Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has described his decision to pick former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as his running mate in the 1999 presidential election as the greatest mistake he made while in office.

The elder statesman made the declaration on Friday during a fireside chat with Charles Oputa, popularly known as Charly Boy, at the unveiling of the Charly Boy Foundation and his memoir, 999: A Memoir in Tribute to Late Justice Chukwudifu Oputa.

The statement comes amid renewed hostilities between the former leaders, who had previously reconciled after a turbulent relationship during their second term in office between 2003 and 2007. Although the pair had resolved their rift, with Atiku dining at the hilltop mansion of Obasanjo in Abeokuta, the political atmosphere ahead of the 2027 general elections has reopened old wounds.

Obasanjo had earlier accused Atiku of bribing the late former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Na'Abba, to initiate impeachment proceedings against him, while also attributing the 2003 electoral defeat of South-West governors to their alignment with his former deputy.

Responding to the allegations, Atiku, who is a leading presidential contender in the upcoming election, claimed that while Obasanjo pretended to support Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, he was secretly paving the way for his South-West kinsman, President Bola Tinubu, who is seeking re-election.

Appearing to respond directly to Atiku, Obasanjo stated during the Lagos event that his choice of running mate in 1999 remained his biggest executive misstep.

Reflecting on his leadership, Obasanjo said, “What I have found in my own life is that what could have been all my life, mistakes that could have been fatal, God had taken care of them for me,”.

When asked by Charly Boy to identify one specific mistake while in government, Obasanjo stated, “Mistake when I was in government. The man I picked as my running mate, my number two, if I had known him as I came to know him later, I would not have picked him.”

Asked by Charly Boy, “Are you talking about Atiku?”, the former President replied, “My vice president. I don’t know what name you want to give him, but my vice president, I mean that.”

He added, “If I had known him as I came to know him later, I would not have picked him. Thank God his actions and reactions did not to overwhelm me or divert my own focus from Nigeria. There is no bitterness, he did things he believed he should do and God did things he needed to do which enabled me to achieve what I was able to achieve.”

During the chat, Obasanjo also reflected on the Nigerian Civil War, rejecting assertions that the conflict constituted genocide and maintaining that the military operations were intended to safeguard national unity.

He stated, “The civil war was traumatic to all Nigerians. It hurt some maybe a little bit harder than others, depending on where, but the civil war was bad for all Nigerians,”.

The former military head of state explained that deliberate measures were taken during the campaign to avoid civilian harm, citing the military operations in Imo State as an example.

Obasanjo noted, “I did not drop a single bomb inside Owerri, because it would be destructive, it would have killed innocent civilians. I dropped my bombs short of Owerri and beyond Owerri, to warn people that we are coming home,”.