By Jimmy Fatunbi
Former Ekiti State governor Kayode Fayemi has disclosed how he persuaded Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, to greet President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during the inauguration ceremony of Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican in May 2025.
Speaking during an interview on Edmund Obilo’s YouTube programme released on Thursday, Fayemi said Obi was initially reluctant to approach the president because he feared the gesture could be politically misinterpreted in the media.
The meeting first became public after presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga shared photographs from the event on X on May 18, 2025. According to Onanuga, Fayemi had spotted Tinubu among world leaders at the ceremony and encouraged Obi to accompany him in greeting the president.
Fayemi’s latest account largely confirmed that version of events but added that Obi hesitated before eventually agreeing.
Recounting the incident, Fayemi said he and Obi attended the papal inauguration as devoted Catholics and had earlier shared breakfast with Cardinal Lazarus before heading to the venue. They were reportedly seated four rows behind Tinubu and his delegation.
According to Fayemi, the moment that prompted the interaction came when Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bianca Ojukwu, walked over from the presidential section to exchange greetings with them.
Fayemi said he then suggested that they should also extend courtesy to the president despite political differences.
However, Obi reportedly expressed concern that photographs or reports of the handshake could be manipulated politically. Fayemi said he encouraged him to overlook such fears, stressing that Tinubu was representing Nigeria at the Vatican even though he is Muslim attending a major Catholic event.
He recalled telling Obi that it was appropriate to acknowledge the president’s presence and role as leader of the Nigerian delegation.
Fayemi said Obi eventually agreed, and the two approached Tinubu together.
On getting to the president, Fayemi welcomed him to the Vatican and thanked him for honouring the occasion. Tinubu, according to Fayemi, responded jokingly that as leader of the Nigerian delegation, he should be the one welcoming them instead.
Obi then reportedly acknowledged Tinubu’s status as president, thanking him for attending the event on behalf of Nigerians, even though they were not officially part of his delegation.
Fayemi said the exchange was cordial and brief before both sides continued with their activities at the inauguration ceremony.
When asked whether it was the first public handshake between Obi and Tinubu since the fiercely contested 2023 presidential election, Fayemi declined to speculate, simply noting that “they shook hands there.”
Both Fayemi and Obi are prominent Catholics and Papal Knights, honours bestowed by the Vatican on distinguished members of the Church. The two politicians had also attended the inauguration of Pope Francis in 2013 while serving as governors.
Tinubu later told journalists that his participation at the Vatican reflected Nigeria’s spirit of unity despite religious and political differences. Addressing members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria who accompanied him, the president said Nigeria’s diversity should be used as a source of prosperity and stability rather than division.
The photographs of the meeting generated mixed reactions online, with supporters of both Tinubu and Obi debating the political significance of the encounter and revisiting issues surrounding the 2023 presidential election.
