A bold, incisive and indepth article by Dele Momodu in his weekly column in the This Day newspaper (here). We say Amen to his concluding prayers that the Almighty God show Himself mighty in Nigeria and cause His will to be revealed and done in the country.
This article needs to be shared widely to keep Nigerians alert to the cheap deep machinations of agents of darkness and confusion.
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BY DELE MOMODU (Email: Dele.momody@thisdaylive.com)
Fellow
Nigerians, please allow me to quickly apologise for not concluding the
series I started last week on the importance of celebrity journalism,
the basis of my Fellowship at The African Studies Centre, University of
Oxford. The reason for this change of plan must be pretty obvious, and
predictable. A subject of pressing, and urgent, importance, and
necessity, has presented itself. And it has to do with the systematic
and instalmental, harassment, intimidation, degradation and denudation
of our dear beloved Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo. He is being
shorn of most of his statutory and constitutional powers with veiled
and unsubstantiated insinuations that he has not been following due
process when he clearly has been doing a stickler for such due process.
Such inferences are at best rich when one considers that we are talking
about a Presidency in which the President is famed for delegating powers
and trying not to engage as demonstrated by the much publicised
stripping of his constitutional powers in favour of a Chief of Staff who
has no constitutional or statutory governmental authority. The
contradiction and irony are stark and makes a mockery of what is being
done. The situation is aptly captured by the Yorubas when they say, “ejo
l’owo ninu” (the snake has hands in its stomach)! There is certainly
more to the recent events than meets the eye!
Let
the dramatis personae deny there is nothing of such and claim this is
only a figment of our fertile imagination, or even call it a false
alarm, or whatever nomenclature catches their fancy. However, no matter
the denials, what is unfolding, before our very eyes is more than a
storm in a teacup. It is a stuff of a multi-billion-dollar box office
thriller and the suspenseful drama and twists would make Alfred
Hitchcock green with envy. Not even Samuel Beckett could have scripted
this sort of absurdist drama.
We
can now start from the beginning, if you like, call it genesis. A
cerebral technocrat, thoroughbred professional, a teacher who is an
accomplished Professor of Law for that matter, and a preacher of values
and morals as a Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God to boot,
Yemi Osinbajo, was selected by retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari as
Vice Presidential candidate sometime in 2014. The selection was
applauded by many onlookers as a counterbalance to a Presidential
candidate who was accused, and being pummelled, for not possessing the
minimum educational requirement for the job applied, and also as a
reassurance to those who regarded the APC candidate as a Muslim
fundamentalist. Beyond religion, Osinbajo also represented a much
younger segment of our society who saw Buhari as being too old, too
conservative, too out of tune with modern trends and much more. Osinbajo
was thus a seemingly perfect choice, and those of us who were
Buharists, once upon a time, rejoiced and dreamt of a new Nigeria,
clothed in tranquillity and unity. How wrong we were. Little did we
realise that this was not a one-part story but one of which we were only
seeing the prequel, without the benefit that there would be a sequel
and possibly even a serialisation! We foolishly thought that this was a
story that could not have a Part 2.
Please,
let’s move forward, slowly and steadily. Osinbajo soon threw himself
into his assignment and campaigned much more than any deputy would be
expected to do. It was a forerunner of what we wished for and hoped
would occur when eventually their team won the election. He crisscrossed
Nigeria and navigated his ways across the seas, to far flung places,
preaching the gospel of Saint Buhari and the good news of his imminent
kingdom. Osinbajo is not just a lawyer and preacher, he is an orator,
and he sold his boss to the world at a premium. They won the 2015
Presidential election and we were mostly thankful to God that we had
succeeded in getting rid of the profligate and pernicious PDP behemoth,
after 16 years.
The
duo was elected and President Buhari made it clear that he had put his
trust and faith in his able lieutenant and Vice President, Professor
Osinbajo. He quickly made him the head of his economic team, and
Osinbajo did the rest. He quietly and unassumingly took charge without
seeking to upstage his boss, the President. He was a deputy who knew his
place and although a little-known cabal at the time was hurling
brickbats at him behind the scene, he handled all with his unusual
equanimity and charm. I am sure that his famed tolerance and rectitude
comes from the fantastic combination of lawyer, teacher and priest.
Man
proposes but God disposes. Like all mortals, especially at that advance
age, President Buhari took Ill. The sickness was so massive and scary
that we nearly had another Umaru Yar’Adua situation on our hands. It
will be recalled that Yar’Adua was the penultimate President before
Buhari, and he had died in office, in 2010, before the expiration of his
first term. His Vice President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, had to
complete that term before seeking and winning his own full term. Had
anything happened to Buhari then, God forbid, Pastor Professor Osinbajo,
constitutionally, would have stepped in, gingerly, to claim power as
President and Commander-in-Chief. But, God so loved Buhari, and as he
acknowledged himself, the prayers of Nigerians, and their intercession,
intervened on his behalf, and healed him greatly.
It
was during that interlude in governance that mutual mistrust and
distrust which had been germinating for some time began to spring to the
surface. Some members of the President’s inner caucus who were not used
to taking orders from anyone suddenly found themselves reporting to one
man with what they called “avuncular attitude”. They were angry and
livid, but according to James Hadley Chase in his book titled, “The
Vulture is a Patient Bird” they waited quietly. Osinbajo took decisions
that they considered inimical to their interests, but they kept their
arms akimbo knowing that their time would come, and they would bare
their fangs. Their ire and fury were greatly stoked by the success and
popularity that Osinbajo was attracting, without realising that the
ultimate beneficiary was a government which had previously been seen as
slow, inept and incapable.
