Achilleus-Chud Uchegbu
Between 1999 and today, Nigeria has experienced four leadership regimes. We have had the Olusegun Obasanjo/Atiku Abubakar regime; the Umaru Yar’Adua/Goodluck Jonathan regime; the Goodluck Jonathan/Namadi Sambo regime and now the Muhammadu Buhari/Yemi Osinbajo regime. In all these, only the Jonathan/Sambo regime did not entertain Nigerians with issues of soured relations between the principal and his deputy.
In the Obasanjo/Atiku regime, Nigerians got a good dose of power struggle within the presidency which even snowballed into family feud. Outcome of that outburst was the refusal of Obasanjo to support the ambition of his deputy, Atiku, to succeed him as President. Narratives about their ‘fight’ was rooted in Atiku’s ambition to become president after Obasanjo. For this, the Obasanjo camp reeled out numerous allegations of corruption against Atiku. None was verified. None was proved.
With Yar’Adua and Jonathan, Nigerians were entertained with a different kind of ‘quarrel’. Jonathan was the loyal type who stooped to conquer. But Yar’Adua’s ill health presented a motley group of the ailing President’s associates the opportunity to grab power and estrange the deputy from it. Jonathan looked forward to hope as the cabal made him a pariah to the office he was elected to. Some state decisions and policies were adopted without the knowledge of the Vice President. It took nature to break the chains and free the presidency for Jonathan operate. In discharging powers he now had Jonathan fired all aides of his boss who had made life difficult for him.
Then entered the Jonathan and Sambo administration which sailed through to the end without noticeable squabbles. In defence of their pair, Jonathan irked several interests and stoked serious internal opposition when he agreed to run again for the presidency with Sambo as mate. This was in spite of high opposition to the choice of Sambo from several interested parties, some of who today are in the leadership of the ruling party. Both lost the 2015 presidential election not getting into the history books as having fought each other while in the Villa.
Today, despite the barrage of denials and photo props to claim that all is well between Buhari and Osinbajo, there is visible evidence to show that the game has gone sour. And the more the Vice President’s aides struggle to prove that all is well, the more they let the cat out of the bag. The fact is, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, professor of law and a very senior pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, is deeply embattled, harassed, and possibly, confused. And nothing speaks to this fact that the celebration, in social media, Twitter especially, of the Vice President chairing a meeting of the National Economic Council, which was reconstituted and taken away from his supervision.
The decision by the Vice President’s media office to ‘celebrate’ that inaugural meeting was a confirmation that the man is embattled. Otherwise, there is nothing to celebrate in the Vice President discharging a function that he is constitutionally empowered to execute. But for the fact that the council, reconstituted by professionals who had at one time or the other, in the past, served the PDP, a party the Vice President derides with so much elation, would now report to the President, the Veepee’s office saw in his chairing the meeting, an affirmation that he is still with some reckon within the presidency.
Fact again is that Vice President Osinbajo is caged. Recall that he was not even within popular mention as a runner-up to Buhari in 2105. Buhari did not even know him. Buhari’s allies and inner circle also not know him. The only office he held prior to becoming Veepee was Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General in Lagos state. Recall also that there had been a tirade as to how he became the Vice President. He had attempted to re-write history by publicly stating that Tinubu did not make him. Dele Alake, who also served in the Tinubu cabinet and became a member of his think-tank was forced to narrate how the lot fell on Osinbajo thereby putting a lie to Pastor’s claim.
For a student of Nigeria’s politics, Osinbajo’s journey to the Presidency made him a stranger to northern power blocs. They do not know him. No one within the inner circles of the northern power bloc ruling Nigeria at the moment can vouch for him. Therefore, nursing the ambition to succeed his boss in 2023, left him open to secret inquest, the outcome of which may be the report of the House of Representatives inquisition into the handling of National Emergency Management Agency funds, which rubbished his claims to dogmatic sanctity. Before that, Buhari’s wife, Hajiya Aisha, had blown the whistle about management of funds available to the National Social Investment Programme (N-SIP), which is domiciled in the Pastor’s office. Remember also that Timi Frank, a former APC leader, recently alluded to corrupt financial engagement between the Pastor and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) amounting to about N90b. Expectedly, FIRS has denied the claim and even threatened legal action but Frank is holding on frankly to his allegation and has even said he is ready to spill more beans in court. And now, Head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, a man that Osinbajo deployed his knowledge of the law to retain as Acting chairman of the commission, has poured more tar on the Pastor’s head with his claim that N-SIP stinks. Magu said the corruption at the programme, which impact most Nigerians don’t feel, is mind-boggling. Though head of the N-SIP is Hajiya Marian Uwais, she is however supervised by the ‘Star Boy’.
Remember too that many party leaders wanted him dropped from the 2019 presidential race. Others believed that he was needed to cull southwest votes for Buhari. It worked. Is he needed for 2023? Not at all! New alliances built since 2015 meant that Osinbajo is no longer in the picture of their future. So, he can now be messed with especially having shown, with Lawal Daura of the DSS, that he will easily mess with the rulership team. In other words, the rulership team does not want what Osinbajo likes. So, all the worms must be released so everyone who hitherto held him to high standards will know that he was who he was because he hadn’t been tested with apples.
Will Osinbajo survive the theatricals from the Villa? May be, May be not. It may also depend on the sort of access he now has to Buhari and, his godfather, Tinubu. Even at that, he may not get a reprieve because Buhari may not be directly pulling the strings. Remember that all Ministers and appointees are to report to the President through his Chief of Staff. It means that even ministries and agencies that are statutorily under supervision of the Vice President must have to report to the Chief of Staff. Implication of this is that the Vic President, the Star Boy, is stripped of every power. That renders him. Can he fight back like Atiku and assert himself and his office? No, he can’t! Can he be a Jonathan? It depends! For now, he simply has to bear his cross while hoping for divine intervention.