Much Ado About the Ordeal of Osinbajo

Kayode Ajulo makes a case for proper delineation of the duties of the Vice President

There is no doubting that recent incidence in the inner sanctum of the Federal Executive arm of Nigerian government, which include sacking of Vice President Yemi Osibajo’s aides, removing some agencies under his office, accusations and counter accusations which are leading to suggestion of resignation seem to reveal that the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo is being side lined and his power being whittled down.

These developments have generated hues and cries from different quarters and strata. The air is thick with raging, reactions, reprimands, all kinds of anathema and diatribe from political pundits, lackeys and constitutional legal minds.

This is looking very much like another season of blindness for Nigeria. That blindness doesn’t arise from lack of eyes. That blindness in question emanates from inability and refusal to see, analyse and evaluate the enormity of the constitutional problem currently confronting us as regards the powers of the Vice President.

In order not to throw out the baby with the bath water, it is important to pensively consider the issues at hand vis-à-vis constitutional provisions by proffering answers to the following issues; Is the Vice President being side-lined? I don’t agree with the insinuations that the Vice President is being side lined by the President neither is he in any ordeal. We speculate a lot and it is no surprise the spectators/observers are mostly excited. Whereas the insiders know better, it is about politics and law as in perception and reality.

Events in the past have shown that President Buhari and his kinsmen, (Emir of Daura in particular) see the Vice President Osinbajo as a confidant and someone trustworthy. At the same time one cannot rule out power struggles not between the President and Vice president but with other senior government officials. Good enough, we have a Professor of Law as Vice President while both the Chief of Staff to the President and the Secretary to Government of the Federation are senior lawyers and it is expected that constitutionalism would be their watch dog.

More so, the Vice President still performs his constitutional functions such as presiding over the National Economic Council and standing in for the President when the occasion demands.

Legally speaking, while thinking about this so called ordeal, the case of A.G Federation v. Alhaji Abubakar (2007) ALL FWLR (Pt. 389) 1264 comes to mind wherein the Supreme Court enunciated the duties of the Vice President. The court held inter alia that: A Vice President is not at liberty to refuse to carry out government decisions of which he personally disagrees, or to defy government orders or the authority of the President over him or otherwise to act as if he is an independent executive within the government… the moment a Vice President sees himself not any more as a member of the President’s team but as a team leader in his own right, the honourable thing for him to do is to resign.

Similarly section 148 of the Constitution confers a discretionary power on the President to assign responsibility for any business of the Government of the federation on the Vice President or Ministers of the Government.