3 things we learnt when Buhari met ex president after bitter letter

Maybe we shouldn’t read too much into the meeting between Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammadu Buhari in Addis Ababa, recently.

That meeting and the photo-op that followed, provided enough material for social and mainstream media chatter because it was their first after Obasanjo’s stinker of a letter.

There were enough broad smiles and hearty laughter to go around as present and former leaders posed for the cameras and cracked jokes.

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Here are three things we picked from the images:

1. The old guard has really held Nigeria hostage

In that picture were Obasanjo, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Buhari; who between them have been running Nigeria, dispensing patronage and deciding who governs where, since 1960.

Ibrahim Babangida was perhaps the one noticeable absentee from the images.

These guys haven’t been able to fix Africa’s most populous country since the colonialists fled.

The old guard has really done Nigeria in.

2. Abubakar’s Yoruba ain’t bad at all

There was a moment in that video where Abubakar belted ‘Kilode?’ (What’s the matter?) Obasanjo's way, while trying to get Obasanjo to pose for a picture because 'Baba Iyabo' can really be a handful.

The ‘kilode’ didn’t come across as forced or exotic.

For all we know, Abdulsalami Abubakar’s Yoruba may just be very good.

3. Obasanjo is a natural comedian

I have attended functions where Obasanjo went from one joke to the next, bashing and yabbing everyone in sight.

Standup comedy is really Baba Iyabo’s thing.

For someone who had just written an over three thousand-word letter bashing Buhari, the way he was still able to pull off jokes effortlessly before the president and make the president laugh so hard, was worthy of an Oscar.

In the end, it's just politics and nothing more.

Deal with it.