Fellow Nigerians, as much as one is tempted to
gloss over the hullabaloo inside the seat of power
in Abuja, it is virtually impossible because there is
always one drama or the other emanating from the
place too frequently these days.
Indeed, the
melodrama has since become one day, new scene.
Despite endless denials on both sides of the divide
by spokespersons for the principal dramatis
personae, it seems obvious that things are no
longer at ease between the offices of the President,
Muhammadu Buhari and his Vice President, Yemi
Osinbajo, no matter how much they or their
mouthpieces try to sweep the unfortunate mess under the carpet.
The latest farce surrounds the removal or otherwise
of some of the aides of the Vice President.
Approbation, confirmation and denials are rife. It is
being touted that the Vice President had too many
aides and so it was necessary for him to be shorn
of some of them in keeping with the President’s
new resolve to prudently manage resources and
save government a lot of money. Nobody has said
anything about how many of the President’s aides
have got the sack.
More importantly, I fail to see how this purported
removal has anything to do with managing
government resources when most if not all of these
aides of the Vice President are funded by
international donor agencies and not the Nigerian
Government.
The situation descends to the level of
theater of the absurd if, as it is being suggested,
they were redeployed to different Ministries,
meaning that rather than plugging a drain on
government they have become an added burden.
My beloved, all we have to do is apply some logic,
and commonsense which is seemingly not too
common nowadays. Some audacious people make
bold to fool us when they tell us there is only one
Presidency. Yes, there is, but that oneness has
become more of a mirage in recent times! The day
the President came out in the open to direct his
cabinet to report practically to his Chief of Staff was
the day he smashed the oneness into smithereens.
There was no need or basis for such an open and
public declaration of protocol. That it was openly
voiced out, and etched and scripted in text which
was handed to journalists and published and
circulated freely, was ample evidence of how things
have gone awry between the offices of the Number
One and Number Two citizens of Nigeria.
If this was the normal order of events before now,
why was it necessary to put it in the public domain
at this stage. If it was a new idea, why was a
change necessary and, also, why was it essential to
tell the whole world, two days in succession,
particularly when this directive was for the
consumption of only a few people!
Please, don’t get me wrong. I know that the office
of the Vice President is totally at the mercy and
prerogative of the President who appointed him.
Even in America where we have borrowed our latest
democratic experiment, the Vice President has no
constitutional role apart from presiding over the
Senate and having a casting tie-break vote or
whatever assignment given by his boss. As John
Adams, the first American Vice President and the
Country’s second President, said of his position as
Vice President to President George Washington,
“My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the
most insignificant office that ever the invention of
man … or his imagination contrived or his
imagination conceived.” Nevertheless, Adams stuck
to his task and as the brilliant and astute man that
he was, he transformed the position into one that
has become indispensable to the democracy.
Indeed, it is more than usual in America for Vice
Presidents to succeed their Presidents, but this has
not yet happened in Nigeria except on account of
death of the incumbent. There is always a first
time, and perhaps it is the intuitiveness and the
knowledge that it is a foregone conclusion that this
negative trend is about to be bucked that the
babble and cacophony of strident opposition voices
has risen to the biggest decibels.
This is more so
because of the personality and attributes of the
incumbent, Osinbajo. For me, a Vice President is
almost like a Company Secretary whose duty once
upon a time was to act as a mere servant. But like
Lord Denning said in 1971, about the role and
function of the Company Secretary, “he is no longer
a mere servant.” If the Vice President of Nigeria
was once treated as an errand boy, by now, in
2019, such attitudes should have changed for many
obvious reasons.
Professor Yemi Osinbajo is neither your run-of-the-
mill Vice President nor a typical career politician.
Before he was considered and chosen to run with
President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, he came
with intimidating credentials in both his private and
public life. In all areas, he had just about reached
the pinnacle of what there was to offer. He was
also a stabilizing factor between the ever fighting
and perennially suspicious Christians and Muslims
of Nigeria. Why they are at loggerheads continues
to beat me even till today. Religion should simply
have no place in the politics or economic
development of a country. Everyone agreed Buhari
could not have made a better choice. He and Buhari
appeared like a perfect couple and one could say
the same of their wives. Theirs was like a match
made in celestial places.
I won’t bore you with details of how trouble started
brewing when President Buhari took ill and Vice
President Osinbajo became Acting President. All
that I know is some of the decisions he took did
not go down well with the ultra conservative
members in the Presidential Wing of the Villa, who
not only had their own agenda but have the close
ears of the President. They grumbled and groaned
and lamented to whoever cared to listen that
Osinbajo was plotting and planning to upstage his
boss. One of the conspiracy theories was that some
forces in the South West actually wished evil on the
President. Despite the fact that no one had the
proof or evidence of such dastardly plot, some
people went about spreading the satanic stories.
Thankfully, it does not appear that the President
with his taciturn sagacity paid heed to such drivel,
hopefully.
My take is that some elements are deliberately
driving a wedge between the President and his Vice
President whose relationship is apparently chummy.
What is not known is how far the President has
bought into the plot. The body language of the
President now suggests that something has gone
terribly amiss. The camaraderie that was always so
patently obvious is palpably receding. The President
has taken to relying on technicalities and
monosyllables in his dealings with his Vice
President. This was not the case before. If, as may
be the case, some nebulous, insidious group of
people are using the President’s name to pummel
the Vice President and he is unaware that his dutiful
and loyal Vice President is being humiliated before
the whole world, that is even worse.
