TheCable

BY JAMES BABATUNDE

With 2023 presidential elections already on the horizon, it is that time in this political season where the sound and fury of political intrigues and high-wire drama will resonate nationwide. Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo is in the thick of it, having declared to run for president in 2023 and is arguably the most formidable among all the aspirants who have also declared their intentions.

Osinbajo’s name will be the “common enemy” target to bash and destroy, for the 2023 presidential elections. He will almost be martyred. And the foot soldiers for that work have been unleashed. Their destructive missile contents will go out serially till the morning of the presidential elections.

He will be attacked by the converted cerebral intellectuals and paid political analysts to destroy his VP stewardship. They will ask questions they forgot to ask for 6 years. They will shame him and everything that is linked with him. They will bully his religious background and slander spiritual persons that identify with him. Everyone around him will be declared a bigot. They will call him all sorts of names and fabricate headlines against Osinbajo from the depths of their deceit.

It is interesting how these cliques of paid political mercenaries just noticed all of Yemi Osinbajo’s faith and pastoral calling in 2022, and how these became an issue especially when the vice-president finally declared his interest to contest for the 2023 presidential elections under the APC. These gang of paid mercenaries will launch, in a wild multi ballistic and amphibious machination, several false claims and allegations against Osinbajo and his associates. They have been recruited from different sectors: academics, the law chambers, the schools, the streets, the private sector and the local governments. They will come from Nigeria and the diaspora.

They will cut across the national assembly and the judiciary. They will cut across cultures, class, colour and creed. They will appear smart, but forceful and create fake news on Osinbajo. They will drive these brutal, but fake news missions on traditional media, digital and social media, even on some international platforms. The mission is just one — to malign and rubbish the presidential aspiration of Osinbajo, for their devilish mission to snatch the soul of Nigeria, and deny it of a truly unifying presidency.

Osinbajo’s’ faith will be used against him in the north. These mercenaries have also made several works in Hausa, Fulani etc. spitting hate and venom in different languages even when nobody can give what they do not have. They are on a devious mission of a deliberate smear campaign against Osinbajo.

These political mercenaries will fight his church while seemingly quoting the Bible. They will say he will want to Christianise the north. Anti-Osinbajo campaigns will be funded up north and evangelised in local dialects, declaring that he is responsible for the insecurity in the north. Osinbajo will be referred to as the cause of economic failures in Nigeria. They will refer to him as the cause of electric power failure in Nigeria.

The reason for their recent corrosive outbursts is not because of their love for Nigeria. They never noticed all these false claims about Osinbajo for 7 years. They were so blind and “unanalytical” in the first 7 years of the Muhammadu Buhari administration. In fact, some of them defended the government not because they loved the government, but because they believed this government will hand over to their selfish and anti Nigerian political interests. The paymasters of these detractors do not believe in any rule of law, but rather in their own interests and expanding their political empire, and not national development.

Looking closely at his few days as acting president, there is a big fear in their hearts of what an Osinbajo presidency can do. Even the presidency and the opposition noted it. Is it for the sufficient provision of forex and drop in the dollar rates or the sanity of a few institutions within the period? Their concern is the extreme positive disposition of an Osinbajo presidency to the emergence of the tech industry. They are worried about what an Osinbajo presidency can do when his government will overhaul the entire education sector for the benefit of all Nigerians, rich or poor. These anti-Nigerian and personal interest slave masters are extremely worried about how much of the problems of Nigeria Osinbajo has identified and the emergence of a new Nigeria he is capable of birthing.

Osinbajo is ready to take responsibility for Nigeria. He has shown competence in all areas he has been assigned to handle by his boss President Muhammadu Buhari, who has also allowed him to steer the ship of the nation for some period as understudy. Osinbajo’s performance as acting VP remains an exciting glimpse into what is possible.

Osinbajo’s detractors know that an Osinbajo presidency and leadership style work for the people of Nigeria, and not for a selfish few or group. A collaboration of the best and those that can say NO to societal wrongs and malfeasance, and not a cabal expansion, is what Nigeria needs now.

Osinbajo has demonstrated true leadership when he had the opportunity to act. He deserves this chance. He will fix this nation and work with the best. Be careful of intelligent political lies that show up on your timelines at this point, targeted to snatch your thumb. It is all targeted at those who will always vote without verifying. Please verify thoroughly and vote very intelligently.

Babatunde, a social commentator, writes from Lagos