OPINION: Osinbajo And The Dogs of War

By Dan Abubakar

“How does the Osinbajo serving in the Lagos State Government, under Tinubu as Governor, or that Tinubu nominated him as Vice President to Buhari, sentence him to a lifetime of servitude to Tinubu? The shallowness of the reasoning in Babachir Lawal’s piece, evidently on behalf of his master, speaks to the quality of many who now operate in the public space in Nigeria”

With the number of those lining up to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari increasing by the day and threatening to turn the whole business into a circus, anyone can be forgiven for choosing to shut out all the noise, or to scream: “Stop the world I want to get off!”

Most of those insisting on inflicting themselves on us have such character and record of public disservice that in much saner circumstances nobody will put them up even for the position of dog catcher or cow herder.

You hardly hear of them, or what they stand for, beyond their initial announcements or loosely-pasted posters flying off walls or overhead bridges. There is hardly any discussion of how to get the country out of its current quagmire. You infact get the sense that many of them do not even appreciate that the country is in a mess and, if they do, they think that in their envisaged elected or appointed positions they would be ensconced in a laager of self enrichment and comfort as wards of the state.

Their ongoing feverish  activity characterized by meeting after meeting in hotels and backrooms till wee hours of the morning to engage in what they do best – horse-trading and transactional politics that  profiteer off our differences.

This is why the candidacy of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has offered the prospect of a somewhat refreshing change to the political conversation. By the manner of his entrance and his oratory at various occasions, he appears to be predicating his campaign on a future of hope and is inspiring and channeling the energies of the youth to build that future. He offers an intimidating pedigree, including a first class education and experience at close quarters to appreciate the complexities of the country and what needs to be done. He thinks on his feet and has a mastery of the issues. At a recent event in Lagos, one guest who heard him speak leaned towards another and said “it is indeed high time Nigeria had a literate president”.

Osinbajo’s distinction in the field of APC candidates has inevitably made him the target of crude assault  and venomous abuse inspired by political opponents.

The latest has come, not too surprisingly, from former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, who was disgraced out of office in 2017.

An acolyte of Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, he has followed the track of those who my Christian friends say engage in blasphemy when they allege a Judas Iscariot level of  betrayal in Osinbajo pitting his ambition against Tinubu’s. How does the fact that Osibanjo serving in the Lagos State Government, under Tinubu as governor, or that Tinubu nominated him as Vice to Buhari, sentence him to a lifetime of servitude to Tinubu?

The shallowness of the reasoning in Lawal’s piece, evidently on behalf of his master, speaks to the quality of many who now operate in the public space in Nigeria.

As the build up to the APC convention gathers pace and the political environment appears more opaque because of the games being played even at the highest levels of the party and government, area boy politics, fear and loathing in the Tinubu camp and projected by the media he owns and those in actual servitude to him are to be  expected and with increased frequency.

They have no farther to look than Osibanjo in their search for enemies and locating a principal adversary. Unlike Osinbajo who most have described as a fair and level-minded person who is also quick and agile on his feet, their principal on the contrary appears to be the opposite such that it would actually be cruel in a society that still has a tradition of respect and even reverence for the elderly to have him stand up and speak in a debate.

Yet this must be one of the several requirements we must demand of all the political parties to institute in choosing their flag-bearers so as to prune the maddening number of jesters  currently in the race  if we are serious about having a president fit for purpose.

There are obvious many disqualifications of most of those rooting to be our next president, and as for Tinubu his best days are clearly not ahead of him. He would have been more highly regarded if we had seen the positive influence he has on the Buhari presidency, or for that matter even back an Osibanjo presidency.

Other than helping to put Buhari in power – a fact which must be acknowledged but which appears to give him this overpowering sense of entitlement –  what qualifies Tinubu to be president of Nigeria? That he is awash with cash? What is the source of all that money?

This is indeed a question that must be asked of all the candidates.

At a time the nation is in such desperate straits, when a driven, alert, razor-sharp and sacrificial leadership is needed, how do each of the candidates in all the parties measure up? What do they stand for? What programmes and projects have they  come up with to pull Nigeria out of the present abyss and to at last put it on a viable course of development?

The concern of most is that if the past is often a prologue, how will Nigeria under a Tinubu presidency be handled any differently from the fate of Lagos during and in the aftermath of Tinubu’s incumbency as governor?

The Tinubu crowd has however not been the only source of barbs at Osinbajo. Long before he declared his presidential ambition, one commentator far from these shores who teaches journalism in a university few Nigerians had heard of, had decided to make taking down Osinbajo his life assignment.

A Mr Know-All, he trades on rumours and professes to have information on even what goes on in Buhari’s bedroom. He routinely goes overboard in his pseudo-analyses, disparaging anyone he sets his sight on. He has engaged in an unholy war over Osinbajo’s faith – ascribing to the Vice President a level of intolerance that  those close to the man wonder just who this fellow is writing about.

He has been unrelenting. Needing the crutch of signing off his pieces with his credentials and academic qualifications in full display, he appears to forget that one of the first rules of journalism is that the reporter or analyst does not turn himself into the issue.

But such is ambition to present himself as a knowledgeable observer of Nigerian affairs and  draw attention to himself, that this previously unknown fellow continues to lob stones at anyone who catches his fancy in language unbefitting of the academic he professes to be.

As the party conventions draw nearer, the atmosphere is bound to be more heated and charged by vile distemper, abuse and  increased mischief, vitriol and vulgarity.

We must insist that the candidates and their followers/supporters  ensure an atmosphere focused on the issues that matter to Nigerians. A putrid atmosphere will only unfortunately draw attention away from the needed focus on the country’s challenges and the solutions we must find.

Abubakar, a Political Analyst, wrote-in from Abuja