Why I Pity The Vice President-elect, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, By Olusina Akeredolu

Why I Pity The Vice President-elect, Prof Yemi Osinbajo

By Olusina Akeredolu

I want to first of all congratulate Professor Yemi Osinbajo for being elected as Vice President to General Muhammadu Buhari to be in charge of the affairs of Nigeria from the 29^th of May, 2015. President Goodluck Jonathan has just passed the baton of luck and blessings to the in-coming Vice President. Two of them have certain things in common – their very gentle miens and not too ambitious dispositions. They are both pre-destined to get to high places without being in the rat race for it. Jonathan started his political career as a deputy governor to Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, later became governor. Destiny pushed him to become Nigeria’s Vice President and then substantive President. Osinbajo was never a politician yet he became a cabinet member of Lagos State for eight years. In 1999, Tinubu closed his eyes on so many big time lawyer-politicians in his AD party when he picked a non-politician in the person of Yemi Osinbajo as the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice for Lagos State. Don’t forget that Osinbajo is not an indigene of Lagos State.

I have known Professor Yemi Osinbajo in a close quarter for 35 years. I can therefore attest, without more, to his being a very contented, simple and modest personality. He is a very gentle, honest, brilliant and trustworthy human being. Apart from becoming a law graduate at the age of 21, this is a man who teaches law with every word he dishes out virtually coming from his head and memory. This is a man whose memory reservoir will be giving out decided cases including citations and reportations to students in class without error. But I am worried about him having been pushed and pulled to a very unfamiliar terrain of a very high political office in Nigeria without being a politician. I am worried about him, by virtue of his character, that he will be having continuous negative sleepless nights for being in the midst of political vampires, cumulative liars, selfish and greedy people he would have no control over. How he will be struggling with his conscience to tell blatant lies whenever he is being forced to do so to show unalloyed loyalty to the powers that be and those who upgraded his destiny to become a vice president is my worry.

The grandeur of a very high political office is good and beautiful but how Osinbajo will be able to say no to the commands, whims and caprices of Bola Tinubu and his emperor-like attitudes is what I have been struggling to come to terms with. Despite the fact that Babatunde Fasola is also a politician like his godfather, he cannot forget Tinubu in a hurry when it comes to who calls the shot in Lagos state since May 2007. Fasola has been governor of Lagos State without having any control over the machinery of his government. Bola Tinubu is going to remind Osinbajo how much he spent to see Buhari win APC’s presidential primary which he schemed to hold in Lagos. Tinubu is going to remind him of how he pushed aside the close political associates’ pressure to handpick him to become Buhari’s running mate. Tinubu will soon forget the exceptional qualities that raise Osinbajo above the retinue of others who yearn for that office when it is time to re-equip all the money he spent to get Buhari and his vice elected.

The north that we all know, are just waiting for May 29 to start to show their true colour. These are people who believe that they are born to rule. Buhari’s decisions will be subject to the dictates of the northern oligarchy. The political class from the north respects its traditional institutions so much. As a result, the northern establishment will also want to stamp their influence on the Buhari’s government. Buhari could not refuse their directives even as a military head of state. To show they are in absolute control, they will start from Tinubu himself by rendering him irrelevant in the scheme of things and as soon as they finish with him, it will be Obasanjo’s turn. Did Umaru Yaradua who was even a gentleman with long association with Obasanjo by virtue of his senior brother, General Musa Yaradua not show him? Obasanjo will always go beyond his bound because he shows he knows more than the rest always. Obasanjo singlelarly chose Umaru Yaradua as PDP presidential candidate and led him in all his presidential campaigns. How did Umaru Yaradua pay him back? Umaru canceled all inherited policies that would have been Obasanjo’s legacies. He even went ahead to set up a committee to probe Obasanjo’s regime. The same thing is going to happen between Obasanjo and Buhari after all the present ‘feferities’ of victory have died down. Once they remove the biting teeth of these two men from the southwest, who will Osinbajo run to whenever his kitchen becomes too hot for him in their midst up there?

I don’t know how Osinbajo will be so comfortable being in the midst of the ‘progressive’ APC southwest governors some of who have not paid the salaries of High Court judges in their states since July last year, that is, for 10 straight months now. Yet they were able to spend billions on their governorship campaigns and on the campaign of General Muhammadu Buhari to become president. How can anybody be cruel that much? In some of the southwest states, civil servants now go to work in turn from Monday to Friday. Ajayi will go on Monday, Kike will go on Tuesday, Abiodun will go on Wednesday, Bisi will go on Thursday while Friday may not see any of them going to work at all. Can anybody blame them? When they have not been paid their salaries for six straight months, their governor(s) will have no audacity to compel them to keep daily attendance at work. Osinbajo won’t be happy seeing all these around him.

A member of a forum I belong to has this to say on a thread: “APC today has key stakeholders who were PDP members. It is a fact that Abubakar Atiku, Segun Oni, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Rotimi Amaechi, Bukola Saraki, Aliyu Wamako, Kwankwanso, Al Makura, Tambuwal, EL-Rufai et al, with Obasanjo and Sanusi in the background, all teamed up with other political forces to edge Jonathan out. There are former APC members who are also in PDP presently. Their political appointees have all been earning abnormal salaries/compensation packages in the last 16years. A Senator earns N354m per annum while a University Professor earns N6m per annum in Nigeria. Some of their leaders have looted our states. They told us that they are progressives. Progressives indeed. Nigeria is at cross roads. If you are a true progressive and an activist, will you accept an abnormal pay? Do we have a bankrupt political class? Please come with me. APC and PDP are like MTN and Airtel. They deploy the same technology, they have similar products, the human resources are the same, they operate in the same environment and their businesses are cash cows. The difference is in their nomenclature.” – TO.

Another contributor said this: “Bad, as governance had been under the PDP federal government, nothing, in the features, actions or pronouncements of APC gives hope of something better, aside from the antecedents of Buhari. Is it harassment in place of persuasions? Is it the pomposity in place of humility? Is it propaganda in place of truth? Is it the, I know all things? Is it the devil-to-angel automatic conversion, soon after a politician joins the party, from elsewhere?” – WA.

I see a lot of sense in the two contributions above. How much corrective influence can Osinbajo, a moderate and a non politician have over all the issues raised above when he is not even the numero uno citizen? I know that these issues will constitute a heavy burden on him. I cannot but pity his small stature being able to withstand and accommodate such buffooneries as a top political office holder in Nigeria of 2015 and beyond. If I later see him with a very robust cheek, I will hold that he has sold all those values that we cherish in him in the last 35 years to join the kleptocrats. I will then conclude that there is no hope for Nigeria anymore.