Former Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi has revealed that he persuaded Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to approach President Bola Tinubu for a handshake at the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV in Vatican City last May.
Fayemi made the disclosure in an interview on Edmund Obilo’s YouTube channel which was uploaded on Thursday, saying Obi had initially hesitated over fears the encounter would be misrepresented in the media.
The meeting had first come to public attention on 18 May 2025, when presidential aide Bayo Onanuga shared photographs of the three men on X during the ceremony.
Onanuga said Fayemi spotted Tinubu seated among other world leaders and urged Obi to join him in greeting the president. “Fayemi sighted President Tinubu, where he sat with other leaders and asked Obi to follow him to pay homage to the Nigerian leader. Obi agreed,” he posted.
Fayemi’s account in the interview largely corroborates Onanuga’s version but adds that Obi initially hesitated and had to be persuaded, a detail the presidential aide did not mention.
Fayemi said both he and Obi attended the papal inauguration as Catholics and had shared breakfast with Cardinal Lazarus that morning before making their way to the ceremony, where they were seated four rows behind the president.
“Peter and I are Catholics. We were at the Vatican for the inauguration of the new pope. We happened to have had breakfast the morning of inauguration with Cardinal Lazarus and we came from his apartment to the venue of the inauguration and we sat four rows behind the president. We were there before the president came with his team,” Fayemi said.
