AS a ‘redeemer,’ I have been called out on the open-air testimony of Daddy Yemi Osinbajo at the just-concluded special Holy Ghost service, marking the 77th birthday anniversary of our grannie-in-the-Lord, Daddy G.O. With his warbled delivery and sly smile, the Vee-Pee himself brought some snide into the help-me-praise-the-Lord solitude on winning re-election alongside his boss. Not a few missed the leer from his brothers and sisters-in-Christ when he moved to the so-called victory story after the entire congregation had risen with a unified hallelujah while testifying to the unmistaken demonstration of the saving power of God, concerning the red-flag helicopter crash he had in Kabba, days before the highly-contentious presidential and parliamentary polls.
The election has since left the nation “mourning,” and more than half of her people, inconsolable. Well, truth be told, PYO may not be a rigger in the real sense of it, but it is an ugly truth that the oil he is licking off his principal’s palm looks everything stolen and Yoruba have a way of describing anyone, helping a thief ease his loot, from the shelf.
A lot has since happened to the famed progressivism of the VP since he decided to be yoked with a statist like his principal. There are even those who think the fame had been an ordinary hype all along, for someone who found Asiwaju Tinubu’s ways cozy enough for such long-standing relational politics, commerce (those MTN shares in the made-for-public asset declaration, are believed to be Bourdillion-inspired) and other remote-control (a-la Buhari) engagements. Those claims will always be debatable, just like the issues raised by Babafemi Ojudu, for Osinbajo’s loss at “home” during the presidential and parliamentary election, would have been deemed debatable, except for the fact that they came from the VP himself because his political aide, would not issue a disclaimer on Osinbajo’s immediate neighbours at VGC, Lagos high-octane arena of the blatantly-rich, without the express approval of His Excellency.
I personally consider the Ojudu allocutus as ego-ridden and self-driven. Bigger political masquerades even had their masks ripped on the election day and that is, if the VP isn’t being clothed in an oversized comparability by deeming him a masquerade in Nigerian political shrine. Even the two who wanted to be president and not presidential spare-tyre lost at “home,” the worse being the president who lost the votes of those he was indirectly feeding in Aso Villa as well as those in the first line of his personal security; the DSS. He was beaten blue black in those two places, but not even the loquacious Oga Garba Shehu and sniffy Bro Femi Adeshina, made a heavy weather of it. Maybe for them, all is well that ends well. At least, victory is still in the bag and Baba Buhari doesn’t always allow the genie to escape the bottle. Well, I’m not too bothered about Ojudu’s illogicality in explaining logical conclusions, in order to sound at his advising job. I agree that when people chose to beef you big time, nothing you say or do, would pacify them.
At a vantage proximity during his mum’s birthday, Daddy PYO didn’t cut the image of someone with goodly and Godly neighbourliness problem. Save for occasional parapraxis, it would be uncharitable to couch his personality in any forms of complex, though the ways of his aides, particularly over-sabi security men, could make a disdain for him from unintended quarters. Fortuitously, Ojudu alluded to such a scenario in his mocking lullaby.
As the highest-ranking Yoruba in government today, Osinbajo can’t afford to be without empathy where he calls home. Beyond Ojudu’s name-calling, the VP should move to sort his neighbourhood’s beefs out and this time, it should be with heartfelt camaraderie, regardless of ethnic affiliations of the neighbours. It is cotton-wool intelligence to argue that he lost at home because most residents are Peter Obi’s kith. Was an Ibo on the PDP ticket of 2015 that still disgraced Osinbajo at his homes?
It would be for the VP and his kind to connect properly as a correction of the errors put forward by the result. When people are for you, nothing much will count. Buhari’s party lost the senatorial election in his unit, because as unthinking the voters up there were taken to be, the supposed Buhari aura failed the man they didn’t want.
Beyond politics, Daddy PYO has a greater burden to discharge to those beefing neighbours in VGC, in this era when children of God are read by all, more than the Bible. Something is definitely off, he would have to personally find and fix it. To haters too, isn’t about time to let go?
Good morning Oloye
Bukola Saraki is down, but the Oloye family isn’t out. In the real sense of it, there isn’t much changing in Kwara politics, because despite all the grandstanding of the titular leader of APC in the state, Alhaji Lai Moh’d, Gbemi Saraki is still calling the main shot. Ask the minister if he would conscientiously claim to hold much, on the emergence of APC’s major candidates. But it is ok for the new amazon, having the minister as the face of the “struggle”. She knows the real power lies with her. If Sai Bukky’s eyes are reddish today, the sister who he made to sulk in 2011 pulled most of the punches. O to ge, was more of revenge mission for a sister scorned.