PMB & PYO. |
A
week after he stuttered at the vice-presidential debate in Abuja, as result of
functioning in Lai’s lane, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo was at the palace of
the Alaafin of Oyo last weekend to shred whatever vestige of credibility he has
left for crass political opportunism.
The
otherwise cerebral professor did not have to stammer this time around as he sang
the scoundrel song his two other Lagos competitors (Messrs Bola Tinubu and Raji
Fashola have been miming) for the illusory 2023 presidential slot: a vote for
Buhari is the surest route to Yoruba presidency in 2023.
Our
elders from the depth of their wisdom said a leaf that glues with soap for long
begins to foam and so it has become with Osinbajo playing cheap ethnic card to
divide when the position he occupies requires unifying all sections of the
country. We belong to everybody has always been a lip service for them all.
Before
going into Osinbajo’s outing in Oyo, let’s fill in some gaps. The hornet’s nest
was stirred by Buhari’s biographers sometime ago when he squealed that
Osinbajo’s erstwhile boss, Bola Tinubu, never wanted him to be running mate to
Buhari in 2015. It took Osinbajo days to come out with “somebody somewhere
nominated me.”
The
authentic account gathered by this column was that Tinubu, in company of Chief
Bisi Akande and Rauf Aregbesola, had rushed to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in Lagos
after Buhari emerged as the APC candidate to ask him to speak with Buhari as he
seemed not to be ready to honor his agreement with Tinubu to make him running
mate before the primaries. Atiku was silent for a moment before asking Akande:
“When you came to me to invite me into APC, I asked you if there were any prior
commitment on ticket and you said none. Did you not?” Akande could not answer.
Tinubu and Aregbesola looked at each other in the face.
A
day before close of nomination, Buhari and Tinubu had a stormy meeting, when
Buhari told him he was not going to make him running mate, the latter walked
out of the meeting. He thereafter threatened to address a press conference to
drop the ticket and ask Tinubu to do whatever he pleases with it.
Panic
meetings started. Tinubu and his core started discussions. Tinubu inner core
advised he must nominate three Christians to Buhari as he requested from which
he can pick one. When he reluctantly agreed, he nominated Adams Oshiomhole.
When he was reminded the slot was for South West, he moved on to Yemi Cardoso.
It was Aregbesola who put his foot down on Yemi Osinbajo, which was said to
have been resisted by Tinubu as he said that having been one of the loudest
against Muslim-Muslim ticket, Osinbajo could not be the beneficiary. He
reluctantly agreed when Aregbesola insisted!
Tinubu’s
fear then is about to play out as Osinbajo has now seen himself as Buhari’s
successor, a project which is Tinubu’s last political gambit, with Fashola also
waiting in the wing.
This
is the background to Osinbajo’s declaration in Oyo: “Yoruba have a crucial role
to play in the 2019 elections, so ensure that APC wins. We are looking at 2023.
If we don’t do well in 2019, the opportunity might evade us (He should have
said me). We should be forward-looking and not spoil our future by allowing
those who had plundered our nation to come back to government. They have been
coalescing again to continue the plunder but God shall not allow them.”
Governor
Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State, who accompanied Osinbajo on this outing, also
forgot he is a governor when he lined with Osinbajo and ended like Senator
Adefuye at Yoruba Assembly meeting in Ibadan in 2015, which endorsed the evil
walking over us today. “This coming 2019 elections is between Hausa and Yoruba
on one hand and Hausa and Ibo on the other hand. It is only a bastard in
Yorubaland that will not support APC.”
What
will Mr Governor tell his children if they start using such words? How will
majority of Yoruba people describe anybody who wish them to live another four
years of sorrow, pains, tears and bloodshed?
This
is the time to address Osinbajo, Tinubu, Fashola, (Kayode) Fayemi and their
foot soldiers who have chosen January 29, 2019 as a day to invite evil on
Yorubaland for another four years (God forbids). Those people cannot say they
are not aware that day was chosen to relaunch the Nigerian Tribune, the paper
founded by Awolowo. We will see how Awo reacts to the choice of the day his
legacy is being celebrated as the very moment to relaunch evil on the people he
worked to uplift all his life.
It
is a time to draw the line in the sand between Yoruba patriots and scoundrels.
The issue at stake today is whether anybody who loves the Yoruba people and, by
extension, Nigerians across board would want them to live another four years of
what is going on in our land.
The
National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), a few days ago, revealed that about 40
million Nigerians are today unemployed or under-employed, excluding those in
employment that are not paid as typified by Osun State. Amnesty International
just reported the killings of over 3,600 Nigerians in the herdsmen terror on
farmers. Yorubaland recorded quite a number of such deaths in Yewa (Ogun State)
and Oke Ogun in Oyo State and different communities in Ondo State as well as
Osun and Ekiti and there was not a sympathy from the “Buhari is the road to
Yoruba 2023 Presidency group” so they could be politically correct with their
masters.
When
a Yoruba Lady Evangelist and co-Pastor was hacked to death for just preaching
under Osinbajo presidency, he could not visit the family or make any statement.
When Chief Olu Falae was kidnapped, hacked and kept in the bush for days by
ruffian herdsmen, there was not a whimper from these traders in money in the
name of Yoruba people. When there was a crisis in Ife and the Buhari government
packed only Yoruba to Abuja, none of these people ever raised his voice.
The
Yoruba people are today at the receiving end of the agony in the land like
other Nigerians, as poverty has become the lot of those who don’t have access
to government treasury under Buhari-Osinbajo government. That Osinbajo can find
people queuing for the insulting N10,000 election bribes he is distributing in
Yorbaland best explains the destruction these people have wrought on our
people.
Obama
dresses as Santa to deliver presents to sick children
Yoruba
who are not benefitting from the present rot are in the majority and they will
speak with their PVCs in February. They spoke when they rejected APC in the
Osun polls when the one who boasted he is richer than Osun was humiliated. When
they manipulated the election into an unnecessary re-run, they shamefully
announced a 400 votes lead in a state they won with over 100,000 in 2014.
The
Yoruba want a restructured polity where their governments would have autonomy
to run their lives and their lives would be better. They will vote for
devolution of power. They will decide for state police so that their security
can be under the leaders they elect.
What
would be at stake for them is not the 2023 ambition of Tinubu, Fashola,
Osinbajo and their hangers-on. It would be a choice about their future and how
to live like human beings.
They
will not want to live in a country where national conversations would be about
cattle routes, gazing reserves, Miyetti Allah and other barbarities that have
dominated our discourse in the last three years of palpable incompetence,
clannishness, clowning and backwardness that have been our unfortunate
experience. We need to move our national discourse to where civilised polities
are. We need to overtake Ghana that grew its GDP by 7.3 when Nigerians could
only do 1.7 under this government. Yoruba will opt for a country where human
life matters, not where we are now where human blood is cheaper than pure
water.
It
is how to build a new country that we should be discussing and not Igbo against
Yoruba or any other ethnic group that those who have been given opportunity but
have nothing to offer our people want to force us into.
We
shall meet them at Philipi!
On
this last note, I wish you all a Merry Christmas.
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