By Uche Mbah
The political terrain has become so turbulent in recent times that the Vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, has recently voiced out his intention to abandon the joint ship he has been navigating with President Buhari in 2019 and return to his Pastoral duties. Indications are that he has been instructed by his principal to start preparing for his exit, probably because of the current permutation of Muslim-Muslim ticket rumored to be on the drawing board, where Tinubu himself will be in the vice presidential candidate in 2019. It is said to be part of the reason for the Abiola honor. Abiola and Babagana Kingibe contested under a joint Muslim-Muslim ticket. President Buhari, it was gathered, sees Tinubu as holding the key to his second term in Office, and has been making frantic efforts to placate him after using and dumping him after the 2015 elections. Events following that election show that the presidency barely tolerated Tinubu, and took time to cut his wings in appointments. Attempts were made to build alternative power blocks in the South west through empowering Tinubu’s dissident acolytes by giving them ministerial appointments that will boost their political structure. For example, Babtunde Fashola has been given three portfolios-Power, works and housing. But sources indicate that they were not usually given their full budgetary allocations, thereby could not create the kind of structure that was required to fight a political octopus like Tinubu.
Thus when the heat came from the Social media and the triumvirate of Ibrahim Babangida, Oluseun Obasanjo and Theophilus Danjuma, he realized he has only one person to run to: The Don Corleone of APC. And he doubled backwards to accommodate him for the sake of 2019.
