Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday night made a veiled mockery of the governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in the just concluded governorship election in Osun State, Senator Ademola Adeleke, and Senator Dino Melaye for being humorous.
Osinbajo, who spoke at the Independence Gala night held at the Banquet hall of the Presidential Villa, said he agreed with the poll reportedly conducted by the British Independent newspapers which declared Nigerians as the happiest and most optimistic people in the world.
He said Adeleke provided humor by dancing while Senator Melaye made people laugh by claiming to escape assassination, hiding on a tree top for 11 hours.
Osinbajo said: “A few months ago, an important Nigerian politician who was on his way to a trial in a court said he was abducted. And after he escaped from his abductors, he remained hiding on a tree for 11 hours.
”The most interesting part of that story is that many people online in particular, on the Internet, started to tell stories of different birds and how long those birds could remain perched on a tree. All these were the Nigerian contributions to that story.
“Yet another very important politician insists, and still insists that the most important attribute for leadership is dancing, and boy he can dance! And for those who think that that is ridiculous, at least 200,000 people voted for him in a particular election.”
On how optimistic Nigerians could be, Osinbajo told the story of his personal driver: “When I served as Adviser to the Attorney General of the Federation between 1987 and 1992, I had a driver who was always broke. But he was always so optimistic.
“He had 14 children, while I, his boss, had only one child at the time. And I asked him, “Why do you just keep having so many children?” Of course, he had more than one wife.
”He said to me in Yoruba ‘I don’t know which of them can become President of Nigeria. So, the more I have, the better my chances.’ How optimistic can you be? Only a Nigerian can be that optimistic.”
Also on the occasion, the Vice President expressed optimism that Nigeria was set to become the envy of the whole world.
He said: “The reason we are so optimistic is that we know that we are the best, we know we are going to excel, it may seem like it’s taking a while, and there are many problems, but every one of the over 1,000 days that I have been Vice President for, I grow stronger in my complete confidence that we are going to be the envy of the whole world in a few short years.
“Well, you might say that that is optimistic, why not, I am a Nigerian.”
