By Akanimo Sampson
Plots to abort the perceived 2023 presidential ambition of Bola Tinubu, a former Lagos State Governor (1999-2007) and an influential All Progressives Congress (APC) leader have begun with a design aimed at throwing Vice President Yemi Osinbajo out of the Presidential Villa.
Osinbajo, a senior pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) is a political son of Tinubu who made him Attorney-General and Justice Commissioner of Lagos. Tinubu had nursed an ambition to run with President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. But religious concerns stalled the ambition since he is a Muslim like Buhari.
At the instance of Tinubu, Osinbajo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, emerged as a compromise candidate for the vice presidential slot. Now, the Buhari Mafia, widely known as the cabal, are after the number two citizen.
It is being alleged that there is a move to unseat him as Buhari’s deputy. Those after him are alleging serious irregularities in the Tradermoni scheme under Osinbajo’s watch. In a seeming desperate bid to halt his imminent disgrace from office, Osinbajo, a law professor, is also alleged to have gone to beg the Chief of Staff to President Buhari, Abba Kyari, to rescue him from being sacked.
Kyari is widely seen by the Buhari administration insiders as the de facto president of Nigeria. Quoting sources in the Presidential Villa, Pointblanknews, an online news portal reports that Osinbajo went groveling to Kyari, the strong man of Aso Rock, to save him from disgrace
According to the news portal, the leverage the Buhari Mafia allegedly has over Osinbajo is based on its discovery that shortfalls in the monies meant to be given to the beneficiaries to the scheme were traced to the pockets of the pastor and his cronies.
Osinbajo’s case is allegedly compounded by the way he ensured the sack of the former Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS) Lawal Daura when he was calling the shots as acting president in 2018.
Before now, the grapevine was awash with stories of moves to start an impeachment process against Osinbajo in the pro- Buhari Senate over the N33billion intervention fund fraud in the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) which is under the embattled Osinbajo supervision.
The Green Chamber of the bicameral Legislature, the House of Representatives, after investigating and unearthing the rot in the management of the intervention fund insisted that Osinbajo has a case to answer having made approvals for release of those funds while he acted as president.
In a seeming move to reduce Osinbajo’s influence in his administration, President Buhari, via a memo, mandated his deputy to henceforth take directives from him in the management of agencies and parastatals the vice president was constitutionally empowered to oversee.
Furthermore, the President formed an Economic Advisory Council with a mandate to report directly to him, effectively disbanding the Economic Management Team, hitherto under the supervision of Osinbajo.
Osinbajo chairs the governing boards of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the National Boundary Commission (NBC) and the Border Communities Development Agency (BCDA). He is also the chairman of the board of directors of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), a limited liability company owned by the three tiers of government.
The erudite law scholar equally chairs the National Economic Council (NEC), a constitutional body made up of state governors and key federal government officials, as well as the National Council on Privatisation (NCP).
It is already being whispered that the plot to throw Osinbajo out of the Presidential Villa after using him and his ethnic group to retain Buhari in power, is not only about how he sacked the secret police chief, Daura, but the alleged stealing in his office.
Most of the telephone numbers of traders who allegedly benefitted from Tradermoni does not tally. None of the traders have paid back. While the officially approved amount is N10,000, traders allegedly got between N5,000 and N6,000, with the shortfalls allegedly ending up in the deep pockets of Osinbajo and his cronies.
Tradermoni, a seeming vote-buying project, has been a subject of controversy in the build up to the controversial last general election. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria’s main opposition party has been accusing Osinbajo of using the scheme to buy votes.
Being considered as Osinbajo’s replacement in a bid to placate the Yoruba is Pastor Tunde Bakare, alleged to be on his way to New York to join heads of the Buhari Mafia.
Bakare is not strange to Buhari. He was the President’s running mate in 2011 under the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), one of the coalition parties that formed the APC. In the build-up to the 2015 presidential polls, the fiery tele-evangelist was also tipped as one of those who would likely emerge as Buhari’s vice president.
In the mean time, a wrong handling of the Osinbajo affair is capable of changing the political direction of Western Nigeria and spark up an economic-crippling crisis on a scale like that of the June 12. Some combatants of NADECO are still capable of regrouping and mobilising for a cause that could make the daring Buhari Mafia regret their action.
