Former Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose has said he was so provoked by remarks made by former President Olusegun Obasanjo at his 65th birthday celebration that he briefly felt like seizing the microphone and striking him.
Fayose told reporters that the tension began when Obasanjo, speaking at the Lagos event, described their long-running feud and called Fayose “not the best” of his political protégés even as he acknowledged his political achievements. “I was enraged. I felt like taking the mic from Obasanjo’s hand and hitting it on his head. This is being sincere,” he said.
Two weeks before the party, Fayose said, he had resolved to make peace with several political adversaries and reached out to Obasanjo through a mutual friend, Osita, who gave him the former president’s number. He insisted the call was not an apology: “I never called to go and apologise to Baba. I did not offend him. He was the one who removed me from office. If anybody should apologise, it is he.”
Fayose said Obasanjo welcomed him to his home days before the celebration and assured him he would attend despite another engagement in Rwanda. At Obasanjo’s request, Fayose arranged funds for his travel logistics, claiming he changed $20,000 and gave it to the former president. “How can you accept somebody’s money and come and be spitting on that person?” he asked.
According to Fayose, the mood shifted when Obasanjo insisted on speaking last, effectively overriding the prescheduled order and the vice-president’s turn. “Baba said he would be the one to speak last. I became suspicious,” Fayose said. Obasanjo then asked the moderator to call the vice-president (Kashim Shettima) before him and demanded that Fayose and his wife stand beside him while he delivered a speech that lasted “one hour, 14 minutes.”
Fayose described the address as laced with veiled attacks and questioned the propriety of such comments at his birthday. “How do you say such things to a man on his 65th birthday?” he asked. Still, he said he kept his composure “to show maturity—not by age, but by self-respect and out of consideration for the vice-president’s presence.”
He added that his efforts at reconciliation were made “in good conscience,” but Obasanjo’s conduct showed he was not interested in peace. “If I knew this was how it would end, what do I need Obasanjo for? Am I contesting the election? Do I need his validation? No,” Fayose concluded.
