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Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s Vice President.

By Yinka Odumakin
A WEEK after he became a stutterer (why we we we where where are here) at the Vice-Presidential debate in Abuja as a result of ‘running’ in Lai’s lane, VP Yemi Osinbajo was at the palace of the Alafin of Oyo last weekend to shred whatever vestige of credibility he has left for crass political opportunism.

The otherwise cerebral Professor did not have to stammer this time around as he sang the ‘popular’ song his two other Lagos competitors (Messrs Bola Tinubu and Raji Fashola) have been miming) for the illusory 2023 Presidential slot: a vote for Buhari is the surest route to Yoruba presidency in 2023.

Our elders from the depth of their wisdom say a leaf that is wrapped with soap for long begins to foam and so it has become with Osinbajo playing cheap ethnic card to divide when the position he occupies requires unifying all sections of the country. We belong to everybody has always been a lip service for them all. Before going into Osinbajo’s pathetic outing in Oyo, let’s fill in some gaps. The hornet’s nest was stirred by Buhari’s biographer sometime ago when he squealed that Osinbajo’s erstwhile boss, Bola Tinubu never wanted him to be running mate to Buhari in 2015. It took Osinbajo days to come out with “somebody somewhere nominated me.” The authentic account gathered by this column was that Tinubu in company of Chief Bisi Akande and Rauf Aregbesola had rushed to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in Lagos after Buhari emerged as the APC candidate to ask him to speak with Buhari as he seemed not to be ready to honour his agreement with Tinubu to make him running mate before the primary. was silent for a moment before asking Akande: “When you came to me to invite me into APC, I asked you if there were any prior commitment on ticket and you said none. Did you not? There was no response from Akande. Tinubu and Aregbesola looked at each other straight in the face. The silence in the room was so loud, you could hear a pin drop. A day before close of nomination, Buhari and Tinubu had a stormy meeting where the Jagaban thoroughly abused GMB after he told him he was not going to make him running mate and the latter walked out of the meeting. He thereafter threatened to address a press conference to drop the ticket and ask Tinubu to do whatever he pleases with it. Panic meetings began. Tinubu and his core started discussions. Tinubu’s inner core advised that he must nominate three Christians to Buhari as he requested from which he can pick one. When he grudgingly agreed, he nominated Adams Oshiomhole. When reminded the slot was for South West, he moved on to Yemi Cardoso. It was Aregbesola who put his foot down on Yemi Osinbajo which was said to have been resisted by Tinubu as he said that having been one of the loudest against Muslim-Muslim ticket, Osinbajo could not be the beneficiary. He reluctantly agreed when Aregbesola insisted ! Tinubu’s fear then is about to play out as Osinbajo now sees himself as Buhari’s successor, a project which is Tinubu’s last political gambit with Fashola also waiting in the wings. This is the background to Osinbajo’s declaration in Oyo “Yoruba have a crucial role to play in the 2019 elections, so ensure that APC wins. We are looking at 2023. If we don’t do well in 2019, the opportunity might evade us. (He should have said me). We should be forward-looking and not spoil our future by allowing those who had plundered our nation to come back to government. They have been coalescing again to continue the plunder but God shall not allow them”. Osinbajo to past Govts: What did you do with our money Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State who accompanied Osinbajo on this outing also forgot he is a governor when he lined with Osinbajo and ended like Senator Adefuye at Yoruba Assembly meeting in Ibadan in 2015 which endorsed the evil walking over us today. “This coming 2019 elections is between Hausa and Yoruba on one hand and Hausa and Ibo on the other side. It is only a bastard in Yorubaland that will not support APC. ” What will Mr. Governor tell his children if they start using such words? And how does he think majority of Yoruba people will describe anybody who wish them to relieve another four years of sorrow, pains, tears and bloodshed? What can desperation do to a grandfather to be this uncouth! This is the time to address Osinbajo, Tinubu,Fashola, Fayemi and their foot soldiers who have chosen January 29,2019 as a day to invite evil on their Yorubaland for another four years (God forbid this for our land). Those people cannot say they were not aware that day was chosen to relaunch the Nigerian Tribune, the paper founded by our revered sage, Obafemi Awolowo. We will see how Awo reacts to the choice of the day his legacy is being celebrated as the very moment to relaunch evil on the people he worked to uplift all his life! The line is about to be drawn in the sand between Yoruba Patriots and the unpatriotic. The issue at stake today is whether anybody who loves the Yoruba people and by extension Nigerians across board would want them to live another four years of what is going on in our land. The National Bureau of Statistics a few days ago revealed that about 40m Nigerians are today unemployed or under employed excluding those in employment who are not paid as typified by Osun State. Amnesty International just reported the killings of over 3,600 Nigerians in the herdsmen terror on farmers. Yorubaland recorded quite a number of such deaths in Yewa, Oke Ogun in Oyo State and different communities in Ondo state as well as Osun and Ekiti states and there was not a word of sympathy from the “Buhari is the road to Yoruba 2023 Presidency “group so they could be politically correct with their masters. When a Yoruba Lady Evangelist and co-Pastor in The Redeemed Christian Church was hacked to death for just preaching under Osinbajo presidency, he could not visit the family or make any statement. PDP accuses Buhari of trying to manipulate unemployment figures When Chief Olu Falae was kidnapped, hacked and kept in the bush for days by ruffian herdsmen, there was not a whimper from these traders in money in the name of Yoruba people. When there was a crisis in Ife and the Buhari government packed only Yoruba to Abuja, none of these people ever raised his voice. The Yoruba people are at the receiving end of the agony in the country today like other Nigerians as poverty has become the lot of those who don’t have access to government treasury under Buhari-Osinbajo government. That Osinbajo can find people queuing for his N10,000 tradermoni another name for vote buying he is distributing all over Yorbaland best explains the destruction these people have wrought on our people. Yoruba who are not benefitting from the present rot, and they are in the majority, will speak with their PVCs in February.They spoke when they rejected APC in the Osun polls when the one who boast he is richer than Osun was humiliated. When they manipulated the election into an unnecessary re-run they shamefully announced a 400 votes lead in a state they won with over 100,000 in 2014! That was a referendum on their over three years disaster. The Yoruba want a restructured polity where their governments would have autonomy to run their lives and their fate would be better. They will vote for devolution of power. They will decide for state police so their security can be under the leaders they elect. What would be at stake for them is not the 2023 ambition of Tinubu and Fashola. Osinbajo and their hangers-on for the current presidency that benefits only those in government and their cronies. It would be a choice about their future and how to live like human beings. They will not want to live in a country where national conversations would be only about cattle routes, gazing reserves, Miyetti Allah and other barbarities that have dominated our discourse in the last three years of palpable incompetence, clannishness, clowning and backwardness that have been our unfortunate lot. We need to move our national discussions to where civilised polities are. We need to overtake Ghana that grew its GDP by 7.4 in third quarter of 2018 when Nigerians could only do 1.8 under this government. Yoruba will opt for a country where human life matters not where we are now- when human blood is cheaper than a sachet of water. It is how to build a new country that we should be our discussions and not Igbo against Yoruba or any other ethnic group for 2023 as men with no high values and have been given opportunity but have nothing to offer our people want to force us into. This is the meat of restructuring which Buhari/Osinbajo and APC don’t want to hear. There is an alternative to this. We shall meet them at Philipi! Here is wishing our numerous readers a Merry Christmas.
* This article was first published in Vanguard on December 25, 2018.
Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/12/osinbajos-2023-song/