Ever since Vice President Yemi Osinbajo threw down the gauntlet to confront his former boss in the epic battle for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential ticket, tongues have been wagging on why Osinbajo took that unexpected decision. Was he goaded into it or was it the result of a well-considered personal decision?
The evolving political scenario has however, revealed that Osinbajo, like his boss, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and several others in the race, are victims of President Buhari’s insincerity and political mischief in pretending to give his blessings to every aspirant who sought his support.
The first major aspirant who went to inform the president of his ambition was the APC National Leader, Tinubu, who later came and openly declared that he had obtained Buhari’s blessing to forge ahead. Others that followed his footsteps include Kogi State Governor Yaya Bello, Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi, Labour and Employment Minister Chris Ngige and others.
However, the focus of this article centres on the duo of Bola Tinubu and Yemi Osinbajo whose parallel ambitions have continued to be a source of worry and concern to many Nigerians, especially those of Yoruba extraction.
Already, the rank and file of the APC are heavily polarised between the two camps; now leaving the Yorubas themselves to spearhead the move to pick the better choice. This is why members of my socio-political group, the Patrons Club, Ibadan, have deemed it expedient to send some of its members to meet with prominent people in Ibadanland, especially the Mogajis and the Baales and seek their views on who will be their preference between Tinubu and Osinbajo.
Those they interacted with opted for Asiwaju Tinubu as their consensus choice and gave a very simple, but factual reason for their decision.
While they all agreed that both Asiwaju Tinubu and Yemi Osinbajo are qualified and competent to rule this country, they believe the generality of the Yoruba people would not accede to the choice of a candidate that is coming from Ogun State to the exclusion of the other five states of the Southwest.
The reason, they say, is that ever since 1976, the people from Ogun State, beginning with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief M.K.O Abiola and Chief Ernest Shonekan had occupied the presidential seat, while two other Ogun State indigenes, General Oladipo Diya and Yemi Osinbajo also acquired the Vice Presidential laurels.
Today, no Yoruba man outside Ogun State has occupied either of the two topmost offices in the nation; a situation which they say has made Ogun State a primus inter pares among its other sister states in the Southwest.
This stand of the Ibadan people, if it is shared by the majority of the Yoruba leaders and people may stultify the ambition of Vice President Osinbajo, not only in the coming APC primary but also in next year’s presidential elections.
It is in recognition of the need to ensure that the opinion of those interviewed in Ibadan is tested among other diverse people in the Southwest region that the Patron Club, Ibadan has taken it upon itself to visit as many states as possible (apart from Ogun State) to collect other people’s opinions. The intention of our group is not to diminish the political stature of Osinbajo, but to ensure that whoever emerges between him and Tinubu enjoys the maximum electoral support of their Yoruba people. It is also designed to sensitize APC supporters from other parts of the country on which of the two aspirants the Yoruba people are likely to support in next year’s presidential election.
The lesson that the Yorubas must learn from the present political horse-trading is that Buharis’s intention is to create confusion among Yoruba leaders and cause a schism within the rank and file of the people of the region. But, I trust the children of Oduduwa; they are too smart and clever to fall to the machination of the northern oligarchy.
Olorode is an Ibadan-based commentator
