{"id":36240,"date":"2021-02-01T14:50:33","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T14:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/?p=36240"},"modified":"2021-02-01T12:32:46","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T12:32:46","slug":"why-i-supported-yaradua-in-2007-despite-ailment-obasanjo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/why-i-supported-yaradua-in-2007-despite-ailment-obasanjo","title":{"rendered":"Why I supported Yar\u2019Adua in 2007 despite ailment \u2013 Obasanjo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\">Nigeria<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that he was aware of the late President Musa Yar\u2019Adua\u2019s health challenges before supporting him to emerge presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2007.<\/p>\n<p>Obasanjo stated this on Sunday during a virtual interview with academic and historian, Toyin Falola.<\/p>\n<p>The former president said his actions were based on advice from medical expert that the late president was medically fit.<\/p>\n<p>Recall that barely 3 years after his victory at the poll in 2007, Yar\u2019Adua died in office in May 2010 due to kidney failure.<\/p>\n<p>Nigerians had several times accused the former president of always supporting weak candidates for selfish reasons.<\/p>\n<p>Recall also that Obasanjo was a key supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari during the 2015 general election against the then incumbent president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.<\/p>\n<p>Being a great opinion leader, Obasanjo was able to influence Buhari\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n<p>Buhari also took ill in 2016\/2017 leaving his seat almost vacant for medical attention in London.<\/p>\n<p>Obasanjo, however, stressed that he had no deliberate intension to support weak candidates as alleged by some Nigerians.<\/p>\n<p>According to him: \u201cLet me tell you the story of Umaru Yar\u2019adua. I knew he was ill and before I put him forward, I asked for his medical report which he sent to me and I sent it to one of the best doctors of our time and a good friend of mine who died only last year \u2013Professor Akinkugbe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI said look at it because it is confidential and he said to me that from this report, this man has had a kidney transplant and it is successful, he is no longer under dialysis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd if you have a kidney transplant and it is successful, it is as good as if you didn\u2019t have a kidney transplant at all. I accepted that and Umaru Yar\u2019adua contested within the party and he contested within the country and came up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWithin a couple of days, he came back and reported that he was checked up and he was well\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Obasanjo expressed hope that God would vindicate him and judge those accusing him of selfishness in his political engagements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that he was aware of the late President Musa Yar\u2019Adua\u2019s health challenges before supporting him to emerge presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2007. Obasanjo stated this on Sunday during a virtual interview with academic and historian, Toyin Falola. The former president said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":36239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,28,14,26],"tags":[1570,2140,254,479,2774],"class_list":["post-36240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-nigeria-2","tag-nigeria","tag-obasanjo","tag-yaradua"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why I supported Yar\u2019Adua in 2007 despite ailment \u2013 Obasanjo - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that he was aware of the late President Musa Yar\u2019Adua\u2019s health challenges be ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/why-i-supported-yaradua-in-2007-despite-ailment-obasanjo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why I supported Yar\u2019Adua in 2007 despite ailment \u2013 Obasanjo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that he was aware of the late President Musa Yar\u2019Adua\u2019s health challenges be ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/why-i-supported-yaradua-in-2007-despite-ailment-obasanjo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-02-01T14:50:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2021\/02\/img-6017f4cb58a0f.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/why-i-supported-yaradua-in-2007-despite-ailment-obasanjo#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/why-i-supported-yaradua-in-2007-despite-ailment-obasanjo\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Why I supported Yar\u2019Adua in 2007 despite ailment \u2013 Obasanjo\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-02-01T14:50:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/why-i-supported-yaradua-in-2007-despite-ailment-obasanjo\"},\"wordCount\":369,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/why-i-supported-yaradua-in-2007-despite-ailment-obasanjo#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2021\/02\/img-6017f4cb58a0f.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Nigeria\",\"Nigeria\",\"Obasanjo\",\"yaradua\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"Policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/why-i-supported-yaradua-in-2007-despite-ailment-obasanjo#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/why-i-supported-yaradua-in-2007-despite-ailment-obasanjo\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/why-i-supported-yaradua-in-2007-despite-ailment-obasanjo\",\"name\":\"Why I supported Yar\u2019Adua in 2007 despite ailment \u2013 Obasanjo - 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