Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has overtaken his successors in office when it comes to Presidential media chat via Nigeria’s National Television.
By the time he assumed office in the year 1999 when Nigeria returns to democracy President Olusegun Obasanjo conducts monthly Presidential media chat with Nigerian journalists selected from different media organizations.
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Nigerian Tracker Investigation reveals that when Obasanjo was President from 1999 to 2007, his participation on NTA live Presidential media chat overtakes that of President Umaru Musa Yar’adua, President Goodluck Jonathan and now President Muhammadu Buhari.
Why former President Obasanjo was an elder who was senior to all his successors in age and service to the fatherland, one can not tell the reason why his successors including the youngest among them Dr. Goodluck Jonathan cannot conduct the number of Presidential media chats like his benefactor President Olusegun Obasanjo.
But that of late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua may be associated with Ill-Health as the former President spent the only first half of his term attending to medical checks and final hospitalization, that of President Muhammad Buhari is also very rare compared to President Olusegun Obasanjo’s participation in Presidential Media chats.
By the time former President Obasanjo completes his second term in May 2003, by October of that year five months into his second term former President Obasanjo has conducted 36 Presidential media chats.
Even a day to his handover to late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua, former President Obasanjo has conducted Presidential Media chat anchored by the former Director-General of the Nigerian Television Authority,Dr Tonie Eredia, that is on May 28, 2007.
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Some Nigerians who missed the former President recalls with nostalgia how the Former President accused his erstwhile Deputy Atiku Abubakar of disloyalty.
The accusation was triggered by a call from a student of History from the University of Abuja where former President Obasanjo seized the opportunity to descend on his former Deputy Atiku Abubakar.
Nigerian Tracker recalls on that day former President Olusegun Obasanjo was not joined by any journalist during the media chat shown on Nigeria’s Television Authority but joined by former minister of Agriculture Malam Adamu Bello and a former Federal Permanent secretary Dr. Hakeem Baba Ahmad.
Chief Obasanjo who said he was born in March 1937 once revealed on his 80th birthday gathering that he doesn’t even know his real age.
But in his famous three voluminous book MY Watch, Obasanjo said he may have been born in 1934 even though during their days’ age is calculated not based on the birth register but on a season or any famous festive mood that overtake events.
He also said he was born during Ifeoma Market days.
President Muhammad Buhari is the number four President of Nigeria since 1999 and the second Nigerian to rule his country after Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, they came from the same constituency, the military but differ in character and many traits, that is why they may not run the same system even though they operate under the 1999 constitution.
Media analysts and senior Journalists may have the technical know-how of why former President Olusegun Obasanjo overtakes his Predecessors in Presidential media chats.
