Is Osinbajo truly a better President?

By Joseph Edgar… Let me come out straight and not leave any one in doubt that this article is strictly in support of the President Muhammad Buhari administration as a whole. You see, ever since the President went out for his medical vacation or whatever it is that he went for and the Vice President took over, there has been some sections of the media, or should I say populace, who have been stoking the fires of instability.

First, we heard rumors that all the governors had been summoned to Aso Rock to put pressure on the Vice President to resign and ask the Senate President to resume immediately. This was, according to them, to pave way for power to remain in the North. Ever since the President took his leave of absence, we have been inundated with all sort of stories, all unfounded rumors.

But the most dangerous of them all remains the one that sees people praising the Vice President as a better performer and doing efficiently better than the President. You see this is a sick joke that has the full potential of breaking national cohesion and plunging us into a series of ethnic influenced violence and killings.

Comparing the acting President with his boss and screaming that he is better is a mischievous and almost draconian attempt at fueling the flames of insecurity. This could lead to inordinate ambition if we did not have an erudite Vice President who is steeped in the ethos of democratic fidelity. If we had some of these near illiterate polical thugs who masquerade themselves as political leaders in Osinbajo’s position today we may begin to see the embers of treason being fanned and before you know it, ethnic bigots will seize the momentum and start claiming tribal reasons and then we begin to see the wings of strife being fanned again.

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Osibajo is part of a team and whatever he does whether he does it well or not should be seen within the prisms of collective effort of an administration. Whatever it is that he is doing to me remains the execution or the selling of policies already enunciated by a government headed by Muhammadu Buhari, so if at all the glory should go to the head of the Administration for showing a huge understanding of delegation in principled leadership and further empowering his deputy hence the relative success in pushing the administrations agenda even in his absence.

It is to the President’s unique leadership ability that governance remains in a continuum this long. We all can remember the Yar’Adua medical fiasco and what held. The Vice President was a lame duck as mercenaries within the government took over governance leaving the Vice President with nothing to do even up to when he was announced acting. Nigerians had to stand up in one voice to proclaim the tenets of the constitution to ensure a smooth transition which would never had happened if we did not stand naked to shout.

Today, we see an administration that believes in the tenets of democracy as enshrined in our constitution and mischief makers are beginning to single out just one person on the team simply because he has visited the Niger Delta more than three times in his oga’s absence as the single performer in the administration. Ok, let him stop the slide of the Naira before his oga comes back. Today the Naira is inching towards N600 to the dollar, let him reverse the trend just before the oga comes back, then we will all worship him.

But seriously, there are statements that are capable of inciting meaningful destruction and this is really one of them. Our thought leaders and those who influence media especially social media should all be very responsible in the way they handle issues. Nigeria is straddled on a tinder box that can burst aflame anytime if careless statements continue to pervade our system.

 

 

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