OPINION: Goodnight from Aso Rock, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo

By Prince Ejeh Josh.

The pendulum is already swinging, and the scale of the cabal is dangling towards a certain direction. The battle for the soul of 2023 is gradually being drawn. The coast is becoming clearer. The battle is all about who gets the top job in 2023.

Needless say it’s going to be a fight to finish. It’s going to be a war between the pigs and the cabal. Should I increase the volume for the Honourable Minister for Power to hear me? Who will get dirtier and happier this time around: the pigs or the cabal?

It is, indeed, a battle between the monstrous, ferocious and powerful Northern cabal and the Jagaban’s boys. Sorry, I meant to say, the Yoruba of the South West. Intriguing days are ahead. Time and events will keep on unfolding how this power tussle will twist, hit and break necks.

Now, look at it this way. They started the ruthless experimentation with the Sahara Reporters’ publisher, Mr. Sowore. When the Northern oligarchs decided to hound him, they definitely had something in mind. They wanted to know how the South West would react.

As if the well-orchestrated plans were lain like landmines, the Yoruba political gladiators are already playing into the traps. They all kept mute at Sowore’s gut-wrenching invasion and arrest. Some of them even encouraged the President and his powerful cabal to keep Sowore as long as he wishes inasmuch as 2023 would not be compromised with other ethnic groups.

You would recall that ‘pressures’ were all around the Asiwaju of Yorubaland and self-styled “Awolowo” of our time, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to run for 2023 presidency. Anyway, that’s what he told us. Sowore has always been seen as a threat to the political interest of Jagaban. No, he was a big threat to the collective interest of the South West. As such, he has to be eliminated from the picture.

Having seen that the chess was really playing out as planned, it’s now time to touch one of the untouchables. The most powerful political office holder from the South West was stripped off his powers and rendered almost redundant. This was a clear message to the Jagaban that it was no longer business as usual. Nobody dares the cabal and tells the story with joy.

First, Mr President; I meant the unseen hands in the presidency, disbanded the Osinbajo-led Economic Management Team (EMT) even without giving him prior notice. It took the VP by surprise. I supposed he would still be nursing the wound, and trying to recover from the rude shock by now. But the cabal would not stop there. They needed to leave the Jagaban with a bloody nose by hitting very hard at his men. He has to be cut to size by all means for nursing his inordinate ambition.

Without mincing words, he has to be taught some lessons and be told to his bare face that he’s still a political neophyte in the murky waters of Nigeria politics. Nigeria is neither Lagos State nor South West where the Jagaban could loom large without restraint. Nigeria, as things are now, belongs to the cabal, and by extension, the powerful Northern oligarchs.

Come to think of it; to be frank, many had seen the Osinbajo-led EMT as an epoch-making disaster. As some economists and financial analysts would argue, the vice president headed the most inept, rudderless and historically failed economic team in the history of Nigeria. A sort of Buhari-Sibanjoic political economy.

Certainly, the economic team would be remembered for its notoriety for plunging the economy into a state of comatose. Sadly, under his economic watch, millions of Nigerians fell into the Atlantic Ocean of abject poverty. Nigeria quickly leapt to become the poverty capital of the world. Although, many still argue that the baton of responsibility rests between him and the cabal as the President signs anything that comes to his desk through the cabal without making any attempt to go through those documents. After all, he once admitted he doesn’t read through documents before signing and presenting them to the public.

Second, right from the inception of the Buhari administration, the vice president has been chairing the governing boards of the National Emergency Management Agency, Border Communities Development Agency, the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, and the National Boundary Commission.

He, likewise chairs the Board of Directors of Niger Delta Power Holding Company, a limited liability company jointly owned by the three tiers of government as well as Chairman of National Council on Privatisation. These are powerful portfolios being superintended by him. This gave him some sense of superiority over the demi-god cabal.

But how far Osibanjo would go with those titles is a matter to be determined not by the Constitution or any other extant law but by the godless cabal all feeding fat both at Aso Rock and outside the precinct of power. They could even call the canon shot from Daura palace or Kaduna Government House or anywhere in the North. Aligning with their interests could have saved the vice president all these embarrassments. Perhaps, it has even come as a speculation that he’s also nursing the ambition of giving the top job a shot should his boss fail to clinch the ticket.

Now, all those powers that had given him a false sense of confidence and smartness have been stripped off with just a tip of the finger by the cabal. Is the game not over? What this means is that the vice president would just be there, isolated and abandoned. What gave him relevance has been taken away.

Third, before he could take any decision or action now, approval must first be sought and obtained by him from the ‘almighty’ cabal. It will get to their tables first. They will have to query it, ask both reasonable and unreasonable questions. Approval would be timelessly delayed. Frustration would creep in. The office would become moribund and redundant. It would be starved of funds. Apologies to the Kogi state governor and his estranged deputy.

Fourth, that notorious Trader-moni and what have you, would also have to go. No more travelling allowances. The vice president would just come to office, press and charge his phones, tweet, facebook, whatsapp and, perhaps, listen to news and retire back home. This may soon be his routine for the next four years.

The powerful cabal is at work. A time is coming when Nigerians would be asking themselves whether the office of the vice president still exists. That’s what the cabal can do. Challenge them and your story would be told with deterrence and as a warning to others.

Fifth, major national dailies are recently reporting how the vice president’s aides were packing out of Aso Rock in droves. The terrain was becoming unbecoming for them. The manifestation of the power of the cabal. Unbearable Aso Rock!

Now, what becomes of Tinubu and his ambition if the cabal decides to go after all his men on key political positions at the federal level? They are digging the trenches against 2023 for the Jagaban and his men. Will he survive the onslaughts? Time will tell.

For now, the coup from the cabal is already giving some ambitious gladiators sleepless nights. Is impeachment possible? Pretty much. But that would be too lousy and unnecessarily pronounced. With the subtle but dangerous steps being taking by the cabal, I see darkness hovering around Jagaban’s ambition.

The sinister is already gathering to perch on the Zuma Rock. Will the South West speak up now or would they also sacrifice Osinbajo with the hope that 2023 is still much feasible for them? The question I am compelled to ask is: how will the South West appease the Aso Rock cabal without sacrificing their 2023 inordinate ambition?

Prince Ejeh Josh
B.Sc, M.Sc, LL.B, nim

 

___________________________________

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed on our opinion page are those of the writer and do not represent the position of INSIDER or any of its reporters/editors.