Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo’s entry into the nomination bid of his party, All Progressive Congress (APC), instantly excited the prospects of the 2023 presidential election. The sensational development, obviously, rattled potential rivals for the nomination exercise who tapped on waiting questions, most of, if not all of, which are laughable when placed along Nigerian and world history..

Osinbajo was faulted right from the opening sentence of his declaration for the race. Why did he have to tie his entry into the race to a continuation of the performance of his principal, President Muhammadu Buhari? In any case, the very performance of Buhari for the past seven years? If Osinbajo was so sure of his election chances, why did he change his constituency from Lagos to Ikenne in Ogun State? Most uncharitably, Osinbajo’s decision was likened to that of Judas Iscariot. Somehow, the man has maintained a dignified silence in Nigeria, where politics is notorious for exhuming any standard, no matter how low. In effect, he has transformed the showdown into an exercise between him and the rest. Some kind of statesmanship, which in itself is a masterstroke.

For a start, in any democracy in the world, changing of the constituency is routine. In Britain, one of the most principled politicians of his time, Tony Benn, lost his Bristol South constituency to redrawing of constituency carried out by, ironically, his party’s Labour government. Benn was out of parliament for a couple of years and when a vacancy occured in Sheffield, north Yorkshire, Tony Benn changed his constituency to Sheffield and won easily. 

In the United States, Mitt Romney, the Republican who unsuccessfully ran against former President Barack Obama in 2012, was born in Massachusetts, where he served one term as a state governor. But he could not win any election to the Senate. He moved to Utah State in the western part of the  country and exploited his  Mormon faith to win election to the Senate  in 2019.

Has Osinbajo taken undue advantage of his friend, Bola Tinubu, a decent way of asking if one betrayed the other? Tinubu has not said he was betrayed in this saga because the reality is that there is no record in history anywhere in the world where a man is sent ahead to go and prepare the presidency for the other. That would be be naive, if not idiotic. Instead, the standard in mature democracies is for an incumbent Vice-President to bid for the real prize at the end of the tenure of the substantive President. Or would Tinubu have ever agreed to serve as a Vice-President only to prepare the substantive post for another man? Simple questions.

Then there is this existing confusion. Who actually nominated Vice-President Osinbajo for his post? In the first place, whoever nominated him couldn’t have cautioned him that the man was to go there for eight  years without being contaminated by the enormity of the  powers of a Nigerian President. Any man who expects the country’s presidency to be reserved for him or whoever agrees to preserve the presidency for another man is a zombie.

And then there is still the confusion on who actually nominated Osinbajo as Vice-President to President Muhammadu Buhari. Again, to be fair to Tinubu, he has never claimed in public that he nominated Osinbajo, even though that would have been distasteful. Apart from that, nominating him could never mean he (Osinbajo) was being sent ahead to prepare the place for another man. There was a critical argument by ignorant busybodies on who actually nominated Osinbajo as Vice-President, the latter who himself also made the same mistake by claiming that he was nominated by Tinubu. That claim must have infuriated a faction of the ruling APC sympathetic to former Ogun State governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, which gave the seemingly most intimate and authentic details of how Buhari, frustrated at easily choosing a religiously/electorally compatible running mate, handed over that task to Amosun, who singlehandedly briefed Osinbajo and recommended him to Buhari. That revelation must have shocked Osinbajo. Neither Tinubu nor the Vice-President has since challenged that fact, which, today, is now part of Nigerian political history. If at all, any resultant gratitude belongs to somebody else.

How about the grudge of some critics against Osinbajo that, as part of  Buhari’s administration, the Vice-President bears part-responsibility for the government’s bad policies and might not merit a new mandate because he did not criticise those policies. That is ignorance at work, on the part of the critics. Every member of the government, including the Vice-President, might not and did not have to agree with government policies. Yet, never would such dissent be in public and might not even be openly at cabinet meetings. Instead, the President and the Vice-President would iron out their differences all alone in the President’s office. A good example was the separation of the services of former director-general of SSS, Lawan Daura, for sending his men to preserve law and order at the National Assembly. If President Buhari were around when the incident occurred, nobody would ever be aware of Osinbajo’s view of the action, since Buhari would have handled the matter himself. Despite Osinbajo’s view of the major incident, Buhari’s decision on the matter would still have prevailed.

Public issues are ever discussed in Nigeria as if the country has no history. Much is being made of the fact that Vice-President Osinbajo, in pursuit of his presidential aspiration, changed his constituency from Lagos to Ikenne in Ogun State. Never mind the scare that defeat in the race drove him away from Lagos. That could be only one part of the history. The other part, and the major part at that, was that former President Olusegun Obasanjo was the first in 1999 general election to confront that handicap. The real history was that, despite losing his ward, his local government, his state and South-West zone, Obasabjo still proceeded to win the presidential election.

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Suddenly, if conveniently, betrayal has become a weapon for destruction in Nigerian politics. Where was betrayal all along? Obviously, it did not suit our purpose of pretended individual or group prescription of betrayal. My group friend, Wahab Dosunmu, planned his political future and revealed same to his NADECO colleagues, both fellow exiles abroad and caretakers in Lagos. When the time came, he was outwitted, notwithstanding the fact that Dosunmu was original Lagos boy. He took his lot with magnanimity till he died.

