Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed that he once turned down a proposal to endorse former Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister and ex-Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, as his successor at the end of his administration in 2007, citing El-Rufai’s “lack of maturity” at the time.
Obasanjo made the disclosure while speaking at the second edition of the Ajibosin Platform Annual Symposium held in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
The former president said the idea was suggested by former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, who had been introduced to him years earlier by El-Rufai when Chidoka was 34.
“Let him tell you,” Obasanjo teased. “He didn’t mention that when I was leaving government, he was pushing that his friend, El-Rufai, should succeed me.”
When Chidoka nodded in agreement, Obasanjo continued, “I did not yield to the pressure. Later, he asked why, and I told him El-Rufai needed to mature. Years later, after watching his performance, he came back and said, ‘You were absolutely correct—El-Rufai needed to mature.’”
Speaking further, the former president lamented the lack of structured training for leadership in Nigerian politics.
“It’s only in politics that I found there’s no training for leadership. Even among armed robbers, I’m told there’s apprenticeship. But in politics, there’s none, and that’s not good enough,” he said.
In his keynote address, Chidoka emphasized that true leadership is measured not by charisma or speeches but by the strength of the systems it leaves behind.
“Nigeria’s problem has never been a lack of ideas but the absence of systems strong enough to outlive their authors,” he said. “We must build accountability mechanisms—national dashboards that track every promise, every budget, and every outcome.”