I don’t really blame those who abuse power. That is
the pattern and tradition of those who wield
enormous power by proxy. I hasten to add that the
position of Chief of Staff is obviously a powerful
position and sometimes people tend to forget this
when they cast aspersions on the occupants.
In Nigeria’s case, Mr Abba Kyari is a very sound and
cerebral man. The President obviously recognizes
that he needs him like oxygen. But I expect him and
the Vice President to be able to manage their affair
more guardedly with both of them coming from
solidly, enviable intellectual backgrounds. Seems
the allure of power is irresistible and causes the
powerful to wear a new toga of eternal invincibility
when indeed, it is very transient. It may be that this
is the case because the occupants themselves
forget the onerous nature of their job and the grave
responsibilities that attaches to the position. Power
is best asserted and utilised if treated with humility,
deference and decorum.
Let me go back for as long as I can remember.
Surrogates of power have tended to be overbearing
and inordinately ambitious. They have not imbibed
the core lessons that those who know the nature
and effect of power teach. It will come and go, but
how you have handled it will determine how you are
treated in its aftermath – Hero or villain. In Nigeria
it has been a lot more of the latter and the lessons
have still not been learnt.
In the days of President Shehu Aliyu Shagari, one
name was very prominent, Dr Umaru Dikko, who
was the defacto President. When the government
was overthrown by Muhammadu Buhari and
company, Dikko became the main target. He fled to
London. The government arranged for a living Dikko
to be packed and crated in a coffin like a cadaver
and he was nearly smuggled back to face the
music in Nigeria. Under the government of General
Murtala Muhammed, Chief Moshood Abiola was
known to have been his close friend. This drew the
ire of many military leaders who waited for many
years before pouncing on him.
Majo-General Tunde Idiagbon was the second-in-
command and the dreaded face of the Buhari
regime. His scowling mean face remains indelibly
printed in the brain of not just the Second Republic
politicians but the generality of the populace. Once
flushed out pf power he reverted to relative
obscurity and died unheralded! When President
Ibrahim Babangida assumed power, Colonel Sambo
Dasuki was reported to have treated Major General
Muhammadu Buhari shabbily. No one would have
expected Buhari to ever come back to power. But
God’s ways are not that of man. Today, Buhari is
President, Dasuki has been in detention and
incarcerated for many years despite a plethora of
Courts ordering that he should be freed.
When General Olusegun Obasanjo was in power as
a military ruler from 1976-79, Major General Shehu
Musa Yar’Adua was very influential. He wielded that
power and attained great affluence even after they
left power. He wanted to come back as civilian
President ,but his dream never materialised. He and
his former business partner, Chief Abiola had similar
interests and ambitions. Abiola contested and won,
but the top military echelons kicked against him.
His victory was aborted, his ambition truncated and
he was deprived and robbed of his mandate.
Abacha who became President after the whole
debacle dealt ruthlessly with Obasanjo, Yar’Adua
and Abiola by keeping them in prison. Only
Obasanjo returned alive. Not just that, he came
back to be President. A true cat with nine lives!
Ebora Owu indeed!
When General Sani Abacha was President, the
commonest name on everyone’s lips was Major
Hamza Al-Mustapha. When Abacha died, Al-
Mustapha was kept in prison for so many years in
the days Obasanjo was in power.
Mohammed Abacha, the General’s son, who had also lived larger
than life and was himself an unofficial Deputy Head
of State was also kept away.
When Umaru Musa Yar’Adua became President, the
name of Tanimu Yakubu reigned supreme despite
being only the Deputy Chief of Staff and Chief
Economic Adviser to the President. The name of
Hajia Turai Yar’Adua, the First Lady, would later
feature on the list of those labeled as the ‘cabal’
who controlled shots when Yar’Adua laid mortally
stricken. Perhaps it was the First Lady’s
involvement that saved Tanimu’s bacon.
Step forward President Goodluck Jonathan. Two
names featured prominently under his government,
Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke and that of First Lady,
Dame Patience Jonathan. Since Buhari returned in
2015 as President, the duo have known no peace.
I have gone through the stories of these different
era to show how transient and ephemeral power is.
The three things driving these wars of attrition in the
name of a power struggle are money, ethnicity and
religion. They are the reasons our country is
retrogressing. There is no justification for the
struggle based on national interest or patriotism.
The protagonists are interested only in their
primordial, parochial and base instincts. While the
world is thinking outside the box, we have chosen
to bury ourselves inside the cocoon of
backwardness. The most educated people in
Nigeria will throw sanity, reason and decorum to
the winds once those three selfish interests are
involved. Friends become enemies and enemies
become friends. Principle, honour and integrity are
thrown to the dogs. Woe betide anyone who stands
in the way. That is the crux of the fiasco that we
face today. The Vice President and his team are
merely victims of the interplay of those forces.
However, what nobody should forget is that what
will be will be and students of history may do well
to look again into the story of John Adams who
was the first American President to see his son,
John Quincy Adams succeed to the American
Presidency as the sixth President of America. When
we decide to recognise and embrace excellence and
not fight against it, then we shall become better as
a nation.
It seems, we are not yet ready to do the needful …
Young-po Reporters 