How I pushed Peter Obi to greet Tinubu at the Vatican – Fayemi

Former Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi has disclosed that he had to actively persuade Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to overcome media fears and exchange a historic handshake with President Bola Tinubu at the Vatican.

Former Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has revealed the behind-the-scenes details of the widely publicized handshake between President Bola Tinubu and the Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, at the Vatican City. Speaking in an interview on Edmund Obilo’s YouTube channel on Thursday, May 21, 2026, Fayemi explained that he had to actively convince Obi to approach the President during the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV in May 2025. According to Fayemi, Obi was highly reluctant at first due to concerns that an amicable public interaction with his erstwhile political rival would be weaponized or deliberately misinterpreted by the press and social media commentators.

The encounter originally generated significant public buzz in May 2025 when presidential aide Bayo Onanuga shared photographs of the political adversaries exchanging pleasantries in Rome. While Fayemi’s narrative largely corroborates Onanuga’s initial report that the former Ekiti governor initiated the greeting, it introduces new context regarding Obi’s initial hesitation. Fayemi noted that both he and Obi are devout Catholics and Papal Knights who had traveled to the Vatican independently, sharing breakfast with Cardinal Lazarus that morning before taking their seats four rows behind the official Nigerian presidential delegation.

The ice was broken when the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bianca Ojukwu, who was part of the official state delegation, walked over to greet the two former governors. Fayemi recalled telling Obi that political differences should be set aside out of civic respect for the country’s leader, pointing out that President Tinubu, a Muslim, had honored the global Catholic community by attending. “He had his concern that this might be misused in the media. I said, Peter, it really didn’t matter. You are Catholic. You are a Nigerian. You are here. Our president has honoured us. He is even a Muslim. He is not a Catholic like you and I. So we could extend courtesies to him for doing this on behalf of all Nigerians to celebrate the pope,” Fayemi stated, prompting Obi to yield and ultimately participate in the lighthearted, humorous exchange with the President.

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