar circles, dined in the same restaurants and probably eyed the same women.

When Obasanjo returned as civilian president in 1999, one of his first tasks was to disband the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) which Buhari had overseen from 1994 to 1999. Was this where trouble started for both men? Was this the point where it went downhill? No one is quite certain.

Interestingly, Buhari sought Obasanjo’s blessings in the run up to the 2015 election after Obasanjo had fallen out with the Goodluck Jonathan he helped enthrone.

Obasanjo was a regular guest at Aso Rock in the early days of the Buhari administration and everyone thought they were really chummy until the morning of January 23, 2018 when Obasanjo wrote this very long letter to Buhari, proclaiming the president a failure and a man who is so blinded by ethnic loyalties, Nigeria’s problems have grown worse on his watch.

And then ‘Baba Iyabo’ asked Buhari not to seek reelection in 2019 because he has nothing more to offer.

“Whatever may be the state of President Buhari’s health today, he should neither over-push his luck nor over-tax the patience and tolerance of Nigerians for him, no matter what his self-serving, so-called advisers, who would claim that they love him more than God loves him and that without him, there would be no Nigeria, say.