How Osinbajo Rescued President Buhari At The Town Hall Meeting In Abuja

Osinbajo and Buhari at the Town Hall Meeting

Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo recently came to the rescue of his principal, President Muhammadu Buhari at the Town Hall Meeting which held in Abuja.

President Muhammadu Buhari struggled to answer the routine questions that the moderator of the first edition of Town Hall Meeting, Kadaria Ahmed, posed to him and his deputy, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN reports.

The Vice President regularly came to the defence of his principal, which prompted Ms Ahmed to, at some point in the debate, urged Osinbajo to allow Mr. President to answer his own questions.

The presidential town hall meeting tagged, The Candidates, was broadcast live on the network of the Nigerian Television Authority on Wednesday night.

Though the series was put together to afford presidential candidates and their running mates the opportunity of informing the electorate of their plans for the country ahead of the February 16 presidential election, Mr. President’s outing leaves much to be desired in that regard.

As the head of government, most of the questions were, understandably, directed at Buhari. The first question — Why do you want to re-contest? — met with a: “I’ve said it before that if my party nominates me, I will contest.”

After belabouring it for a long time, he rounded off where he should have started from, how he has delivered on his three main electoral promises. Were the President subjected to time restriction, he would have been stopped before getting to the real issue.

The Daura-born retired general adopted his unique style of starting from the most irrelevant point while answering many other questions.

Indeed, Mr. President meandered back and forth while answering questions on issues of national importance, with Osinbajo always diving in at crucial moments to make up for His Excellency’s obvious shortcomings.

When Ms Ahmed turned to Osinbajo the first time and asked if he had anything to add to the reason his boss gave for seeking re-election, he appeared reluctant, perhaps so as not to create a wrong impression about his boss.

The first law in Robert Greene’s book, The 48 Laws of Power, must have crossed his mind: Never Outshine the Master. But he appeared to have, at the end of it all, as the VP provided the much-needed fillip to make the session worth the efforts and investment.

And when it appeared the President had difficulty in hearing (or processing) the questions from the moderator and members of the audience, Osinbajo was always on hand to repeat them to him.

The Vice-President also on many occasions guided his boss in supplying what he felt were appropriate answers for tough questions.

But if Buhari appeared not exactly poised to answer questions on some issues, that of his anti-graft fight seemed to resonate with him that he answered questions on same with the dexterity of a ‘smart politician.’

For instance, on his stance towards the Governor Umar Ganduje bribery saga, Mr. President smartly referred to the intervention of the Kano State House of Representatives as the reasons for his silence on the matter, while urging anyone who is certain about Babachir’s issue to come forth with evidence.

Mr. President’s responses to other thorny issues of national interest, such as the matter of out-of-school children in the North, called Almajiris; and the perennial farmer-herder clashes also left the audience unconvinced that the nation should hope for genuine solutions in the short term.

Despite what appears to be Mr. President’s less-than-average performance at the Town Hall Meeting, however, there were regular loud cheers and clapping from a section of the audience, even when His Excellency wasn’t coherent enough for his audience to process his answers.

As the camera occasionally beamed on the audience, the countenance of ministers and presidential aides left no one in doubt that they were concerned about the performance of their Chief Executive.

It is advisable for the Presidency to examine dispassionately Nigerians’ responses to the debate on social media platforms if that will afford Mr. President the opportunity to know what his citizens think of him and his administration and make adjustments as necessary.

The opposition party, PDP has attacked President Muhammadu Buhari over his performance at yesterday's live interview.

President Muhammadu Buhari

 

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council in Ekiti State has said that if not for lack of conscience, those still supporting the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari will go to bed last night, covering themselves with blanket of shame after seeing the President’s scandalous performance on NTA programme, ‘The Candidates.’

 

In a statement made on Thursday by the State Campaign Council Director of Media and Publicity, Lere Olayinka, the party said, “almost all questions had to be interpreted to the President while he talked off-point throughout; answering no question appropriately to the extent that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo became so embarrassed and agitated that he tried to help him answer questions that was asked him.

“It was so terrible that the moderator had to tell the Vice President to allow President Buhari to talk for himself.”

 

Olayinka, who said it was sad that those promoting the President knew even in 2015 that he lacked both mental and physical capacity to run a local council not to talk of a country of over 200 million people lamented that, “the only reason the cabal running the country wants

him to remain in office is to guarantee their 2023 presidential ambition and access to the national treasury.”

 

He challenged those still supporting the President’s second term bid to in all honesty tell Nigerians why the same Buhari that they saw on NTA last night should continue as president.

“They should tell Nigerians how a man who could not comprehend anything on that live programme except when it had to do with promoting nepotism should keep running the affairs of Nigeria.

“In saner climes, after his disastrous performance on The Candidates last night, President Buhari’s will be asked to go home and rest. But because they are selfish and wicked, they will pretend that the NTA programme never happened just as they pretended in 2015 when the President was calling APC ‘All Progressives Confidence’, ‘INEC Independent Nigeria Electoral Commission’, Osinbajo ‘Osunbade’ and Imo State ‘Ibo’ State.

“They also saw him in 2015 when he was talking about Deutsche Mark that was last spent in Europe in 1999 as currency being used in Germany, referring to Angela Merkel as President Michelle and Germany as West Germany. But they will never mind the international embarrassment that he has become as long as their hold on power is sustained and their 2023 presidential ambition is guaranteed.”

 

While saying that the President has never hidden his support for corrupt elements in his party, Olayinka said; “To further demonstrate the hypocrisy in his so-called fight against corruption, when asked about the Kano State Governor, Ganduje’s bribery scam, President Buhari responded by saying; “Hopefully, by the time I go to Kano for my campaign, I will have the information,” but at the same time tried to discredit the video exposing the bribery scandal.

 

He said; “Nigerians, especially the people of Ekiti should take their time to see the video of The Candidates edition of yesterday and challenge anyone coming to preach reelection of the president to them if they will hand the running of their personal business to someone who has proven to be unconscious of happenings around him.”