What Obasanjo told Jonathan: The inside story

The meeting with Obasanjo, which had two prominent religious leaders, Pastor Enoch Adeboye and Bishop David Oyedepo in attendance, produced more than what the President bargained for, as he asked both clerics to beg ‘Baba’, as Obasanjo is called. Weekly Trust gathered that the meeting date was fixed after consulting both parties. According to sources, […]

The meeting with Obasanjo, which had two prominent religious leaders, Pastor Enoch Adeboye and Bishop David Oyedepo in attendance, produced more than what the President bargained for, as he asked both clerics to beg ‘Baba’, as Obasanjo is called.
Weekly Trust gathered that the meeting date was fixed after consulting both parties. According to sources, it was President Jonathan who first made moves for reconciliation after series of salvos against Obasanjo, the latest being the move through courts which stopped sale and circulation of the ex-president’s memoirs ‘My Watch’.
The book, according to Ogun-East senatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Buruji Kashamu, who instituted the suit, contained sections which rubbished the president’s administration and his (Kashamu’s) drugs-related case in the United States of America.
While the cat-and-mouse game went on, Jonathan had been sending emissaries to Obasanjo, but some days to Christmas, he personally put a call through and Baba told him what it would take to receive him, to prevent past instances where the duo were misrepresented in the media through presidential aides.
Basking in the residual euphoria of an earlier visit to former President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), Jonathan agreed to the condition of coming along with a respected Nigerian and a man of God.
So the meeting eventually held last Tuesday, in the inner chamber of Obasanjo’s living room. After Jonathan had made his mission known – which is to seek forgiveness and support ahead of the election – Obasanjo bared his mind on the current administration’s shortcomings, including insecurity, the PDP’s drama and the economy. At this stage, Obasanjo called in some of his former allies in the PDP who had defected to the opposition, in the person of ex-governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, also a former national secretary of the party.
Obasanjo asked Oyinlola: “Which party are you in now?” The response was a prompt “APC”. Both clerics present, Adeboye and Oyedepo were bewildered.
Sources say RCCG Overseer, Pastor Adeboye, summed the meeting up by saying that the president will continue to get his prayers, but on the matter at hand, it was obvious that mum is the word.
An insider revealed that after the meeting, at about 10:00pm, Jonathan took a rear exit gate and zoomed out of the complex, leaving newshounds guessing.