Obasanjo & Jonathan Battles Secretly Over 2015: A Big Fight

As political forces begin to align and re-align in preparations for the epic battle in 2015, strong indications have emerged about a fresh battle of supremacy between Goodluck Jonathan and Olusegun Obasanjo.

The relationship between the two leaders has been replete with mutual suspicion and indifference on the part of President Jonathan, largely because he does not want to take any input from Obasanjo who made him Vice President and helped him become President. Obasanjo’s open letter to the president had been seen as the peak of the cold war.

A source close to the former president however said they cannot be idle. “If we are rejected by the PDP we suffered to build because certain elements have found themselves in positions, we will make ourselves relevant by not folding our hands; we cannot be idle and the next elections in Ekiti and Osun will be an example for the PDP in the south-west.” 

This time, the brewing scenario does appear a proxy political war and the battlefront is South-West where most of the former president’s associates have undertaken a covert campaign for the dominant party in the zone, the All Progressives Congress.

Regardless of this development and not ready to take chances, President Jonathan and the PDP leadership have also launched a counter-move. In the new move spear-headed by the president’s strategists, especially some senior members of the party’s elite caucus, the Board of Trustees (BoT), Ondo State governor Dr Olusegun Mimiko and former Oyo State governor Rasheed Ladoja have come under intense pressure to return to their former party, PDP.

“This will checkmate the former president and his men who have launched a very dangerous anti-party project in the south-west,” a senior party official told Leadership.

But the Labour Party (LP), to which both Mimiko and Ladoja belong, has said that the Ondo State governor will not join the ruling PDP.

While it is yet to be seen whether former Osun State governor and erstwhile national secretary of the PDP, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, is pitching tent with his successor, Rauf Aregbesola, former Ekiti State governor Engineer Segun Oni has been linked with reports that he has been in the forefront of the campaign for the re-election of Governor Kayode Fayemi in the June 21 governorship election, both men APC candidates.

Oyinlola and Oni, associates of Obasanjo, were sacked in controversial circumstances as national secretary and zonal chairman of the PDP respectively within two weeks. Appeal Court’s ruling re-instating Oyinlola to his former position has not been respected by Jonathan and his agents till date.