The recent dominant tone of public sentiments and reactions to the rumours of disagreement in the presidency, specifically, between President Muhammadu Buhari, and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo -widely reported in both the online and mainstream media – is a reflection of our reactionary politics. This is not likely to abate any time soon. In politics, there is always something more abstract and more compelling why the sacking of many aides of the vice president will continue to be one of the main issues of public discourse. First is the essence of presidential leadership, which is rooted in the ability of the office to appeal publicly to large and widely different constituents at the same time. The necessity for this kind of appeal is that the presidency, in the eye of the Constitution, is seen as one, inseparable ticket.
The implication is that anything that tends to hamper this bond is bound to generate intense public reaction. So it has been since the news broke that no fewer than 35 aides of the vice president had been sacked on the order of the President. Secondly, as political historians will tell us, the reality and scale of power are often defined by the extent to which they influence or dominate behaviours and conditions external to the man of authority. And, finally, and very crucial, is the fact that the most important decision a President makes concerns what he wants to do with the office, what range of issues he wants to recognise, reorganize, or remove totally. But this requires caution in order not to break that unity of national mood and purpose that ought to exist in the presidency. It is in that regard that the decision of President Buhari to speak up for the first time on the reported sack of the vice president’s aides, is commendable. Sometimes, hearing from the President himself, gives proper perspective on matters of national interests. Fielding questions from State House correspondents after his arrival from London last Friday night, the President was quoted to have said, “it is unfortunate that the recent disengagement of some political appointees from the presidency had been given ethnic and political interpretations”. The President’s media aide, Garba Shehu, also quoted the President to have said that the decision was part of reorganisation in the presidency to achieve service delivery, and therefore, should not be given any ethnic and political dimension. The President’s explanation is not remarkably different from an earlier one about two weeks ago, issued by Mr. Shehu in which he said that the action was in response to the general public perception that the presidency has an oversized and bloated workforce which “acts as a drag on efficiency”. It added that the overriding objective of the exercise was to save taxpayers’ money and deliver needed service to the public.
You see, any argument that is anchored on saving cost seems to get a measure of public support. However, the snag here is the report that more than half of the VP’s aides allegedly sacked were funded by international donor agencies. Has the latest explanation on this matter, especially coming from the President himself put everything at rest? I don’t think so. The initial denials didn’t help the issue. It obfuscated it. Recall that few days before the statement rationalising the action, amid reports in the media, the presidency had flatly denied that nothing of such took place, indeed, that there was no cold war in the Aso Villa. Even the vice president’s media aide, Mr. Laolu Akande, spoke in the same vein when he dismissed the report of the sack as ‘fake news’.
As the spokesman for Afenifere, Yinka Odumaki said few days ago in reaction to the VP’s denial, what’s the point defending a vice president who has refused to admit what he is up against, that the relation between him and the President has reached an all-time low. But as said last week in this column, I still can understand the VP’s dilemma and refusal to publicly admit that he is under siege in the presidency. Once he does that, he’s finished. And his impeachment will be a done deal. That may compel him to take a ‘fork in the road’ option, a point where he has to take a choice of two possibilities: either to continue to bear the humiliation with equanimity – or resign, honourably. As a pastor before he became the vice president, Osinbajo needs no reminding or tutorials that what he’s up against right now can be likened to ‘spiritual warfare’. It’s not a ‘war’ you cannot win with bare hands. Whether he will come out of this stronger, only time will tell. I say this in view of what Dr. Dalhatu Tafida, a personal friend of the President told SATURDAY SUN last week that the President may have acted based on allegation that while he (Buhari) was on medical leave in London in 2017, there were reports that the VP had a “retinue of security and advisers around him as much as a President, if not more”.
There is also the Tinubu connection, Tafida said, but quickly added that he was not too sure about that. As I said in this column on September 24, the presidency is a prize with a heavy price. The burden of national unity rests heavily on the President. He shares this responsibility with the vice president with whom he campaigned and won the presidency. But each partner that makes up a presidential ticket is often advised not to be in a haste to say how splendid his experience in the presidency has been until it’s all over. Those who ignore this advice often come to regret it when things begin to go wrong. That’s why Sophocles, one of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived till now gave this evergreen advice: “One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been, because there is still some time before the sun goes down”. But this is plain: When the bond of friendship, trust and respect between two men elected on the same ticket begins to get weaker rather than stronger, it doesn’t make it easy for the President to move his agenda for the country. And for the Vice President himself, it dims the electricity that’s supposed to come from his own contribution to that agenda.
It’s however safe to say now that there’s a conflict of sort in the camps of both men. That perhaps makes the following questions necessary: Is there a smoking gun against the vice president? I still ask: Where could Osinbajo have gone wrong after a flying start of a relation with the President that was once described in superlative terms as a partnership of diamond brilliance? How come now that this relation that Nigerians were told by the President few years ago was as nice as the warmth of Styrofoam, couldn’t cut ice anymore? It, indeed, troubles the mind how Osinbajo has grown from a substantial figure who the President needed to send on key national matters to calm frayed nerves, and now, he is seen as a man who is held in strong suspicion.
Looking at some of the allegations against Osinbajo as reported by the media, one thing that readily comes to my mind is what Thomas Marshall of the United States said in 1920 when he was vice president. Difficult situations he faced made him to compare the vice president to a cataleptic. To use his own words, “the vice president cannot speak, he cannot move, he suffers pain, yet he is perfectly conscious of everything that is going on about him”. If it’s easy to read a man’s mind, one can then say that vice president Osinbajo is deeply worried about what is happening to him, even though he would not admit it openly.
Two months ago, he said it was the handiwork of “fifth columnists”. In his heart, he knows his position is becoming a frustrating one. This may just be the beginning of worse things come. Who knows? Before now, one of the allegations is that, as Acting President, (Osinbajo) “authorized payment of N5.9bn for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) without approval from the National Assembly. His traducers also claim that though he is Chairman of the governing board of NEMA, he ought to get the approval of NASS before any money could be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
The vice president allegedly did not go through that laid down channel, an allegation he has since denied. The vice president was also reported to have signed N25bn for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as ‘funding contract’ when he had no such powers to do so. Another allegation was the reported disbursement of funds by the Federal Government-backed Social Investment Programme (SIP) which then was domiciled in his office. Other reports tended to link the present travails of Osinbajo to the sack of former boss of the Department of State Services (DSS) Lawal Daura in 2017 when he was Acting President.