Pitting Buhari Against Osinbajo

By Wale Sokunbi

The Presidency on Monday raised an alarm on what it believes to be a plot to cause a division between President Muhammadu Buhari and Acting President Yemi Osinbajo. The Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Mr. Babafemi Ojudu, described the trending comparisons of Buhari and Osinbajo as the handiwork of those who do not wish the country well.  He also said it was a ploy by the opposition to cause unnecessary division between the two men who share a joint ticket.

*Osinbajo and Buhari 

He was quick to say that Osinbajo was only carrying out the economic policies of the government which the public was only now beginning to feel their impact. As he put it, “it is not a question of one person being better than the other.” Even Osinbajo’s visit to the Niger Delta, he said, is an initiative of the president, and the attempts to divide the two men can only rob Nigerians of the dividends of democracy.

The concerns of the Presidency over what appears a direct effort to pitch Buhari against Osinbajo are well placed. The gambit has apparently been seized by well known Buhari naysayers who have started praising Osinbajo to the high heavens for his modest and sincere efforts at governance, while painting Buhari as lacking in ability to solve the nation’s problems.

For those who have immersed themselves in this worrisome narrative, Buhari is a non-performer while Osinbajo is the magic wand that is gradually making a difference in governance and solving some of the nation’s problems, especially the nation’s forex woes, which has seen the naira appreciate from N520 to N420 to the dollar, while electricity supply is improving with the reducing militancy and bombing of oil pipelines in the Niger Delta area of the country.
Vice President Osinbajo has, undoubtedly, been playing his role well but that is no reason for tattling tattlers to seek to draw a wedge between him and his principal, Buhari. Those who cannot appreciate the wisdom of allowing Osinbajo to do his work as Acting President in peace, while Buhari attends to his health in London, will do well to reread the story of David and Goliath in I Samuel, chapters 17 and 18 , of the Holy Bible.

The young boy, David, killed the giant, Goliath, and King Saul was, indeed, happy to have such a young man who could help the nation get rid of the vaulting Goliath (economic recession and forex woes?) from his nation. The king, initially, harboured no evil at all against David.

Ojodu, Osinbajo And The Sleeping President

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

Nigerians are legendarily associated with patience. But it is troubling when the distinction between this virtue and the propensity to brook the excesses of our political leaders is blurred. The danger of the conflation of this virtue and the vice of acquiescence is often signalled by our political leaders’ exploitation of our famed patience to turn public office to an opportunity for self-valourisation as manifested by regular heists in government.

*Osinbajo

Our leaders strive to over-stretch this patience. They do not expect us to interrogate their excesses. So, whenever the citizens occasionally lose their patience, show signs of alertness and query why their government has become their affliction, our leaders fume with rage.

Just on Monday, the presidency demonstrated this. It was furious that the citizens could be aware of the fact that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has become an ogre rather than a means of succour as it ought to be. Bristling with rage, the Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Babafemi Ojodu, wondered why Nigerians dared to review the now almost two years of the administration of Buhari and declare that it has been a period of an unspeakable ordeal. The presidency, as articulated by Ojodu, did not expect the citizens to know that they have been suffering. The presidency is enraged that the citizens have realised that it is possible for a president to make a difference despite the recession, the crash of the price of oil and the so-much lampooned looting of the common patrimony by the previous government.

The presidency was reacting to a people who have been subjected to so much suffering and depression in the past 20 months and more and who now saw a reason to be hopeful in Osinbajo and they expressed this. Does this require the flagellation of the citizens by the presidency? If the presidency really felt that it must correct some wrong impressions, it should simply have said that Osinbajo is executing the agenda of Buhari and stopped there. But Ojodu committed the same blunder that he accused the citizens of – launching into a campaign of a Manichean categorisation of Buhari and Osinbajo.

But if Osinbajo is only executing the agenda of Buhari as Ojodu would like us to believe, why did Buhari fail to execute this agenda in the past 20 months while he was in charge? What the citizens can see is that Osinbajo has some ideas of governance he is pursuing that were not known to them until now.