Gbenga's Musings

After several months of speculations and seemingly unending denials by his spokesperson, Laolu Akande, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday, April 11, finally declared his intention to contest for the office of the president in 2023. The months-long delay, according to very reliable sources was ostensibly due to his repeated failure to secure Buhari’s anointing as the preferred or consensus candidate despite several entreaties and lobbying. Unfortunately for him, the APC constitution does not make room for nomination of a presidential candidate by consensus. It is either direct or indirect primary. With time running out and less than 2 months to the APC Presidential Primary, he took his destiny into his hands and declared notwithstanding. Therefore, similar to other persons who have declared interest in the office of the president come 2023, it is apposite to also interrogate the declaration of Osinbajo’s ambition. Given his position as a sitting Vice President, his ambition will be ...

  Without any iota of doubt, Tinubu is Osinbajo’s benefactor. In fact, everything Osinbajo has achieved politically has had the imprimatur of Tinubu. From his first political job as Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos (1999 – 2007) and taking Tinubu’s VP slot on the APC presidential ticket in 2015 on a platter of gold, Osinbajo has ridden on the back of Tinubu. Where was Osinbajo when Tinubu bankrolled the party and sustained it through its metamorphosis from AD to AC, ACN, forged alliance with CPC after meeting Buhari which culminated in the merger of parties and eventual formation of APC? If anyone is asked: who owns APC today? The answer is SW/Tinubu and the North. In simple terms, Tinubu brought Osinbajo out of political obscurity. Osinbajo on his own has never contested an election or funded one? Even as running mate to Buhari, he lost his Ajah polling unit in 2019 and thereafter quietly relocated his polling unit to his hometown of Ikenne, Ogun State appare...