Salihijo: The Man Obasanjo Didn’t Choose

Only a handful of people remember who Salihijo Ahmad was. He never really got involved in politics and passed away in July 1999, the second month of Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency.

Before the transition to democratic rule, Ahmad had amassed wealth and influence as the consultant who ran the Petroleum Trust Fund, established by Sani Abacha and headed by Muhammadu Buhari.

Even less known is that a powerful clique within the Nigerian elite lobbied to have Salihijo Ahmad named as the running mate of the newly formed PDP’s presidential candidate ahead of the election that saw Olusegun Obasanjo elected.

Events from 1999 have been coming up a lot lately. Most are centred around President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who were both in power between 1999 and 2007.

The present APC government of President Bola Tinubu is loving every minute of the public feud between the two octogenarians, who are determined to shape their own legacies.

The competing narratives have been about the role different politicians played in building the coalition that delivered the PDP presidential ticket to Obasanjo at the convention held in Jos, Plateau State, the alleged scheming and treachery that followed, and why so much of the narrative centres around the dead.

It all started two weeks ago with Obasanjo writing a letter to Olusegun Osoba in response to the former governor’s autobiography, Battlelines: Adventures in Journalism and Politics, which was published as far back as 2018.

In the book, Osoba accused Obasanjo of employing deceit to rig AD governors out of power in 2003. In response, Obasanjo named Atiku as the true villain who bribed then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Na’Abba, to impeach the president.

In return, an ADC chieftain, Aare Amerijoye DOT. B, responded to Obasanjo in an article that questioned the former president’s motives and referred to the role Atiku played in delivering the PDP ticket to Obasanjo at the party’s convention held in Jos, Plateau State, some 27 years ago.

He also revealed that Atiku donated N100 million to the Obasanjo campaign, suggesting that money—not just the PDM faction of the PDP—was a factor in determining who got the nod for vice president.

The Nation newspaper has since republished the relevant pages from Adventures in Journalism and Politics. It has also published Aare Amerijoye DOT. B’s open letter to Obasanjo.

The open letter hasn’t stopped Obasanjo. He has gone further, describing his choice of Atiku as his running mate as his biggest regret.

That is where Salihijo Ahmad, who was from Adamawa in the Northeast, comes into the picture in the present battle between Obasanjo and Atiku to tar each other’s faces with faeces.

Salihijo also made a significant donation to the Obasanjo campaign. He donated N70 million, which, in 1999, was worth millions of dollars.

Twenty years later, the same clique that promoted him as a possible running mate to Obasanjo had his son named CEO of the Rural Electrification Agency. But, by Obasanjo’s own admission of regret, wisdom and foresight failed him in choosing a vice president.