Slowly,
but surely, the fake news started spreading, clandestinely, that he
wanted Buhari dead. The conspiracy theory was rife, but subdued.
Osinbajo’s cardinal sin was committed and his fate probably sealed the
day he summarily sacked the Director General of the Department of State
Security, Lawan Daura, after the invasion of the National Assembly by
hooded and gun-toting secret agents. Osinbajo had denied approving such
dare-devilry by the executive against the legislature and till this day
no one has owned up to what nearly became a coup against the legislative
tier of government. Daura was seen as a sacred cow with friends in the
ruling cabal, but Osinbajo by a masterstroke had him smitten and the
head of one of the gargoyles had been severed by one deft blow! He would
not be forgiven and plot after plot were conceived but could not be
carried out before the election as Osinbajo was the Joker in the pack,
the face of the Buhari Presidency!
Permit
me to interject that Osinbajo actually brought stability to the nation
by reaching out to every nook and cranny, cementing bonds of friendship
across party lines. He visited the Niger-Delta and was able to put a
stop to the militancy that was once again threatening to engulf that
region of our country. In doing so he improved our economic fortunes by
ensuring an increase in production of our main income earner, crude oil.
In addition, he brought greater positive image to the Buhari
government. Many silently prayed Buhari would give him more
responsibilities, and a freer hand to handle the complexities of
Nigeria. Again, we were wrong. Any respite for Osinbajo was actually
simply for the purpose of navigating the electoral quagmire that the
Buhari Presidency had found itself in.
Going
back to our narrative, mercifully, Buhari returned after a miraculous
rejuvenation. If his mind had been poisoned against his deputy, his
straight poker face betrayed nothing. They continued to work
harmoniously, at least, in public. As noted, Osinbajo became even more
visible, and voluble, as their second term election drew nearer.
Osinbajo became their star actor and harbinger of Tradermoni, a popular
moniker for feverish distribution of cash in strategic locations, such
as markets and similar trading places, for the emancipation of
impoverished majority, which traducers suggested was nothing more than
an act preparatory to buying votes. Osinbajo took all the savage attacks
for Buhari in his stride. He calmly and eloquently defused and debunked
all the sordid allegations of incompetence, inability and incapability
levelled at his principal. His energy was extraordinary. He did house to
house, and door to door campaigns. He made town hall meetings popular
and the people trooped out to see and discuss the nation with him. The
use of the hustings as the primary focus of the politician to rabble
rouse and appeal to voters became a less favourable option as Osinbajo
demonstrated that it was important to feel the pulse of the people by
personal engagement. He even cheated death on two occasions the second
being in Kogi State, after his chopper spectacularly crashed in a haze
of dust, but thankfully, not in a burst of flames and everyone onboard
survived without as much as a scratch. It was obvious that this was an
anointed man of God and that God was with him and his house.
Elections
came and APC candidate Buhari was declared victorious. I congratulated
them, as normal Democrats would. When there were compelling reasons to
do so shortly afterwards, I admonished the APC by adding the proviso
that the Party should not over-rejoice but offer an olive branch to the
supposed losers.
In a
succinct letter I penned to Professor Osinbajo, I took time to explain
how to restore sanity to the polity. My letter was misconstrued and
instantly rebuffed as an attempt to divide the “one indivisible
Presidency…” I was brutally attacked by some people in the office of
the Vice President, but I understood their predicament. They were
jittery about how the hawks would view my innocuous intervention and
genuine intentions. I read panic in their response to me. But I knew
today will come, eventually, like it has.
I’m a
good student of Nigeria’s political history and trajectory. I’m
familiar with the African mythology that witches don’t forgive. What is
worse, witches don’t spare anyone, they eat and devour their own
children, when in need of flesh. Osinbajo is the latest victim in the
vicious cycle of power games in our country. He is being stripped of the
last vestiges of relevance and importance, as typified by how the
appurtenances of his relatively powerful office have been whittled down
and almost totally degraded. His enemies are working overtime and
overdrive by spreading spiteful rumours about one of the finest
gentlemen in government. He may not be perfect, but Prof is a good man
who loves his job and respects his boss, without doubt.
There
are already speculations that all the theatre and spectacle that we are
witnessing is a prelude to a more devastating attack. The aim is to try
and make his position so tenuous untenable that he is forced to resign.
If he does not bite the bullet or fall on his sword, my understanding
is that he will be pushed. My candid advice and word of caution to the
President is that he should resist such temptation. He should not listen
to those who do not have any patriotic bone in their body. They are
selfish, fearful and also weak. In Osinbajo they see their nemesis. He
is everything that they are not. He has achieved outstanding and amazing
success in every sphere that he has touched. He is a teacher of
international renown and repute, a foremost legal mind, a pastor of
great intellect, compassion and suasion. Worse still for them, he has
come to their turf and shone as bright as the stars of the constellation
to become a consummate politician.
If
this game that we are all witnessing is all about who becomes what in
2023, it is complete balderdash. The reason I say so is very simple.
Only God gives fortune and power. And only God can take it. No matter
how hard man may try, he can never be God, he can only play God. With
time such actor will see that he is nothing more than that thespian who
must quit the stage at some time or the other. On the other hand, the
consecrated vicegerent of God can never be too much honoured and adored.
At my age, I have known and met enough men and women of power. Many of
them are alive and must be wondering what the fuss was all about in
those years gone by. APC has butchered some of its finest people. Do
they need more to prove their virility? They should spare Nigeria this
endless charade.
Let it be on record that I pleaded.
May God’s will be done.
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