By Felix Nyerhovwo Jarikre
Without any insinuation or speculation, Yemi Osinbajo is the natural successor to Buhari. He is the one that can be trusted to preserve Buhari’s legacy, and also protect their administration from disgrace. It’s fitting for him not to disown the works started by Buhari.
Considering the disastrous two-term outing of their APC administration, it takes tremendous courage for Osinbajo to declare his interest in running for President. Don’t think he was instigated to run by any cabal as a way of destroying Tinubu’s “lifelong ambition.”
Any political analyst who fails to recognize Osinbajo’s independence of mind and intellectual acuity is not looking well. That Osinbajo never resigned from his V.P. position, despite the hectorings from some quarters to do so, shows he is committed to taking over from Buhari. As spare tyre, was he prepared to endure some humiliations along the way? You bet he was!
So I think his declaration for the presidential race is a game-changer, calling for the reassessment and realignment of forces. Between Osinbajo and Tinubu, if they would not cancel themselves out, the time has come for Tinubu’s loyalists to advise him to strategically lay down his fabled structures in helping Osinbajo’s continued political ascendancy. The idea of escalating the fiction that Osinbajo betrayed his master, Tinubu is unhelpful and counterproductive.
Despite his heavy war chest, Tinubu remains an ex-governor whose hegemony in Lagos state faces challenges on many fronts. On the other hand, Yemi Osinbajo is the incumbent Vice President of Nigeria. Anyone who thinks the V.P. would remain another acolyte of the hegemon, Tinubu is not only being dishonest and hypocritical, such a person needs to have his or her head properly examined.
If Tinubu thought the earlier declaration of his interest in the presidential race would intimidate and frighten Osinbajo, the tactic backfired. Indeed Tinubu is the presumptuous, and perhaps disloyal person here for trying to cajole Osinbajo into sacrificing his political ascendancy and make way for the “lifelong ambition” of another man.
Felix Nyerhovwo Jarikre is a Media Entrepreneur and Life Coach