When is stabbing not a deep stabbing? When it suits a convenient personal or group purpose? Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s daughter, Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu, was to contest the governorship of Lagos State in 1991. Supposed best or closest friends seemed to rally round her, except that it turned out (that) they had one leg in a separate camp. Those who shocked most were the backbone political supporters and cohorts of her late father. They mounted opposition against Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu on two planks.  As the political enemies claimed, after serving the father, they would not serve the daughter and, in any case, she was not from Lagos. After Pakistan’s Prime Minister Ali Bhutto was hanged in April 1979, the daughter, Benazir Bhutto, was elected twice Pakistan’s Prime Minister, 1988 to 1990 and 1993 to 1996. On the other hand, after Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984, her son, Rajiv Gandhi, was elected Prime Minister of India and served for five years, even though he too was    assassinated in 1989. Any difference between Lagos State, where Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu is resident and Ogun, her state of origin, to where she was asked to return? Nigerians should look for the answer.

Obafemi Awolowo’s daughter was completely blocked by her father’s supporters parading as progressives, who, obviously, inadvertently, allowed the rival NPN to win the Lagos governorship with familiar face in the top hierarchy of the new administration. Some would say Obafemi Awolowo was thereby stabbed and betrayed by his supposed followers. If Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu was blocked from contesting elections in Lagos, more so on the ground that she was from Ogun State, Tinubu was spared that political hostility by the same Awoists to be elected Lagos governor for eight years. The bitter truth is that (especially) in politics, personal/group interests, opportunism and convenience are the major weapons.

Following the victory of of Conservatives in 1970 general election,  Maggie Thatcher was appointed education minister in Edward Heath’s cabinet. That same government fell in a shock election victory for Labour party in 1974. Maggie Thatcher led disgruntled Tory members to oust Edward Heath as leader. As the new opposition leader, Maggie Thatcher led her colleagues to win the elections in 1979.

After sacking two chancellors of the exchequer (finance ministers) within her 10-year rule, she lost the confidence of her party members in the House of Commons and had to quit as Prime Minister. Against all expectations, ousted Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher ensured that all her opponents in the party, including deputy prime minister Michael Hazeltine did not succeed her. Instead, the former PM backed her third finance minister, John Major, for the top job. Major was never known to have openly disagreed with the policies of his boss all along. Instead, when the new PM called elections, he won huge victory for the Conservatives despite the fact that he was a leading member of Mrs. Thatcher’s unpopular government. Politicians all over the world and their ways?

Was it all that easy for Boris Johnson to emerge British Prime Minister three years ago? In fact, he gave up on the first attempt following the ambush of a seeming collaborator of a close colleague, Michael Gove, who all along during the campaigns claimed to be supporting Boris Johnson for the post. With only a couple of days to the election of the new Prime Minister, Michael Gove shocked everybody by announcing his aspiration, with the prospects of  splitting Boris Johnson’s votes. Johnson, in a tactical move, withdrew and allowed Theresa May to be elected as successor to outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron. Prime Minister May lasted barely three years during which elections held and the party won the tiniest majority victory. Theresa May was clearly on borrowed time as Prime Minister noted for indecision or very poor decision on the country’s exit from the European Union. In the course of time, she was voted out of office by the party’s members of parliament. Thus, in came Boris Johnson as the new Prime Minister. Johnson never claimed he was betrayed as he still appointed Michael Gove into his cabinet.

Vice-President Osinbajo must have been very reflective in the careful and measured manner of informing Nigerians of his intention to contest the presidency in 2023. It could not have been otherwise in view of the tragic events, which followed a similar declaration by former Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Bola Ige, of his intent to contest the 2003 presidential election. It was such a mystery, which remains unsolved till today.

Osinbajo shocked critics and rivals by clinging to his association with Buhari for the past few years to strengthen his case for succeeding the incumbent Nigerian President. What was apparent in such tactics and surely unnoticed by opponents was that Osinbajo was flaunting the record of the administration beyond the perceived deficit like insecurity, high cost of living, etcetera. One major credit not (being) given the Buhari administration was the total containment of the criminal activities of the Niger Delta freedom fighters, the erstwhile Boko Haram of the oil-producing areas. Who attained that feat for the Buhari administration? Who risked his life with several visits to Niger Delta to appease the violent protesters? The Vice-President? When last were oil pipelines burst or set on fire in Niger Delta? Have the abductions of foreign oil experts and contractors been substantially reduced, if not stopped by the Buhari administration through the efforts of Osinbajo? Furthermore, by the time Second  Niger Bridge goes into operation in less than 12 months, the Buhari-Osinbajo administration would have relieved the agony of hundreds of commuters in that part of the country. Surely, cost of living harshly bites Nigerians. Prices of wheat, bread, yam, eggs, even diesel, petrol? It is almost unprecedented as a world-wide phenomenon, as Americans, Britons, Germans, French, Russians, African countries are all complaining. The difference in Nigeria is that the government allows members of the National Assembly, for example, to be buying themselves new cars and renovating their chamber at financial recklessness in the midst of people’s poverty. Ordinary Nigerians cannot be starving while members of the National Assembly live in irritating luxury. This is provoking and can lead to people’s revolt.

As a Vice-President, Osinbajo complied with electoral protocol by linking his effort to prospects of continuing the performance of the administration in which he serves. For the 2000 American presidential elections, outgoing vice president Al Gore stupidly distanced his campaigns for the presidency from the person of his boss, President Bill Clinton, who, admittedly,  was earlier stained by the row over an internee, Monica Lewinsky.. Vice President Al Gore lost the election to George Bush, jnr. For the 2023 presidential elections, in Nigeria, everybody should be freeto flaunt his personal/official record.