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Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says he rejected a suggestion to back former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, as his successor at the end of his tenure in 2007. Obasanjo disclosed this yesterday during the second edition of the Ajibosin Platform Annual Symposium in Abeokuta, Ogun State. He said that he rejected the idea because he was convinced El-Rufai was not yet mature enough to handle the responsibilities of leading the country, adding that former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, recommended the former Kaduna State governor as his possible successor. Chidoka was the keynote speaker at the event. He was recounting how El-Rufai introduced him to Obasanjo at the age of 34 when the former president interrupted his remarks and provided detailed information. “Let him tell you. He didn’t mention that. He was pushing when I was leaving government that his friend, El-Rufai, should be brought in as my successor. No be so? “I did not yield to the pressure. Later, I suggested this person, why didn’t you agree?’ I said El-Rufai needs to mature. You remember? “When I left government and, many years later, he saw the performances of El-Rufai, he came back to me and said, ‘You’re absolutely correct. El-Rufai needed to mature,’” Obasanjo recalled. OBJ, as the former president is fondly called, took time off to commend Chidoka, El-Rufai, and other members of his former team. He described them as individuals with “special attributes” that contributed to his administration’s achievements. Obasanjo noted that character, exposure, experience, and training are essential qualities for those in public service when he spoke on leadership, “It’s only in politics that I found out there is no training for leadership. Even among armed robbers, I was told there is an apprenticeship. But it’s only in politics that there is no training in leadership. That’s not good enough,” he said. Read Also: Tuggar hails Tinubu on election of two Nigerians at gas exporting forum In his keynote address, Chidoka said: “Leadership finds its true measure not in speeches or charisma but in the systems it leaves behind. “Moral conviction must translate into the everyday machinery of governance—rules, routines, and institutions that make competence predictable and corruption difficult. “Nigeria’s problem has never been a shortage of ideas; it is the absence of systems strong enough to outlive their authors. “We must therefore make leadership accountable not to rhetoric but to results: measure by building national dashboards and accountability systems that track every promise, every budget, every outcome. Monitor by strengthening the institutions that evaluate government performance and expose complacency.” El-Rufai was one of the key figures in Obasanjo’s government from 1999 to 2007. He initially served as the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises and later as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory.
