The relationship between President Bola Tinubu and his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, soured before the former took office, according to veteran journalist and columnist Sam Omatseye.
According to Omatseye, Buhari and his cronies planned Tinubu’s downfall because they did not want him to win the presidency.
The columnist said on Edmund Obilo’s podcast State Affairs that the former president was terrified of the former governor of Lagos State and did not want Tinubu to replace him.
“Buhari didn’t want him because he was afraid of him. The people around him didn’t want him. Remember that after Buhari became president, within a year, there was an estrangement between Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Muhammadu Buhari, and the story even went so far as to state that they wanted to remove his pass to the State House. That probably happened or didn’t happen. I’m not sure of that, but that was the level of the estrangement,” he said.
Omatseye, a close friend of Tinubu, claims that Buhari re-became his buddy in order to ensure his reelection after realising that his goal of serving a second term might not be accomplished without Tinubu’s support.
“He knew that if Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not come to his side, his desire for a second term would be difficult because the structure and the genius of Bola Tinubu might immobilize his capacity to get a second term. So he befriended him again for the second term. It was after the second term was guaranteed in an election that he decided to plot against him,” he narrated.
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Omatseye clarified that the schemes against Tinubu included the dismissal of Adams Oshiomhole as the National Chairman of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC).
He said that Oshiomhole, who was thought to be Tinubu’s buddy, was removed as part of a plot to seize control of the party leadership and lessen Tinubu’s clout and influence inside it.
“One of the first things they did was to take over the party structure, that is, the party’s top brands, from him because he found that Adam Oshiomhole was his man. And if Adam Oshiomhole is the head of the party, it will be difficult.
“It was not him alone. Some governors didn’t want that to happen; they didn’t want Asiwaju to still ride high in the party. Of course, the cabal around him and the men around Buhari didn’t want him. So they removed Oshiomhole,” he said.
