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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