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.

He said it was Minister of Foreign Affairs Bianca Ojukwu who first walked across from the presidential delegation to greet them, and that the moment gave him the opening to suggest they return the courtesy.

“The current minister of foreign affairs, Bianca Ojukwu, was on the president’s delegation and she came to say hello to us. And I felt, well, our president is there regardless of our politics. Peter, please let us go,” he said.

Fayemi said Obi was not immediately convinced, worried the moment could be weaponised against him in the press.

“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 recalled.

He said Obi yielded and the two men walked up to the president together.

“Readily, Peter agreed. So we walked up to the president and I said, ‘Mr President, welcome to the Vatican. Thank you for honouring us with your presence,'” Fayemi narrated.

He said Tinubu responded swiftly and with humour.

“The president is quick-witted, you have got to give him some credit for that as well. He immediately retorted, ‘Kayode, what are you saying? I should be the one welcoming you because I am the leader of the Nigerian delegation,'” Fayemi said.

Obi then acknowledged the president’s position directly.

“Peter kindly said to him, ‘Yes sir, you are our leader. So thank you for coming to Rome to honour us even though we are not part of your delegation, but you are our leader.’ So we joked about it and that was it,” Fayemi said.

The encounter ended there, with both parties going their separate ways as Tinubu proceeded to a state-by-state courtesy visit to Pope Leo XIV.

Asked whether it was the first time the two men had shaken hands since the bitterly contested 2023 election, Fayemi was measured.

“I wouldn’t know, but they shook hands there,” he said.

Fayemi and Obi are both devout Catholics and Papal Knights, an honour conferred by the Vatican on distinguished members of the Church.

The two men had attended the inauguration of Pope Francis at the same venue in 2013 as sitting governors. Obi recalled this in a statement on X after the ceremony.

Tinubu, a Muslim, told reporters after the mass that his attendance was in keeping with Nigeria’s unity in diversity.

He told members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, who were part of his delegation, “If we use our diversity not for adversity but for prosperity, the country’s hope is stability and progress.”

The photographs Onanuga shared on X drew reactions from supporters of both men, with some praising the exchange and others raising the 2023 election. (Punch News)

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