Vice President Yemi Osinbajo
Notwithstanding public appearances and statements to the contrary,
political permutations and maneuvering for the 2023 presidential race
may have finally come between the national leader of the ruling All
Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Vice
President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo.
This became glaring following some developments in the presidency,
which appeared to have reduced the influence of the VP within
government. About three weeks ago, government agencies under the
supervision of Vice President Osinbajo were directed to be seeking their
approvals from the President, and same period, the Prof. Doyin
Salami-led economic advisory council was set up to replace the
Osinbajo-led economic management team. A presidential directive sacking
the VP’s aides from the villa capped that; they are now to operate from a
rented apartment in the Abuja metropolis.
While there have been many political interpretations given to the
gathering storm, ranging from alleged complicity in some activities to
attempts to shove him aside or whittle down his influence ahead of 2023,
Saturday Sun gathered exclusively that the storm the VP is battling
against is three-pronged.
Trouble began for the brilliant professor of law when some
officials working with him were fingered in the purchase of some houses
abroad especially the United States. It was learnt that in all, the VP
has about 80 officials as aides. With the exception of a few, most of
the aides were being paid salaries by agencies under the supervision of
the Vice President’s office.
A probe of the development was said to have absolved Osinbajo of
any complicity in the activities of some of the indicted aides. This,
those opposed to the VP in APC, government and within the opposition
ranks twisted against him.
Presidential sources disclosed that this was responsible for the
decision to relocate over 70 officials working with the VP from Aso Rock
villa to a rented apartment within the capital city as well as the
issuance of the directive to seek President Buhari’s approval by certain
agencies under the direct supervision of the VP.
For Osinbajo and Tinubu, the relationship started going down south
when the APC leader and former governor of Lagos state began to get
feelers that the number two citizen might equally be nursing the
ambition to succeed his boss in 2023. The latter is believed to have
nominated the former for his current position in the run-up to the 2015
presidential election. Some persons close to Tinubu were said to have
made some snipe remarks about the suspected ambition of the VP to the
hearing of security agents in an open discussion at the 11th Bola Tinubu
birthday colloquium held March in Abuja, an incident that later became
part of a security report on the programme.
It was further gathered that Tinubu has not been too pleased with
the VP because he has not been consulting him on a number of issues,
while “some of their people in government like the FIRS man have been
working more towards the political ambition of the VP than that of
Asiwaju.” The APC leader was said to have been restrained by friends and
aides from releasing a press statement endorsing recent presidential
actions viewed as whittling down the VP’s influence before jetting out
to London over a week ago.
He equally has a Buhari ally and former governor of the state,
Senator Ibikunle Amosun to contend with. All the major federal political
appointments going to Ogun since the inauguration of President Buhari’s
second term in May had been clinched by persons nominated by Amosun.
For instance, Amosun’s childhood friend and Commissioner for Works and
Infrastructure during his eight-year term as governor of Ogun,
Olamilekan Adegbite, was recently appointed the Minister of Mine and
Steel Development.
Amosun has also succeeded in pushing his ally, Adeleke Moronfolu
Adewolu, to be appointed as the Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder
Engagement, at the Nigerian Communications Commission. He replaced
Sunday Dare, who is now the Minister of Youths and Sports Development.
Adewolu had contested but lost the House of Representatives seat in
Ifo/Ewekoro Federal Constituency on the platform of APM, a party openly
supported by Amosun. In addition, Amosun has been able to push for his
former Commissioner for Agric and Urban and Physical Planning, Mrs Ronke
Sokefun, to be appointed as the chairman of the Governing Board of the
Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Three weeks ago, President Buhari constituted an economic advisory
council and named Prof Doyin Salami as chairman. Salami, from Ijebu Ode,
Ogun state, is Amosun’s close friend. Few days before his appointment,
he was in Owo, Ondo state with Amosun for Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s
daughter’s wedding ceremony.
Meanwhile, a top official in the VP’s office, who preferred anonymity, told Saturday Sun
“ The vice president can’t be seen to be a local champion. Yes, his
camp produced the governor of Ogun State and you must also remember that
Amosun’s relationship with the president predates the APC. They were
together in ANPP and, since the vice president’s camp has produced the
governor, it was only fair that Amosun’s camp nominate for other
appointments. Appointments are at the president’s discretion.”
Asked why Tinubu is yet to publicly defend Osinbajo, the official replied: “People
are free to make extrapolations based on their interests. Besides, some
of these issues are better sorted locally. Now, let’s remember that
whenever (former President Jonathan) Goodluck had any issues with Sambo,
did they discuss it publicly? Any issue will still be resolved
locally.”
Speaking on record however, Senior Technical Assistant on Media to
the Vice President, Louis Odion denied some aides were indicted in any
probe set up by the presidency. He said: “I think President
Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo deserve not to be
distracted in their efforts to find solutions to our numerous national
problems with rumour mongering like this.
“I am glad you said a panel set up absolved the Vice President.
I don’t know of any secret probe. I only know of a committee of the
House of Representatives that looked into the funds spent by NEMA and it
came out with a report that the Vice President was above board. You
need to understand that Professor Osinbajo is a man of impeccable
integrity who is very loyal to his boss and has the fear of God and
whose guiding principle in public office is to serve the interest of the
greatest number. To answer your question directly, I am not aware of
any secret probe of any of his aides or their indictment.”
While also responding to the issue of some VP aides being paid salaries by agencies under the office, Odion said
“I doubt if such is impossible. You need to understand that it is a
single presidency. We all are appointees of President Buhari. Civil
servants are under the head of service while the Secretary to the
Government of the Federation signs letters of employment for political
appointees. It is only after you are engaged that you get deployed in
the office, department or agency where your service is needed. Salaries
are paid through a unified system. In fact, through reforms introduced
by the Buhari administration, tens of thousand of ghost workers have
been weeded out of the system. This was achieved through the integrated
payroll system.”
Reacting to the removal of 70 out of the over 80 aides working with the VP from the Villa, Odion said: “I
think President Muhammadu Buhari offered sufficient clarity to this in
his October 1 national broadcast. The government thought it necessary to
create a new ministry to respond to new realities and dynamics. I think
there is a consensus today that the social investment programme, which
has been supervised by Vice President Osinbajo in the last three years,
has been quite impactful and beneficial to a large segment of our
population. “The TraderMoni and MarketMoni initiatives have benefitted
more than two million Nigerians. The school feeding programme has
touched more than 10 million pupils in public schools across the
country.
Also, the conditional cash transfer has offered succour directly to more than 600,000 vulnerable Nigerians.
“These programmes were incubated and nurtured under the Vice
President. Until now, these initiatives were more like interventionist.
Now, what President Buhari has done is to try and institutionalise them.
To this end, a ministry has been created called Ministry of
Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development. So,
the implication is that officers or aides as you call them, whose duties
or responsibilities pertain to the agencies I earlier mentioned, are to
be moved to another location where the ministry is constituted.”
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