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“Never turn down your ambition because someone is uncomfortable with the volume”
– Joubert Botha
By Cosmas Omegoh
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is getting greater media attention now. He is the refrain on many lips just as many have their gaze fixed on him now. Those who follow his politics and politicking insist he is riding the waves.
Not long ago, Osinbajo was caught between pursuing his ambition and bowing to his political godfather – former Lagos State governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He chose to obey the former.
Recall that Osinbajo had hauled his hat into the ring signaling his resolve to square off with his political benefactor, Tinubu, in the epic contest for the All Progressive Congress (APC presidential ticket. He wants to succeed his principal, President Muhammdu Buhari.
But, by declaring his intention, Osinbajo has stirred the hornet nest.
Thus, his audacity is eliciting both commendations and condemnations. Both are coming in torrents – as varied as they can be – triggering more talks about the man Osinbajo, his ambition and his aspiration.
The Osinbajo hailers are vehemently asking the vice president to be strong. They believe it is well within his rights to do what he considers proper, unfazed about who might feel offended. They urge him on, saying they can’t wait to see him mount the mountain. For them, his days as president are not just near, they are here already. They are just counting down.
At the moment, every Osinbajo acolyte has his unique selling point at his finger tips: he is a loyalist who has served his masters diligently. Since 2015, when they swept to power, there has never been acrimony of any sort between him and President Muhammadu Buhari. Therefore, Osinbajo is cool-headed. They will also tell you some of the things you already know: Osinbajo is an erudite professor of Law, distinguished and accomplished. They congest the social media space with his acclaimed CV richly bursting at the seams. They are pushing to make history. If elected, Osinbajo will be the first university professor to rule Nigeria. They will tell you that in seven years of Buhari’s reign, Osinbajo has acquainted himself so well. And having served meritoriously, his payback time is here. That it is not too much for a reward for his loyalty if Buhari will allow him to succeed him. After all, the body language of the duo appears to suggest, it is all done and dusted, remaining the masses to add their imprimatur to it at the polls.
But here is the flip side. At the other extreme of this argument is the pack aghast with him, led by Asiwaju Tinubu.
Clearly, Team Tinubu is vividly livid, its members burning with rage. They cannot take in Osinbajo’s declaration. They wish it didn’t happen. To them, that move is to say the least daring as it is audacious. They cannot fathom Osinbajo’s rising strength of steel. It is all sounding like fiction.
Before Osinbajo announced his presidential bid, everything about it then only wafted in the air like a rumour. The Tinubu camp gave it little chance until it happened. And now, they are asking where it is all coming from; they cannot keep their agitated voices low. For all they care, project Osinbajo must be shut down. The wind must be taken off its sails; that oxygen, that energy propelling it must be yanked off for it to crash to earth, before it gathers traction.
What does the Tinubu group have against Osinbajo? First, they are loud in saying that the vice president is a man never to be trusted. He is being over ambitious, running far faster than his shadow. They accuse him of deliberately going against the current of his benefactor’s wishes and aspiration, recalling that it has been Tinubu’s life-long ambition to govern Nigeria. How dare him truncate that motion by throwing a spanner in the works.
And what is more? Osinbajo is accused of being a man of little integrity; his traducers are showing opposition to his aspiration to all who draw close to listen. They claim they can hardly understand him. Among other things, he is setting the age-long Yoruba respect for elders on its head. They wonder why and how he chose to stab Tinubu at the back. They remind him how years ago, Tinubu as governor, literarily lifted him out from obscurity – the classroom where he was copiously inhaling particles coming off the chalk board. How Tinubu cleaned him, dusted him and made him the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State. And by that, he was shown the real rare leeway up life’s ladder.
The Tinubu camp keeps reminding Osinbajo how he became vice president today courtesy of Tinubu. And are further enraged that the best way he, Osinbajo should have rewarded his benefactor is not by eyeing the same pie Tinubu was long waiting for. They dare him to show off his political structure other than the Presidency. They are consoled that the true test of might will be on the grassroots turf when the game goes.
But Tinubu is unrelenting in his quest to clinch his party’s presidential ticket even with Osinbajo in the game. Anyone thinking he’s got it all wrong, even when Osinbajo is enrobed in the majestic “Federal Might.”
But truly, Tinubu remains rattled, and it shows. His recent response to a journalist’s inquiry concerning what he thinks about “his son” running against him tells the story. In a veiled angry response and disapproval he retorted: “I don’t have a son old enough to run for presidency.”
Political watchers say Tinubu’s reaction is pregnant with meaning. But the reality is that the Jagaban feels wounded, unhappy that his political godson in whom he was once well pleased is inexplicably driving a deadly nail through his ambition. He is not only going astray, but against the grain of his version of good conscience.
Nevertheless, many who have nothing to do with the Osinbajo-Tinubu tango are questioning the vice president’s ability to deliver Nigeria in dire strait. To them, Osinbajo’s known visibility came largely during the 2019 electioneering when he traversed the landscape doling out N5,000 handouts which the present administration tagged Tradermoni.
Another section of the people is unhappy with the content of Osinbajo’s recent declaration, wondering what he can do differently aside continuing from where President Buhari will leave things. They are sorely worried about the Nigerian economy that is in doldrums with Osinbajo as head of the economic team.
Yet, others are wishing that Osinbajo goes beyond the realm of rhetoric to get his campaign off the starting blocks. And perhaps only then will discontented and distraught Nigerians, stressed and stretched on all sides, will accord his project a look in.
Osinbajo, 65, is lawyer, professor, and politician. He is currently the vice president having come into office in 2015. He is an author and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.
