2023: Is Osinbajo a ‘sacrificial lamb’?
How VP incurred the wrath of Aso Rock cabal ‘The public humiliation was not necessary’
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo appears to have run into a political bad weather as a cabal allegedly operating under the shadows of President Muhammadu Buhari have allegedly bared their fangs against the professor of law as permutations for the 2023 elections get underway.
The government in which the Vice President is a star figure and probably the most eloquent and articulate voice behind its policies is about to drown its own ardent champion. But this is not exactly unexpected especially in Nigeria full of political ‘jackals and hyenas’ (apologies to the First Lady Aisha Buhari).
When news filtered in on Monday, September 16, that the Presidency had announced the replacement of the Economic Management Team (EMT), which Osinbajo chaired, with an Economic Advisory Council (EAC), to be chaired by Professor Doyin Salami, the floodgate of the vicious anti- Osinbajo campaign
was said to have been opened.
The presidency also announced other members of the new body as Mohammed Sagagi (vice-chairman), Ode Ojowu, Shehu Yahaya, Iyabo Masha, Chukwuma Soludo, Bismarck Rewane, and Mohammed Adaya Salisu (secretary).
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said the advisory council “will be reporting directly to the President”.
Now, this below the belt punch was further compounded by alleged plans to reassign some top aides of the Vice President from the Presidential Villa to some Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAS).
The developments intensified the speculations that the cabal was out to “curtail” the VP’S powers by excising some agencies under his supervision.
If these developments were terrible for the Vice President, then it was a disaster when an alleged Memo from the Presidency came directing the Vice President to henceforth seek presidential approvals in the running of the agencies under his supervision. At this point, it was not in doubts as to the feud between the Vice President and elements within the Presidency, who have allegedly hijacked power.
But Osinbajo had debunked the insinuation of any rift with the Presidency, stressing that the agencies under his supervision are acting constitutionally.
Laolu Akande, Osinbajo’s spokesman said in a statement that “Our attention has been drawn to a sensational report by The Cable which claims that His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, has directed Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, to seek approvals for agencies under him.
“The report suggests, falsely, that agencies under the supervision of the Vice President do not normally comply with established rules where presidential approvals are required.
“This is obviously misleading and aims only to plant seeds of discord in the Presidency while attempting to create unnecessary national hysteria.”
The Vice President maintained that he has always complied with the law and warned against moves to cause disaffection in the presidency especially between him and the President.
He said: “To claim that in the first term of the Buhari administration, agencies of government have not been complying with the provisions (of getting final approvals from the President) is false, and the attempt to suggest the Vice President’s complicity in such irregularities is simply mischievous and reprehensible.
“The effective and mutually respecting relationship between the President and the Vice President is well known to Nigerians and it is futile to insinuate otherwise.
“Even though the Vice President has a statutory role as Board Chairman of some government agencies under his office, with appropriate approval limits, which often do not include contract approvals; it is ludicrous to even insinuate that a Board Chairman approves contracts.”
The agencies being supervised by the Vice President are the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the National Boundary Commission (NBC), the Border Communities Development Agency( BC DA) and the Social investment programmes( sip ).
It was gathered that the SIP may now operate under the newly created Ministry of Social Development, Humanitarian Affairs & Disaster Management headed by Sadiya Umar Farouq.
There are however, insinuations that conflict is brewing over the roles of the EAC and the statutory National Economic Council (NEC), headed by the VP as the constitution gives NEC the power to “advise” the President on economic affairs.
Osinbajo’s rising profile is said to be threatening the cabal allegedly led by Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari and others with serious grudge against Osinbajo who BDSUNDAY gathered has vowed to leave no stone unturned to diminish him.
President Buhari, while inaugurating his new cabinet recently, ordered the new Ministers to submit any request meant for him to his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari and all executive matters to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mustapha Boss. Analysts believe that this has given the Chief of Staff more power, which he is allegedly using to hunt his perceived enemies.
