Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has described his decision to choose former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as his running mate in the 1999 presidential election as the greatest error of his time in office.
Obasanjo made the disclosure on Friday in Lagos during a fireside conversation with veteran entertainer and activist Charles Oputa, popularly known as Charly Boy, at the unveiling of Charly Boy’s foundation and memoir, 999: A Memoir in Tribute to Late Justice Chukwudifu Oputa.
The former president, who governed Nigeria alongside Atiku from 1999 to 2007, acknowledged that while every leader makes mistakes, selecting Atiku as his deputy remained the one decision he regretted most.
He said the choice would have been different if he had possessed the knowledge he later gained about his former vice president.
A video of the discussion, later shared by iWitnessLive TV on YouTube, showed Obasanjo responding after Charly Boy asked him to identify the biggest mistake of his presidency.
“What I have found in my own life is that mistakes that could have been fatal, God had taken care of them for me,” he stated.
When pressed to mention a specific mistake, Obasanjo replied, “The man I picked as my running mate, my number two. If I had known him as I came to know him later, I would not have picked him.”
Seeking confirmation, Charly Boy asked whether he was referring to Atiku, prompting Obasanjo to respond, “My vice president. I don’t know what name you want to give him, but my vice president, I mean that.”
He stressed that hindsight had changed his perspective on the decision.
“Of course, what I know about him later… I would not have picked him. Thank God that God did not allow his actions and reactions to overwhelm me, divert my focus from Nigeria or harm Nigeria,” he said.
Despite the strained relationship that developed between them, Obasanjo insisted he held no personal grudge against his former deputy.
“There’s no bitterness because he did what he believed he should do, and God did what God had to do, which enabled me to achieve what I was able to achieve,” he added.
The remarks rank among Obasanjo’s strongest public criticisms of his choice of Atiku as vice president, bringing renewed attention to a political rivalry that has influenced Nigeria’s democratic journey for over two decades.
Both men formed Nigeria’s first civilian presidency after the end of military rule in 1999, winning office on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party.
During their early years in government, the Obasanjo-Atiku administration was viewed as a strong political partnership, with Atiku taking key roles in the National Economic Council, the National Council on Privatisation and several economic reform programmes.
The relationship, however, deteriorated significantly during Obasanjo’s second term.
Their fallout deepened after Atiku opposed efforts by supporters of the president to amend the Constitution to permit a third presidential term. The collapse of the proposed amendment in 2006 widened the rift and sparked one of the fiercest political confrontations in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic.
The conflict later moved to the courts after Obasanjo declared Atiku’s office vacant following his defection from the PDP to the then Action Congress ahead of the 2007 general election.
The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the president lacked the constitutional authority to remove an elected vice president, allowing Atiku to complete his tenure.
Since leaving office, the two leaders have repeatedly exchanged allegations bordering on corruption, abuse of office and political betrayal.
In his 2014 memoir, My Watch, Obasanjo accused Atiku of corruption, disloyalty and placing personal ambition above the national interest.
Atiku rejected the claims, accusing his former principal of attempting to rewrite history and portraying himself as the victim of political persecution during the final years of the Obasanjo administration.
Although both politicians briefly reunited ahead of the 2019 presidential election, when Obasanjo backed Atiku’s presidential bid against Muhammadu Buhari, the reconciliation was short-lived, and they soon returned to opposing political camps.
Obasanjo has since remained one of Atiku’s most outspoken critics, consistently urging Nigerians to place competence, integrity and national interest above all else when choosing future leaders.
