After several months of speculations and political analysis on the 2023 southwestern presidential ticket, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo finally made an official declaration to contest for the presidency against his one- benefactor and political sponsor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Before
the month of April, pundits have stated that it will be difficult for the Vice
President to indicate interest in the same race as Asiwaju. They believed the
VP’s declaration, for whatever intention will jeopardize the chances of
southwest clinching the ticket and he has inversely advised to shelf the idea if he had one. Fast forward to the present political atmosphere, the political
rivalry is beginning to smell dirty before the major primary which is set for
May 28.
While
some of Asiwaju’s die-hard loyalists have launched a hard tackle against the
Vice President, Prof Osinbajo has equally launched various political
narrative that seems to have erased Asiwaju from the picture in his political and
administrative autobiography.
For
most people that did not notice, VP Osinbajo began to drag the popularity
bragging rights with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in Lagos as a massive crowd welcomed
him to Isolo last month. VP Osinbajo has never made himself open to public
cheer from the time he assumed office in 2015 until he began to nurse his
interest to fight for President Buhari’s position. A viral video posted by
Laolu Akande, Osinbajo’s aide trended on Twitter with a huge crowd seen
cheering the Vice President. Osinbajo had gone to Isolo, Lagos to inaugurate a
State of the art Toyota Service and Research Facility. As the crowd surged, the
vice president opened his SUV’s door, standing as he waved back to the cheers
of the supporters.
The
second slingshot that came out from his camp was the response to the popular
statement of Asiwaju that he does not have a son grown enough to contest
against him. The VP’s boys had reacted that Professor Osinbajo also has no
elderly father strong and healthy enough to contest for the presidency. The
statement would later be debunked by Osinbajo’s core caucus before they
finally began to play dirty.
Vice
President Osinbajo, when giving the account of how he became the Vice
President, evidently threw Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu out of the picture and
failed to recognise his role in how he was picked as VP in December 2014.
Osinbajo
said news of his nomination as running mate to then-candidate Muhammadu Buhari
in the buildup to the 2015 presidential election came to him as a surprise. He
said he was handling a case of a defection of a federal lawmaker at the Supreme
Court, when out of the blues the former governor of Osun State and now Minister
of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, called him to inform him of his nomination for
the plum job.
“I
was working on the case at Peniel Apartments in Abuja on December 18, 2014,
when at about 1a.m., I received a call from Rauf Aregbesola that they were
coming to Lagos to pick me. “I said I was in Abuja. He said ‘good because you
have been nominated as the Vice-Presidential Candidate’ and I said is that how
you nominate people,” Osinbajo said.
The
Vice President stated that after representing his client that day, he returned
to his accommodation and spoke to himself in low tunes after he removed his
wig, “this is probably the last time I will be wearing it.”
He
revealed that Aregbesola, who is the current interior minister, and former Ogun
State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, later in the day took him to the presidential
candidate, Muhammadu Buhari. Osinbajo said he was telling his story to
journalists to let them know that an individual’s life can change at any
minute.
Against
the impression that he was setting the record straight, Osinbajo said he was
telling his story to journalists to let them know that an individual’s life can
change at any minute, adding that he always believed in and worked for a better
Nigeria all his life and his decision to run for the office of president in the
2023 election was to enable him to make a difference. This statement however
contradicted his own personal testimony during Asiwaju’s 67 Colloquium in Lagos
where he stated that Asiwaju was the one behind his emergence as the Vice
President. “I was nominated by the leader of our party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu,
under who I served as a commissioner in Lagos State,” Osinbajo said at a colloquium on the state of the nation in
Lagos organised by the Coalition of Nigerian Apostolic Leaders. His statement
tallies with the earlier account of the event given by the Secretary to the
Lagos State Government, Mr Tunji Bello.
VP
Osinbajo also claims that Nigerians will not forgive him if he fails to contest
for the presidency. In all of these, pundits have one common position that only
President Buhari will determine who bears the party flag and his deafening
silence in Aso rock has kept all aspirants on their toes.
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