By Atilade Atoyebi
Professor Yemi Osinbajo was a dark horse to be the Vice President of Nigeria when he was suddenly tossed up to play that role back in 2015. A new political coalition named All Progressives Congress, APC was formed from an amalgam of political parties to challenge the reign of People’s Democratic Party, PDP on Nigeria’s political scene.
Muhammadu Buhari emerged as the presidential candidate of the new party. From nowhere, Osinbajo was proclaimed as his running mate. Hearsay close to reality suggested that his meteoric rise in Nigeria’s politics was the handiwork of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former Governor of Lagos State and a chieftain of the new party. It appeared that the nomination of Osinbajo as Buhari’s running mate was a prize that Tinubu rightly demanded.
Of course, the Buhari/Osinbajo ticket went on to win the 2015 presidential election and Osinbajo immediately had his role cut out for him. Unlike the cat and mouse relationship between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Vice President, Atiku Abubakar (1999 – 2007); the struggle by Goodluck Jonathan to assert himself as the rightful acting President and later successor to Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who was infirm and who later died (May 2007 – May 2010) Buhari and Osinbajo seemed to have got along so well during their first term in office.
Osinbajo was found to be an able lieutenant to Buhari when the President was indisposed and had to take weeks of medical vacation in the United Kingdom. The President transmitted proper message to the Senate and handed over the running of the country to Osinbajo whom many people believed discharged his duty creditably well.
The Vice President even became a member of the Buhari Administration accepted in the South-south and South-east that did not vote for their ticket in 2015. He was welcome everywhere he went in the two geo-political zone.
Petit by nature, his charisma soon registered in the minds of those who came across him and those who listened to his professorial, many times extempore speeches and analysis of the situation in Nigeria. He is also a clergy man in a popular Pentecostal church mission in the country. Call him Buhari’s alter ego, and you won’t be wrong.
There were speculations that Buhari might drop him for his second term in office. Osinbajo was believed by some public opinion leaders that he was already overshadowing Buhari in most departments of Nigeria’s political game. But a Buhari who truly needs an agile and loyal deputy decided to stick to his man.
They both romped back into office in May this year. However, the victory is yet to sink in when some persons started casting aspersions on the person of Osinbajo. A social media activist said that he collected and siphoned N90 billion he was given by the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS as campaign expenses for the 2019 presidential election. FIRS denied providing that kind of cash to the Vice President; but his accuser persisted in his claim and weary Nigerians began to ask whether Osinbajo is as cleaning as he appears. Another person emerged from another direction smearing the Vice President with some tar of corruption. An organization with milk teeth in Nigeria’s politics even said that it is on a mission to bring down Osinbajo.
As things are now, rumour mills are filled up that some power brokers from the Northern part of Nigeria are the ones behind the mask putting pressure on the Vice President. They are believed to be uncomfortable with the political stature of Osinbajo that may work against their calculations for the 2023 presidential election. There are insinuations too that the man who placed him where he is now might be the one plotting for his downfall. Who knows?
There are other decisions of the Federal Government in recent times and some people are complaining that the Vice President was falling out of favour with the President. They say that some of those decisions, like the announcement that the President has formed an Economic Advisory Council, the transfer of social intervention programmes from his office to an appropriate ministry, etc are aimed at cutting the Osinbajo to size even when the Presidency had denied such suggestion. The Vice President headed the Presidential Economic Team during the first term of this government in office. But he is still the constitutional chairman of the National Economic Council in which State Governors are principal participants.
Initially the Vice President appeared unruffled; eventually the pressure got to him and he assured his attackers that he would waive his immunity as enshrined in the Constitution to enable him to meet them in court. He has threatened them with law suit. He wants them to come to court and prove their allegations against him. Those who raised corruption charges against him have not backed down.
Sometimes, politics is a game that is difficult to decipher. Afenifere, a Yoruba cultural organization from the same area where Osinbajo comes from, South-west ironically did not support him and Buhari during the last election that brought the duo back to office. Its leaders are now saying that nothing adverse should happen to ‘their son’ under the present dispensation. So also the Ohaneze, a cultural organization from the South-east that supported the Atiku Abubakar/Peter Obi ticket in the same election! Ohaneze has warned that no one should tamper with Osinbajo’s position in this government.
Meanwhile, Nigeria waits for the next round of the bout between Osinbajo and his accusers.