These alleged anti-osinbajo moves came at a time he was touted to be nursing the ambition to succeed his boss, President Buhari in 2023, as the cabal mainly from the northern part of the country is already plotting never to allow power shift to the South.
Some analysts have also said that Osinbajo may be paving the way for his political benefactor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, but that the members of the cabal in the Villa are implacably opposed to the idea of Tinubu as President and are prepared to scuttle it at all costs.
Despite the spirited denials by the Vice President about a frosty relationship with his boss, there appear some cracks in the relationship. The signs are all too visible.
In the Friday, September 20, 2019 edition of The Nation, a columnist, Fola Ojo, in his column titled, ‘Osinbajo: Are they ‘killing’ him softly?’ noted that “Events in the last few weeks, however, have obviously shown that somebody tucked out somewhere in the crevices of the purlieu of power beholds the pastor as a formidable threat to their dreams. Who that is, we know not; or whose interests they serve are both gauzy and hazy. There appears to be a determined, almost diabolical effort to railroad this VP who is believed to be running faster than a deer to succeed Buhari. They want to kick him to the stinking curbs of irrelevance in the present power play. This is now for them a task that must be done as we glide closer to 2023.”
Osinbajo’s alleged ‘sins’
Some of the decisions Osinbajo took that made him popular when he acted as the President while President Buhari was away on medical vacation, were also what allegedly angered the cabal. Against all the calculations and interests of the Aso Rock cabal, Osinbajo confirmed Justice Walter Onnoghen as the substantive Chief Justice of Nigeria, the first southerner to be appointed into that exalted office in nearly 30 years.
The cabal did not like that and they plotted and eventually advised Buhari to remove Onnoghen before the election through ways many lawyers considered as unconstitutional. Onnoghen was accused of not declaring his assets and was suspended on controversial circumstances. His independent-mindedness is said to have scared the cabal. Onnoghen had presided over Supreme Court judgments that did not favour the cabal, notably that of the former President of the Senate Bukola Saraki.
Osinbajo sacked the former Director-general of the Department of State Services (DSS) Lawal Daura after it was discovered the former DSS boss spear-headed the invasion of the National Assembly to allegedly effect a change of leadership. This was considered a “cardinal sin” by the cabal as Daura is a prominent member of the cabal. Osinbajo went ahead to appoint Matthew Seiyafa from Bayelsa State as Acting DSS Director General. But in a swift move Seiyafa was removed by President Buhari and replaced with Yusuf Bichi, who had already retired. This appears to show the desperation in the cabal to keep all sensitive positions to the north and to their fold.
Perhaps, the most devastating blow Osinbajo unleashed on the cabal was his public denial of the RUGA policy meant to settle Fulani herdsmen on land belonging to indigenous people of Nigeria. This, according to a Fulani politician, who wished not to be named “was like a hot knife that cut through their hearts” as the RUGA policy was perhaps the most important agenda of the Fulani cabal which President Buhari was yet to deliver to them.
The cabal propped up Osinbajo before the elections and allegedly sent him to some states of the federation to share the trader moni to market women, an action many considered so demeaning for office of the Vice President and a professor of law. The opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) later called it “vote buying”. The huge sums of money budgeted for the tradermoni were alleged to be misappropriated and the cabal is again poised to probe the Vice President and possibly humiliate him further.
Osinbajo alienated from principles he used to hold dear
Speaking to BDSUNDAY on Friday, Katch Ononuju, public affairs analyst (PHD Economics), said Osinbajo’s problem arises from the mindset of Abba Kyari, who sees the VP as a “competition and will do anything to diminish him.”
Ononuju however, blamed the Vice President for allowing himself to be used to undermine a true position of southerners on serious national issues. “He (Osinbajo) went to the US to deny the widespread industrial scale kidnapping. He is the one that was saying that IPOB people should be banned. He gave his reasons as to why the IPOB should be banished and asked us to pray and look up to God with regards to the atrocities of the Miyetti Allah. So, these things he did put him in bad light,” he said.
