IS BUHARI ABOUT TO SACK OSINBAJO?!

              Chief of staff Abba Kyari and VP, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo. 

For about ten days now, the Nigerian president, President Muhammadu Buhari has travelled to the United Kingdom for personal reasons. Yet, public funds had been used for these personal reasons. Being the president of the federal republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari had not travelled alone, neither has he boarded a public plane and fly on economic class for this strip, he had gone- as usual- with all the paraphernalia of the presidency- with public funds. For reasons unknown to many, the president did not fully handed power over to his vice (or so we believe). A couple of days back the chief of staff to the president, Abba Kyari took some bills that needed to be signed into law to the United Kingdom, for the president’s assent. Yet, he too had not travelled alone. You can imagine the number of aides and assistants that must have accompanied him on this fruitless mission.

A close crop shot of President Muhammadu Buhari. 

Part of the president’s campaign promises is that once he becomes the president, he would stop the political class from going abroad for medical treatments. Yet he has travelled abroad so far for medical reasons than most or all other politicians, all these trips are with public funds. What would it cost our president to receive his medical treatment here in Nigeria? Are Nigerian hospitals that bad that even the president that has been telling Nigerians to patronize Nigerian products and services is not patronizing Nigeria himself? What example and impression is the president giving the youths and the rest of Nigerians concerning patronizing Nigeria made goods and services?

All that aside.

Constitutionally speaking, what is the role of the vice president in the absence of the president? Is the vice president not empowered by the law to act in the president’s stead on matters of the state in the absence of the president? If yes, why is the chief of staff taking bills from Nigeria to the UK for assent when the vice president could have done it at no cost at all? Or the Chief of staff to the president is already missing his boss after a few days and he wanted to use the excuse of signing the bill to see the president again? Was the VP not consulted before this bill was taken abroad and must he (Abba Kyari) personally travel with the bill? Or, why didn’t he just mail the bill to the president, isn’t that common sense?

 Couldn’t he have sent it through one of those international courier service deliveries at 100% cheaper rate? Oh, does he think that the information contained would be compromised? That’s foolish. If the British are interested in the content of the bill, they have enough microscopic surveillance cameras that see everything. Even in the privacy of the president’s hospital suit in London, there are hidden surveilance cameras, I hope our president is not gullible to believe any assurance of privacy promised by the hospital? I am just wondering about all these things because our political class definitely is not acting in the modern way and it is not thinking right!

Is it even part of Abba Kyari’s constitutional duties to take the bill to the president? Let’s consider the Chief of staff’s duties according to the Nigerian constitution: "The Chief of staff to the president manages the president’s schedule, correspondence and any other duty that may be assigned to him by the president" says the state house website. These duties though includes getting a bill passed by the national assembly to the president does not exactly said that he must physically present it to the president, especially when the president is in diaspora.

A member of the house of representatives from Egbeda federal constituency, Honourable Akin Alabi, the owner and founder of Nairabet (one of the most popular sports betting platforms in Nigeria) supported Abba’s Kyari’s wild goose chase to London by saying that Abba Kyari is the “assistant to the president” while Prof Osinbajo is just a vice president. I was quite disappointed with this uninformed statement coming from a man that I respected. Let us ask honourable Akin Alabi to open that section in the Nigerian constitution where it was stated that the Chief of staff to the president is the “assistant to the president” while the VP is just a vice president. In his statement, Akin Alabi has shown that he is more concerned with party allegiance than standing with what is the truth. Anyways,  why should I involve myself too much when the VP himself had said that there is no ill feeling between him and his boss- the president?  Let’s hope that’s true.

It seems VP Osinbajo is the new target of this government. Apart from the London Bill Signing scandal, some of the VPs aides had been laid off “in order to cut cost” according to the presidency. According to the news, the embattled aides had resumed work last week with their tags but they had been denied access from entering into the premises of the state house by security operatives. It was said by the presidency that the VP office has more aides than the president himself and that the measure was taken to cut cost and to save tax payers’ money. Tax payers’ money was definitely not taken into consideration when the cabal in this present government was travelling abroad for private businesses with tax payers’ money? Besides, has the aides of the other politicians too been sacked like they did to the VP?

What about the office of the first lady, has the retinue of security men, secretaries and assistants been laid off? In fact,  the president just apoointed new aides for the first lady this past month.  As a Nigerian, I can’t see the essence of the office of the first lady. Since I have been old enough to know about politics (from 2005 upward), Nigerian first lady office has always been another useless white elephant project, another hole in our national pocket through which our national income is being wasted.

 From Late Mrs. Stella Obasanjo to Mrs. Turai Yar Adua, to the famous Dame Patience Jonathan and now to Mrs. Aishat Buhari, the office had always been another way of burning our national income which is not even enough to meet our needs.

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Most of the policies and projects formulated and executed by this office have always been stillborn. Most of these projects and policies often die few weeks after inception. The few ones that manage to live never made it beyond the tenure of whoever instituted them, so what is the point of this office? By scrapping the whole useless office, did you how many millions this would save Nigeria monthly? Did you know how many companies this money would build and how many unemployed graduates that this would employ? Did you know how many children that the money allocated to the office of the first lady would feed, take off the streets and sent to school? Are we really addressing these issues or this is just another witch hunting?

Why did the presidency wait till now before it lay off the aides of the VP? Why weren’t these aides informed before instead of being allowed with the mentality of coming to work and to meet barred gates? Is this how to act and operate in a civilized world?

I think what is causing this VP witch-hunting is that perhaps, the VP made a suggestion that did not go down well with the president and maybe, just maybe, he had been warned to stop raising such points but he (the VP) had been persistent basically because he is a Christian and he cannot go against his conscience by keeping quiet. Probably this is why he is under fire right now. Or all these speculations are pointless and useless. If the VP says there’s no problem between him and his boss, maybe we should believe him. After all, he is a pastor and he cannot lie. Maybe nothing is truly wrong but the signs are too obvious to be ignore. I think something BIG is cooking and that the VP is in the middle of it all.

Yours,

Oromidayo.