By Kunle Adepitan
Professor Oluyemi Osinbajo (PYO), pastor and incumbent vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria declared his intention to run for the presidential post on Monday April 11, 2022. This declaration has put paid to wild speculations whether or not he is going to get into the fray.
Even though I have not met him once, I hold it true that PYO has every right to contest for any political office he so desires. However, it is his capability to perform optimally as an executive president given his antecedents as a sitting vice president I like to interrogate.
Moreover, it must be stated clearly that ambition is not a crime. Humans and not animals will be made president of Nigeria, anyway. What we only need to be conscious of is that Nigeria has been too unfortunate to have thrust on her, pseudo presidents who hardly solve her hydra-headed problems but rather add to it.
We used to think nothing, and no one could be worse than Ebele Jonathan until Muhammadu Buhari came into the saddle. Tell me, whoever believed that Nigerians could experience anything, and anyone like Buhari? And so, it is on that premise we need to critically appraise and examine the Yemi Osinbajo persona; his character, worldview, and performances as the vice president of Nigeria in the last seven years.
For me, he has not impressed much and quite a lot of close political watchers and political analysts would agree that the vice president is a “mere flash in the pan”. For starters, he has largely been seen as a Pentecostal pastor who cannot defend the church and Christians against genocide by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists by even registering his disapproval at the rate Christians were massacred and their places of worship, burnt down in different parts of the country.
As a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), he refused to stand up for the Rule of Law – particularly when the Judiciary came under attack and was thereafter made an appendage of the Executive arm of national government. As a professor of academics, Yemi Osinbajo refused to lend a voice to the ASUU and his colleagues in the Ivory Tower when it mattered most.
He is a Yoruba man in a position of power who did not lift a finger as Fulani herdsmen and bandits overran the South-West killing, maiming and raping our wives and daughters but went to the United States to say, “reports of the mindless killings by the terrorists in the South-West were exaggerated”.
Professor Yemi Osinbajo is a supposed good man and a “Man of God” who was as silent as the graveyard while our youths were cut down at the Lekki Toll Gate; and who looked away while the same youths were made to lose good money to the vexatious Twitter ban by his irascible boss, Muhammadu Buhari. The essence of personality and character of an individual is always determined and discernible during moral crisis.
The Yoruba have a saying: “Ti ao ba le s’anpa, a ma nko s’ori ni”. Literally translated, “If for any reason one cannot swing the hands, the hands should be folded on the head”. Professor Yemi Osinbajo, your character has been tested on several occasions and you failed! You are a bird of the same plumage with your boss, Buhari. For the class of the leftist progressives in the country, you are nothing but a pseudo leader who hides behind a finger like the grasshopper! Being called upon to serve as a vice president does not imply servitude or mortgaging one’s avowed values all in a bid to appear as a “jolly good fellow” to everyone.
What all of the above meant contextually is that you acquiesced in the grand infamy and iniquities that went on in the villa of power. Truth be told, your vice presidency is just a chip in the pyramid of evil structure that forms the template of our national decadence. One then continues to wonder why the destiny of a people be at the pleasure of self-seeking leaders like you who have cornered political influence and narrowed the space for engagement?
This writer is not interested in the political dynamics unfolding between you and your so-called “benefactor”. I am not a Bola Tinubu apologist; neither am I a card-carrying member of the umbrella party! And I have always maintained that it is always ideal for the kite to perch, and the eagle allowed to perch. In other words, every Nigerian that is interested in one political office or the other, must be given unfettered latitude to contest.
It is only instructive to say here that since each electoral cycle in Nigeria is a depopulation exercise and an opportunity to demonstrate to voters that pure terror trumps their constitutional rights, there must be ways and means to reach an accord within the party level, with your “godfather” in politics to avoid unnecessary skirmishes and bloodletting.
A cursory look at Nigeria’s economy reveals its steadily dwindling mettle. Professor Yemi Osinbajo has led the National Economic Council for seven years as vice president and within that period, unemployment rose from 9% to 33%, inflation rose from 9% to 25%, while the US dollar rose from 197 Naira to 580 Naira. Not done, fuel rose from 87 Naira to 164 Naira per litre under his watch! The country’s GDP declined by 41 Billion US Dollars.
Given these economic parameters under a federal government he is a key player, your presidential bid evokes great panic to every right-thinking Nigerians who feels your presidency could be another political misadventure! The elders say whatever tree the chimpanzee beats in the forest sounds like a drum. In like manner, whatever the contemporary Nigerian politician touches, he ruins further.
It is a pity that human memory is short. Otherwise, none of the people doing “A Walk For Yemi Osinbajo” would have bothered their heads to do it unless of course, if only they have been financially gratified to do it given the simple fact that PYO contributed in part, to their near-animal existence today in Nigeria.
However, the time-honoured admonitions of George Santayana that “those who fail to learn the lessons of history are often condemned to repeating its mistakes” is apposite here and would surely make the people wiser with the passage of time. May we have leaders in the land especially those whose heads sits pretty on their necks and who will not mince words, leaders that would be courageous to call a spade a spade and not a hoe, regardless whose ox is gored!
Adepitan, is a socio-political analyst and a concerned Nigerian
