Olusegun Obasanjo shuts up Osinbajo supporters.
Supporters of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday got the biggest shock of their lives.
They received a sharp rebuke from General Olusegun Obasanjo just as they danced and chanted the name of the Vice President at a summit in Abeokuta.
Obviously irritated by attempts to turn the serene environment offered by the Presidential Library into a campaign ground, the former president emerged from the summit, which was going on and shouted down the group of pro – Osinbajo supporters.
Osinbajo has not been as noisy with his ambition to be President. He has literally remained backstage even as his exposure as Vice President by the Presidency has increased.
But his supporters, bouyed by the growing popularity of their principal and demands for him join the presidential race, have of late stepped up their efforts to show what a good president he can be.
At Abeokuta, homestead of Obasanjo, supporters of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, carrying placards, stormed the venue for the Coalition for Democracy in Africa, CoDA, summit.
Their move to drum support for Osinbajo’s presidential ambition drew the ire of the former president.
One account says the Osinbajo crowd may have thought, when the former president emerged from the library complex, that he was approaching their direction to demonstrate solidarity with them.
They were dead wrong. Rather, the former president scolded the daylight out of the crowd, ordering them to shut up.
He sternly told them that the library environment was not cut out for political campaigns.
Observers say the Vice President would have been approached quietly in the hall to disperse his supporters or keep them silent.
But OBJ stormed out of the hall to personally put supporters of Osinbajo in their place.
Obasanjo had declared recently that he has nothing to do with Nigerian politics which he has subtly aspired to dominate after serving his tenure.
His relationship with the Buhari administration remains frosty. Although Osinbajo is a kinsman of the former president, it is possible that he may have been embarrassed as a result.