The Presidency on Wednesday said the claims by the former president Olusegun Obasanjo that he was not invited for the country’s Democracy Day celebrations were not true. “The claim that he was not invited or he did not receive an invitation cannot be sustained,” Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, said in a statement. Although all Nigeria’s living former heads of state and presidents including Obasanjo failed to attend the inaugural June 12 Democracy Day celebration which held at the Eagle Square, Abuja, it is still unclear why all were absent. The former president fell apart with President Muhammadu Buhari ahead of the 2019 general elections and endorsed the president’s closest rival and his estranged vice president, Atiku Abubakar. Abubakar, who served as vice president to Obasanjo between 1999 and 2007, was the flagbearer of the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 election.

Source: The Guardian June 19, 2019 21:45 UTC