Featured, Politics
Obviously, the conspiracy theories on the happenings in the seat of power are not uncommon in a democracy, but there appear to be rife and capable of distracting the government, which is struggling to tackle the numerous challenges threatening to derail its developmental programmes. There is every need for politicians to be cautious and put the interest of the nation above personal and primordial interests
By Anayo Ezugwu
LONG before the controversial and divisive RUGA programme appeared on the political scene of the country, there had been attempts to read some meanings into the workings of the Presidency. The Vice President, Prof, Yemi Osinbajo had been severally praised for his uncommon loyalty to his boss, especially with the hindsight of how some presidents and state governors had enjoyed rocky relations in office. However, the narrative appears to be changing in the last few weeks or months with some conspiracy theories pointing at the RUGA programme, 2023 polls and recently the corruption accusations by a former ruling party official as being responsible for what appears to be unfolding storm in the bottle.
There was no doubt that Osinbajo enjoyed good working relationship with his boss during their first tenure in office. The vice president headed the economic team and at the peak of the president’s ill-health, Osinbajo took charge of the affairs of the government.
Even when it was rumoured before the 2019 general elections that Buhari was going to dump Osinbajo as his running mate, the president dismissed all the speculations and retained him as his trusted lieutenant. But since the commencement of the second term in office, the vice president had been in the news over what some Nigerians described as the rocky relations with his boss.
Although some Nigerians have attributed the said rocky relations to power tussle for the 2023 presidency, while some others believe that his handling of the RUGA programme was the last stray that was responsible for the present debacle. A school of thought believes that the cabal in the presidency wanted to use him and his National Livestock Transformation Plan, NLTP, initiative to smuggle the RUGA programme, which would settle cattle herders across the country. They even went as far as saying that the two programmes were the same and that the office of the vice president was coordinating the two programmes.
But in the heat of the controversy, Osinbajo distanced himself from the RUGA programme. He denied that his office was coordinating the programme. “Contrary to claims reported in sections of the media, the establishment of RUGA settlements is not being supervised by the Office of the Vice President. The RUGA initiative is different from the National Livestock Transformation Plan approved by state governors under the auspices of the National Economic Council, NEC, chaired by Osinbajo,” Laolu Akande, senior special assistant on media and publicity to the vice president said in a statement.
This school of thought believes that the cabal is still angry with Osinbajo for distancing himself from the programme and are ready to see that he does not retain his job.
But recent developments in the Presidency appear to give credence to this theories, especially when it was rumoured that the vice president had no input in the latest cabinet members. In addition, the announcement by the president at the end of the two-day retreat organised for the ministers, that they should always go through Abba Kyari, his chief of staff, for meeting requests and through Boss Mustapha, secretary to the government of the federation, for issues relating to the Federal Executive Council, FEC.
“In terms of coordinating communication, kindly ensure that all submissions for my attention or meeting requests be channeled through the Chief of Staff while all Federal Executive Council matters be coordinated through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation in order to speed up the process of decision-making,” Buhari was quoted as saying.
Another pointer was dissolution of the Economic Management Team chaired by Osinbajo and replaced it with the Economic Advisory Council which will report directly to president. This was followed with the directive to the vice-president that he should seek approval for all the agencies and parastatals under his supervision.
Although Osinbajo had to respond and clarified that the directive was not at variance with what was hitherto the norm, because he had always sought approval for agencies under him.
Although they are people who still believe that the vice president is being punished for some of the actions he took while he acted for the president, when he was away on medical vacation. Some of the alleged offences included the sack of Lawal Daura, former director-general, Department of State Service, DSS, and the confirmation of Walter Onnoghen, former Chief Justice of Nigeria, who was sacked before the 2019 general elections.
Apart from these, Timi Frank, former deputy national publicity secretary, All Progressives Congress, APC, has also alleged that Osinbajo’s travails was due to corruption. He alleged that the vice president mismanaged N90 billion released by the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, for the prosecution of the last general elections in favour of the APC.
This allegation had been dismissed by both the vice president and the FIRS. Both are threatening to sue Frank if he fails to retract his allegations. Osinbajo on Wednesday September 25 said that he was ready to waive his constitutional immunity to submit himself for probe in the wake of serious allegations of financial misconduct against him.