Osinbajo was said to have alienated himself from the principles he once espoused, such as restructuring, which true meaning he started distorting as soon as he became Vice President. There were reports last Friday, September 20, that the cabal may force the Vice President to resign through intense pressure.
Tinubu’s 2023 ambition in jeopardy
There is an ugly streak fast emerging from the Osinbajo saga, which has the potential to change the dynamics of power towards the 2023 Presidential election.
The cabal understands the reported growing intentions of Bola Tinubu to take a shot at the Presidency. This is his constitutional rights but recent events present formidable obstacles against the ambition of the Jagaban of Borgu and former Lagos State governor.
His ‘sins’ according to observers are legion, especially his desire to enter into an alliance with the Fulani cabal to snatch power from former President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner in 2015, which some elements in the South see as betrayal.
According to Ononuju, Tinubu was “blinded by ambition to go deep into alliance with the northern Fulani cabal and was roundly deceived. His alliance with the cabal undermined southern solidarity”.
Ononuju alleged that the cabal used blackmail and threats to compel Tinubu to work for the return of President Buhari to power for the second term in 2019, after which they are now poised to dump him and his ambition.
He added that the cabal has discovered that even in the South West and especially Lagos, Tinubu has lost control, judging by the voting trend in the last election and they are ready to maximise that to their benefits.
But he warned those jockeying for power to remain in the north to be careful because no group can
appropriate Nigeria, adding that Nigeria must be inclusive.
“Power won’t remain in the north. It is the foolishness of some greedy people from the North West who are thinking th a tb uh ari’ s Presidency should be a reason for the intimidation of people so that nobody speaks in regards to the inclusive spirit of the constitution.
“Anybody who wants to exclude others does not wish this country well because that action does not engender good will and unity. The spirit of the Constitution is against tribalism, is against nepotism, is against intentions to dominate by any one group of the entire political landscape.
“That selfish mindset that seeks the exclusion of others will definitely in my calculation, damage national unity and set Nigeria ablaze. Nobody has the capacity to appropriate Nigeria,” he warned.
Also commenting on the current travails of the Vice President and the supposed collateral impact it may have in Bola Tinubu, Okey Ikechukwu, said “The recent “summary retirement” of Vice President Osinbajo, without a demand that he physically vacates the office, points to something more ominous, more macabre and more unseemly than the obvious fact of a progressive, but resolute, dismantling of Tinubu and the South-west in the rehearsals for 2023. The public humiliation was not necessary.”
Analysts’ views
Soji Adejumo, national leader of Yoruba Patriotic Union, said recent events around the Vice President could have political undertone, stressing that he was not surprise.
“Well, what is happing could have a political undertone; I am really not sure, but here in Yoruba land, if the person that owns the body has not really complained, you can’t begin to administer medicine.
“Osibanjo chairs the economic meeting and he has not come out to say he is being persecuted; so let watch and see. During Obasanjo and Atiku’s administration we saw one of them coming out to say I am being marginalised in this government that is not the case here,” Adejumo said.
Speaking with BDSUNDAY, a chieftain of the ruling party, Lanre Rasak, said he did not see anything suggesting “political undertone” in the memo of the President to Osinbajo on changes around him.
“It is not true that Osibanjo is being persecuted; the man has a lot of work to do, and I am sure the President has confidence in him,” he said.
Martin Onovo, a political commentator, faulted recent media reports of rift between the VicePresident and the President, saying that the reports were blown out of proportion.
Onovo said the constitution was clear about the roles of the office of the Vice-president, stressing that the President had the right to assign responsibilities to him or otherwise.
“I don’t believe all that is been written; I think the media is just trying to sensationalise issues; personally I think the office of the Vice-president is like a spare tyre; the roles they have outside is clear in the constitution. It is the President that should give him responsibility because the President has enormous task in his hand,” he said.