Former Ekiti State governor Kayode Fayemi has said he would have become Nigeria’s president if he had not stepped down for President Bola Tinubu ahead of the 2023 election.
Mr Fayemi made the statement during an interview on State Affairs, a podcast hosted by Edmund Obilo and published on YouTube on Thursday.
During the interview, the host suggested that Fayemi could have emerged president if he had remained in the race. Responding to the remark, the former governor answered in the affirmative.
Fayemi was among aspirants who contested the presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) before stepping down for President Tinubu ahead of the party’s primary election in 2022.
Speaking further in the interview, President Fayemi also recalled how he persuaded Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi to greet Tinubu during the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican in May.
According to him, he and Mr Obi attended the ceremony as Catholics and were seated a few rows behind Tinubu.
Fayemi said Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu first approached them to exchange greetings, after which he suggested to Obi that they should also greet the president.
“Peter, please let us go,” Fayemi said he told Obi.
He added that Obi was initially worried the meeting could be misrepresented in the media but later agreed to join him.
Fayemi said Tinubu responded jokingly when they approached him.
“The president is quick-witted,” he said. “He immediately retorted, ‘Kayode, what are you saying? I should be the one welcoming you because I am the leader of the Nigerian delegation.’”
According to Fayemi, Obi then acknowledged Tinubu as the leader of the Nigerian delegation and thanked him for attending the inauguration.
The former governor also recently compared Tinubu’s handling of fuel subsidy removal with that of former president Goodluck Jonathan.
Speaking at the Oxford Global Think Tank Leadership Conference in Abuja, Fayemi said Jonathan failed to remove fuel subsidy because he could not withstand political pressure, despite support from some governors at the time.
He, however, commended Tinubu for removing the subsidy at the start of his administration despite criticism and economic challenges that followed.
