For many, the Buhari presidency has got to be the most disheveled and disorganised since the return to civilian rule over two decades ago. President Muhammadu Buhari came to power riding on the wave of incorruptibility and a creed that’s hinged on doing things differently — a sharp departure from the realities of the past. But sooner had he been sworn in than the veneer of change and progressiveness began to fall off.
The cabal’s shenanigans
Having noticed his laid-back approach to governance and his ill-health, a motley crowd of carpetbaggers of northern extraction decided to hijack the government and run it the way they deem fit. In order to achieve their inordinate ambitions, all manner of underhand tactics were employed by the cabal. They are ready to take out anyone who stands in their way, to them all is war in love and war.
It didn’t not take long before the cabal identified one major obstacle to their interest which is the vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, a christian from the South. A lawyer and intellectual who was seen as the poster boy of Buhari’s administration in its early days. The cabal having realised the constitutional arrangements do not bode well for their sinister motive had to look for other ways to cut the soaring Osinbajo to sizes. Do not forget that, in the event of unforeseen circumstances, Osinbajo is in line of succession to Buhari
The invasion of National Assembly
Trouble began in 2018 during the invasion of the national assembly by officials of department of state security (DSS), an incident that was seen by many as an affront on the seperation of power and rule of law. The incident coincided with one those inexplicable periods President Buhari was away in London to treat an undisclosed ailments. Expectedly, He had handed over to Osinbajo before he left so the affairs of the nation were being run by the former Lagos chief justice.
Daura’s Dismissal
The invasion of the legislative premises by the secret police generated outrage from the public, and rightly so. Osinbajo, who is a lawyer and was the acting president then knew the gravity of the overreaching disposition of the secret police. Consequently, he sacked the then director-general of DSS, Lawal Daura whom some media reports claimed order the invasion. The dismissal of Daura was the catalyst that brought matters to a head, the decision put him on a collision course with the cabal and it grated the nerves of the northern hegemony.
It didn’t matter that the country was on a good footing and the economy was doing relatively well when Osinbajo was in charge, the cabal are not having any of it, anything or anyone that puts the country on trajectory of growth but does not allow the feathering of their nest cannot be allowed to fester. To them Osinbajo is a cankerworm, one that cannot be allowed to fester, one that should not be allowed to fester.
Subsequent foreign trips
Following the invasion and concomitant results, the cabal regrouped and restrategised. It was not a coincident that, upon the return of Buhari from medical trip, the dismissal of Daura was overturned, and other appointments made by Osinbajo was reversed. It wasn’t also a coincidence that during Buhari’s next medical trip to London, he didn’t hand over to Osinbajo, a sign of things to come. When the public raised concern over Buhari’s refusal to hand over to Osinbajo like he did in the past, the cabal through the presidency capitalised on the constitutional loophole that the president has the prerogative not to hand over to his deputy if his stay outside the country will not exceed a certain number of days.
2019 election permutations
Osinbajo spent the rest of Buhari’s first tenure walking a tightrope in the presidency, but the cabal became subdued and its overbearing demeanor was toned-down in the building up to the 2019 presidential election. The political permutations corroded blatant display of superiority over others, other regions are needed for Buhari’s reelection bid, fences had to be mended and alliances needed to be forged. The votes of the south-west where Osinbajo hails from are vital. The cabal could not be seen to be acting in a manner that villipended Osinbajo lest they lost the south west.
The ₦90 billion scandal and creation of EAC
But hardly had Buhari won his reelection bid when the vicious power play and vilification of the vice president by the cabal resumed. Shortly after the presidential election, Osinbajo became embroiled in a ₦90 billion scandal for which the cabal threatened to eject him from office and was already shopping for his replacement, such audacity. But the plot of the cabal was frustrated when the federal inland revenue service (FIRS) from whom Osinbajo allegedly collected the said amount of money came out to say it didn’t give such money to the vice president. Osinbajo also declared his readiness to waive his constitutional immunity to “enable the most robust adjudication” of several baseless allegations, insinuation, and falsehoods against his person and office.
In the midst of the allegation and denial, Buhari set up an Economic Advisory Council (EAC) which, according to a statement from by his media aide, was to replace the Economic Management Team (EMT) headed by Professor Osinbajo with directives that members of the newly created body would report directly to the president.
The decision, which was given several interpretations, suggested that Buhari in collaboration with the ‘cabal’ might have made up their mind to frustrate the vice president or force him to resign.
Movement of SIPs and dismissal of aides.
Having weathered the storm of the ₦90 billion scandal, the next in the list of schemes to clip the wings of the vice president is to move the social intervention programmes (SIPs) which were previously oversaw by the office of the vice president to a new ministry solely created for them. In his 2019 independence day speech, Buhari announced that the movement of the SIPs to new ministry.
The pulling of feathers of the rooster continues, in November 2019 — a month after the movement of the SIPs away from his office — The presidency approved the dismissal of 35 aides working in the office of the vice president. The presidency claimed the dismissal was approved by President Buhari who was in UK at the time. However, a senior presidency official dismissed the claim, saying the sackings were done by a presidential aide believed to be the late chief of staff, Abba Kyari.
The EFCC Impasse
On the 5th of July 2020, the citizenry was jolted by news of the arrest of the country’s foremost anti-graft agency, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) helmsman, Ibrahim Magu, over sharp practices and insubordination. It is unheard of in the checkered history of the country that a man who was appointed to hunt looters and unscrupulous elements in our enclave became the hunted, became involved in the very thing he was appointed to check. The arrest, though somewhat surprising, is not shocking, it is a long time coming. Magu has chalked up way too many professional liabilities during his time in the police and when he became chairman of the EFCC started engaging in activities that should not be linked to someone holding a position as sensitive as the head of the country’s Anti-graft agency. Reports of him hobnobbing with people of questionable characters are commonplace, these reports are sumptuous cuisine which the media served and the populace feasted on with glee.
After his arrest by the department of states security (DSS), he was whisked away to the presidential villa where he faced the presidential panel investigating him. On the third day of his interrogation, a report went viral on social media claiming the now suspended EFCC chairman said he gave ₦4 billion naira to vice president Osinbajo. The claim is another in the never ending campaign of calumny against the vice president.
The allegation is an obviously attempt to ridicule Osinbajo and bring the office he occupies into disrepute as Osinbajo has since publicly refuted the malignant allegation. One wonders what the sponsor of these baseless and spurious allegations stand to gain. if it’s power, then one would have thought the recent high-profile deaths in the country would have sounded a word of admonition to them and they would have learnt some poignant lessons on the impermanence of life and transience and power, but that’s not to be.
Never has a vice president been hounded viciously by a coterie of unelected featherbrained power mongers who have capitalised on the insentience of the president to advance their selfish interests, Nigeria belongs to everyone not a particular tribe.
Whatever the case is, we hope the denigration and victimisation of the vice president by the dastard cabal and its minions will abate from now on.
The hounding of the sheep by the jackals need to stop, and if it doesn’t who will save the sheep from the jackal?
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