Phrank Shaibu, the senior special assistant to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has claimed that Atiku personally intervened in 2003 to protect Bola Tinubu from a political offensive by then President Olusegun Obasanjo that removed five Alliance for Democracy (AD) governors from the South-West.
Shaibu made the claim in a social media post on Friday, September 11, as Atiku campaigns for the presidency under the African Democratic Congress (ADC) ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Shaibu's Account of the 2003 South-West Political Crisis
According to Shaibu, Obasanjo was determined to dismantle the AD's grip on the South-West during the 2003 elections. That effort succeeded in five of the six states the party controlled, but Lagos was different. Tinubu, who was then serving his first term as Lagos governor, held on while his counterparts in the other states were swept aside.
Shaibu argued that Lagos did not survive by chance. In his account, Atiku drew the line at Lagos, persuading Obasanjo to leave Tinubu out of the political campaign targeting the region. That intervention, Shaibu said, secured Tinubu's second term as governor.
He wrote: "When the Obasanjo political machine was determined to finish the AD across the South-West, Atiku drew the line at Lagos. He stood between Tinubu and the same political fate that befell the other five AD governors, and that intervention preserved Tinubu's second term."
Historical Context and Atiku's 2027 Presidential Bid
Shaibu framed the episode as one of the defining moments of Nigeria's Fourth Republic and challenged any attempt to revise the historical record for political purposes. He added: "History may be inconvenient, but it does not disappear because its beneficiary now finds it politically embarrassing."
The post did not name anyone directly as attempting to rewrite the events of 2003, but the framing suggested it was a response to narratives about the relationship between Tinubu and Atiku that Shaibu considers inaccurate.
Atiku, who served as Vice President under Obasanjo from 1999 to 2007, is now running for the presidency on the ADC platform for the 2027 general elections.
Obasanjo's Counterclaims and Related Reporting
Legit.ng earlier reported that former President Olusegun Obasanjo fired back at ex-Ogun Governor Segun Osoba over his account of the political events before the 2003 general elections. Obasanjo alleged that former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar secretly worked to block his re-election and masterminded an impeachment plot during his first term.
The former President revealed the name of the then House of Representatives Speaker, whom he claimed received money from Atiku to begin impeachment proceedings.
