Former Senate President, Anyim Pius Ayim has said that he has no issue with former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The former Ebonyi lawmaker who succeeded Chuba Okadigbo as the Senate President in August 2000 after the latter had been impeached at a time when Obasanjo was President, however admitted that they disagreed on some issues. 

Speaking in an interview on Channels Television, he said; 

“I did not have any personal issue with (former) President Obasanjo.

“(Former) President Obasanjo was a very outstanding President Nigeria ever had. President Obasanjo was focused and determined in all that he wanted to do.

“We had a little disagreement, and it was the National Assembly and the Executive; not Pius Ayim and (former) President Obasanjo. What brought about the problem was a motion moved by Senator Idris Abubakar from Gombe, it wasn’t a motion moved by me.

“It was the action taken in the Senate that the former President was reacting to, and it was friction between National Assembly and the Executive.

“Of course, being the head of the legislature, I cannot run away from it; I was leading the legislature and he (Obasanjo) was leading the Executive on the other hand, but there was nothing personal.”

Anyim who also served as Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) under former President Goodluck Jonathan, also revealed why he chose not to return to the Senate after 2003.

Countering claims of being concerned that the former President would block his bid in an apparent continuation of the supposed disagreement between them, the former SGF stated that it would amount to hunger for power to sit on the floor of the house, having served as the most senior lawmaker in the land.

Anyim added; 

“I had been President of the Senate and Chairman of the National Assembly, I had gotten to the peak of that career; there was no reason for coming back because if I come back and I was not elected President of the Senate, I will be at the floor.

“Apart from that, if I have to come back, I should not expect to be elected as the President of the Senate because it should rotate and when I was leaving, I said that I believe in rotation. So, what makes you think that it was because of anybody?

“The election was in my zone; it wasn’t in the National Assembly. So, I wouldn’t have come back after being President of the Senate and Chairman of the National Assembly to sit on the floor for whatever reason, that should be a hunger for power, and I didn’t think I was hungry for power.”