By Jelili Gbadamosi
Phrank Shaibu, Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has claimed that Atiku played a key role in ensuring President Bola Tinubu retained his position as Lagos State governor during the political upheavals of 2003.
Shaibu said Atiku intervened when former President Olusegun Obasanjo was allegedly determined to dislodge the Alliance for Democracy (AD) from its stronghold in the South-West.
According to him, Tinubu was the only one of the six AD governors in the region who survived the political offensive that year, and this was because Atiku persuaded Obasanjo to spare Lagos.
Tinubu governed Lagos State between 1999 and 2007 on the platform of the AD.
His administration later became embroiled in a dispute with the Obasanjo government following the creation of 37 additional Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) by Lagos State.
The Federal Government withheld the state’s statutory allocations over the creation of the councils, insisting that Lagos should revert to the original 20 local government areas.
The dispute eventually reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that the withholding of the state’s allocations was unlawful. Despite the judgment, the funds remained withheld until they were eventually released during the administration of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.
Shaibu, in a post on X on Friday, said the political circumstances surrounding Tinubu’s survival in 2003 should not be overlooked in assessing the relationship between Atiku and the President.
He argued that Obasanjo’s campaign against the AD was aimed at weakening the party’s dominance in the South-West, noting that five of its six governors lost their seats.
“President Olusegun Obasanjo was determined to break the Alliance for Democracy’s control of the South-West,” Shaibu said.
He added that Tinubu’s survival was not accidental, alleging that Atiku intervened and persuaded Obasanjo to leave Lagos out of the political offensive.
Shaibu further claimed that the intervention enabled Tinubu to secure a second term as governor, describing the episode as a significant part of the political history of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic.
He said the historical account was important amid attempts to portray the past relationship between Atiku and Tinubu differently for present political reasons.
“History may be inconvenient, but it does not disappear because its beneficiary now finds it politically embarrassing,” Shaibu stated.