“In the past few days, spates of reckless and malicious falsehoods have been peddled in the media against me by a group of malicious individuals. The defamatory and misleading assertions invented by this clique had mostly been making the social media rounds anonymously.
“I have today instructed the commencement of legal action against two individuals, one Timi Frank and another Katch Ononuju, who have put their names to these odious falsehoods. I will waive my constitutional immunity to enable the most robust adjudication of these claims of libel and malicious falsehood,” he said.
Equally, Osinbajo’s legal team has also threatened to sue Vanguard Newspapers for publishing the said allegation by Frank. Femi Falana, SAN, solicitors to Osinbajo in a letter dated September 24 gave Eze Anaba, editor of the newspaper 24 hours to retract the news report and apologise. “In view of the foregoing we have our client’s firm instructions to request for the immediate retraction of the offensive and derogatory publication coupled with apology prominently published in your newspaper.
“Take notice that if we do not receive your formal retraction and apology within 24 hours of the receipt of this letter, we shall proceed with our client’s instructions to seek legal remedies including aggravated damages in the appropriate High Court.”
As a responsible media outfit, Vanguard on Thursday, September 26 retracted the story and apologised to the vice president. “On our website publication of Monday, September 23, 2019 we published a story titled “N90bn FIRS Election Fund: Osinbajo’s problem, not 2023 politics.” We have since discovered that the story lacks factual substance and we hereby retract it in its entirety.
“We tender our profound apology to Professor Yemi Osinbajo SAN, the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on whom the story touches directly and the All Progressives Congress, APC, for any inconvenience or embarrassment the publication has occasioned them. We hold Professor Osinbajo, SAN in the highest esteem.”
However, it is of noteworthy to state that Osinbajo is a loyal and dependable deputy, who is ready to give his life in the service of his boss. Within one year, Osinbajo survived two helicopter crashes. The most recent incident took place on February 2, 2019 at Kabba area of Kogi State, when his helicopter crash-landed.
The first incident happened on June 7, 2018, when a chopper that was to convey him from the Nigeria Customs Command and Staff College, Gwagwalada in Abuja, was forced to land, few seconds after takeoff. He had to put his life on the line just to convince Nigerians that Buhari/Osinbajo ticket deserved their vote.
As the travails rages, Godwin Anyebe, political analyst, believes that the challenges being faced by Osinbajo can only be linked to the coming 2023 general elections. He argued that the decision to pull the rug off the feet of Osinbajo was a calculative effort to weaken his spirit ahead of 2023 elections.
“I pity Vice President Yemi Osinbajo because he’s not a politician. He has lost it long ago, but was kept in office so that he could be used to appease the Yorubas, especially Christians, during the build up to the general elections. Immediately APC won, the cabals, which include two South-west governors, two former governors, also from the South-west, a former governor from one of the South-south states, a North-central governor and a senior presidential aide, had gone back to the drawing board on how to silence the Vice President. Don’t forget, a lot of us have always insisted that Buhari is not in charge. This is another proof. It will interest you to know that 90 percent of who-got-what in the ministerial list could be linked to this cabal with little or no input from Buhari,” he said.
But the Concerned Nigerians, a rights group, has blamed Abba Kyari, chief of staff to the President, for the current travails of Osinbajo. The group warned Kyari against further actions that could affect the office of the vice president.
Fajobi Olusanjo, convener of the group, in a statement, said there was no feud between Buhari and Osinbajo, saying that the rumoured misunderstanding between the two of them was the handiwork of detractors. “We want to say it expressly that the office of the vice president and by extension governance of the country must never be undermined by any hegemonic cabal.
“In recent times, news spread across our country detailing how Abba Kyari, the 81-year-old Chief of Staff has constituted himself as the “alternate” president; this is dangerous for our democracy as the Office of Chief of Staff is a creation of necessity rather than constitutionality. The same Abba Kyari has been alleged severally to be a corrupt subset of an incorruptible government of President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo administration, how Mr. President continues to tolerate Mr. Abba Kyari’s excesses is still a mystery.”
As politicians strategise for the 2023 general elections and with the permutations that the presidency will return to the south, the game has just started. And if care is not taken, it may not affect only Osinbajo.
– Sept. 27, 2019 @ 18:59 GMT |
Tags: Are there really cracks in the Presidency?
