Former President Olusegun Obasanjo pooh-poohed reports of his “reconciliation” with Aare Ona Kakanfo, Gani Adams, saying nothing like that happened at the Lekki residence of Chief Ayo Adebanjo.
A report had said that the “peace meeting” held on Wednesday in Lagos.
But in a swift riposte, Obasamjo, on a statement on his behalf by his spokesperson, Kehinde Akinyemi, said his visit to a Yoruba leader, Ayo Adebanjo, was not a reconciliatory one.
The statement reads: “It is true that I paid a personal visit to Chief Ayo Adebanjo at his residence in Lekki Phase 1 on December 2, 2020 and I met Gani Adams there.
“I have no quarrel with Gani Adams, but for his past way of life, which was not in accord with my standards and principles.
“I have in the past, both in government and out of government, refused to grant Gani’s request to visit me.
“If at all anybody feels I have a quarrel with him or her that needs reconciliation, such reconciliation will, no doubt, take place in my residence in Abeokuta only.”
It would be recalled that in 2001 when Obasanjo was in power, the police arrested Adams, then National Coordinator of the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC).
He was taken into custody more than one year after former Commissioner of Police in Lagos, Mike Okiro, declared him wanted for the alleged murder of Afolabi Amao.
Amao was the Divisional Police Officer of Bariga police station in Lagos at the time.
Adams was also accused of culpability in violent ethnic clashes in the South-West. Authorities insisted the OPC played a major role in the clashes and escalation of the same.
Adams, who still has a huge followership in Yorubaland, was at different times remanded in prisons in Lagos, Abeokuta and Abuja, the nation’s capital. (Additional reports from Newspot)
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