By DAPO FALADE
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has disclosed that former Oyo State governor, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, contributed immensely to the failure of the South-West to produce the Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2011.
The former president made the disclosure in his remarks at the public presentation and launch of the autobiography of the former governor, “Amazing Grace”, held at the Trenchard Hall, University of Ibadan, on Thursday.
He accused Alao-Akala of duplicity in the event that led to the emergence of Honourables Saubana Muraina Akinola and Mulikat Adeola Akande as the two contenders for the speakership slot and the eventual loss of the post to Honourable Aminu Waziri Tambuwal who is from the North-West.
However, Alao-Akala said he was just a victim of the disagreement between Obasanjo and former President Goodluck Jonathan over the choice of the Speaker of the lower chamber of the National Assembly in 2011.
Obasanjo, while speaking at the public presentation, said the claim of Alao-Akala, as contained on pages 391 and 392 of the book, is not correct and accused the former governor of complicity in the failure of the South-West to get the post.
Alao-Akala had claimed in the book that, he sinned against Obasanjo whom he said is his mentor and that the offence “has marred our fantastic relationship.”
Absolving himself of any blame, he accused former President Jonathan of selling out the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), adding that the act of the former president compromised the party’s majority status in the two chambers of the National Assembly.
However, Obasanjo debunked the claims of the former governor of Oyo State, declaring that they are not the correct situation of things that led to the failure of the South-West to clinch the speakership position.
Obasanjo, who is unarguably the most read former Nigerian president, said he would not want to dwell much on the issue of who, between Muraina and Mulikat was designated to be the Speaker.
He said: “Bayo, I will not say much on the issue of Muraina and Mulikat for Speaker of House of Representatives as reported on page 391 as you put it, “I sinned against this man once and that has marred our fantastic relationship”.
“The story as you put it down is not correct. You proposed Muraina for the job and we all accepted him for the South-West and started to work.
“As a result, the then National Vice-Chairman of PDP, Alhaji Tajudeen Oladipo, wrote to the then Acting Chairman of PDP, Alhaji Haliru Mohammed Bello, on 12 May 2011 to put forward Muraina. “I got a copy of that letter as the Chair of BOT of PDP.
“It was unbelievable for me to hear that you later surreptitiously started prompting Mulikat, a lady from Ogbomoso, and you had started working behind the scene for her without coming back to tell me what had changed and why, nor go back to the South-West Caucus.
“Iwo lo pe ole ko wa ja, Iwo lo pe oloko ko wa so oko (literally meaning it was you who called the thief to come and steal and it was you who also called the owner of the farm).That, to me, is duplicity and I don’t play such a game.
Alhaji Tajudeen Oladipo told me later the game that was played and in the end, you and the South-West were the losers. But you have apologised and I have forgiven and, of course, I am here. That too has also passed into history.
“I cherish history because to forget history is like losing one’s memory, in which case, you will not remember what you ate last night.
“History is a conglomeration of biographies. And without history, we lose the past with all the record of events. History, no matter how expansive never captures all events.
“But biographies are even more limited and narrower and greatly subjective. And the caution may be, “readers beware!”
“Although biography is neither a definitive nor an entirely reliable window into the past, without biography there could be no human history.
“Biography may be highly selective, sometimes haphazard, frequently idiosyncratic collections of memories assembled and arranged to make sense of a person’s or a people’s place in time and space.”
The former president was, however, of praises and commendations for the former Oyo governor for having the boldness and creating the time to write a book about himself.
“I find this book easily readable and I will recommend it to practitioners of politics and students and teachers of politics and Political Science in all educational institutions.
“Finally, Bayo, this is a good effort for which I, once again, commend and congratulate you. You have had opportunity to serve, you have served to the best of your ability. You have kept as best as you could recollect, records of events as you wish to present them.
“It has become part of history and let others contend. And you are already a maker of history. Well done and, once again, congratulations,” he said.
Alao-Akala, however insisted on his innocence as he wrote in his book: “I was caught in-between the disagreement between him [Obasanjo] and President Jonathan over the choice of Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2011.
“The contender the president [Jonathan] supported was Honourable Mulikat Adeola who came from my constituency. I assisted her into the House of Representatives in the same manner Chief Obasanjo helped me to be governor in 2007.
“I was in my office one day when President Jonathan sent a plane to convey certain South-West stakeholders to Abuja. The vice chairman, South-West PDP, Alhaji Tajudeen Oladipo, led us to the president.
“It was there in the Villa that Jonathan told us that he wanted Honourable Mulikat Adeola to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
“This, I believed, was due to his position on gender parity which he had promised the women during his campaign or that his wife, the First Lady, Patience, influenced it.
“That way, he was already at loggerheads with Chief Obasanjo who had tipped Honourable Saubana Muraina Ajibola for the same post.
“Jonathan did not take into consideration the North’s aversion to women leadership which had earlier brought down Mrs Olubunmi Etteh’s speakership of the seventh Assembly.
“Chief Obasanjo, on the other hand, was aware of this and he preferred Honourable Muraina, a Muslim male, to Honourable Mulikat Adeola Akande, a Muslim female, both from the South-West, for the Speaker slot.
“At the Villa meeting, Jonathan enjoined the South-West stakeholders to tidy things up and that all those gunning for the Office of the Speaker should withdraw and that Adeola was the party’s and the Presidency’s choice.
“If I were to have a say at that Villa meeting, I would have insisted that Honourable Muraina be slated earlier at the South-West Caucus meeting as the Speaker, but I did not have the say.
“The president was handing out instructions. So I had to align with what the president called the party’s choice. Or could I have gone against the president’s order right inside the Villa?
“Immediately we left the Villa, we converged at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja where we held a meeting and announced Honourable Mulikat Adeola Akande for the Speaker candidature, and we implored Muraina to step down.
“We all agreed as South-West stakeholders on that choice. Right from the Villa, we came to meet Chief Obasanjo and told him exactly what happened. But he did not agree with me that I did not scheme for Mulikat on account of the fact that she was from my constituency.
“No, there was nothing like that, but Chief Obasanjo held that I met with Jonathan behind the scenes to artfully scuttle his arrangement in which Muraina was to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
“Unfortunately for me, Adeola Akande did not even show the courtesy of visiting Chief Obasanjo, not to talk of explaining things to him. At least, that would have assisted my exoneration. She probably thought she owe the Presidency the gratitude and not Chief Obasanjo.
“So, I found it difficult, if not impossible, to convince him that I was not the one who propped up Adeola for the speakership.
“Unfortunately, because of lack of unanimity in the PDP, particularly in the South-West faction, the speakership was snatched from us and the North-West got it, instead. Honourable Aminu Waziri Tambuwal emerged as the Speaker.
“As I have said earlier, that was only made possible by Jonathan’s sell-out of the PDP which compromised the party’s majority in the two Chambers of the National Assembly.
“The [defunct] Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), for instance, had made gains against the PDP in 2011 and diminished the overall PDP majority in the National Assembly.
“The party (PDP) won a reduced majority. That made the opposition to grow in strength and, consequently, they had what it took to alter the balance.
“Tambuwal only needed a few disgruntled members of the PDP to join forces with the opposition to stage the hijack of the speakership.”
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