Peter Moses
Abeokuta
Retired Professor of Statistics, Biyi Afonja, yesterday said he turned down former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s overtures to vie for Ogun governorship but the decision now haunts him.
Besides, Afonja said Ogun West senatorial district’s agitation to produce governor since 1976 would have been laid to rest if he had heeded Obasanjo’s call.
Afonja, who revealed this while donating some of his books to Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, Ogun State, said he found it upsetting to return home for governorship struggle after he barely spent a year and half at United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, an excuse, which according to him, didn’t sway Obasanjo.
“An august guest who enjoyed visiting me (in New York) was General Olusegun Obasanjo. On one of his visits, he engaged me in a serious talk about the political situation in Nigeria.
“He pleaded with me to come home and make my contributions possibly by running for the governorship of Ogun State. I tried to make him realize how upsetting it would be for me to return home after spending only about a year at UNDP.
“He couldn’t be persuaded by my argument. I can never forget his parting words. ‘I hope that you will not regret this decision of yours’. Those words continue to haunt me till today.”
He commended Obasanjo’s initiatives of OOPL, describing the former President as “most erudite head of state Nigeria ever had.”
Afonja, who Pro-Chancellor and Chairman, Governing Council of Olabisi
Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago-Iwoye, explained the need to contribute to the development to OOPL spurred him to make books donation.
Responding, Obasanjo thanked Afonja for the donation, saying the need to keep institutional memory made him to establish OOPL, a first of its kind in Africa.
Obasanjo said it is high time Nigeria kept institutional memory to “shape our present and the future”, adding that “we must not allow our past to hurt us.”
Corroborating Afonja’s position, Obasanjo admitted that he called on the retired professor to vie for governor, but added that “Only God knows what would have happened if you agreed to contest.”
