Intense scrutiny from young Nigerians as Osinbajo announces presidential ambition
After months of speculation, Nigeria’s Vice President, Professor Oluyemi Osinbajo, announced Monday, April 11, 2022, that he would seek the All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket to run for President in 2023.
In a six-minute and 55 seconds declaration video that first highlighted his activities as Vice President and the achievement of the government in the last seven years, Osinbajo believes he has garnered enough experience to lead the country and presented himself as a worthy successor to carry on with the ‘progress started’ by his principal President Muhammadu Buhari, whose second term ends in May 2023.
“I believe that the main reason why the almighty God gave me these experiences, insights and opportunities [as vice president] is that they must be put to the use of our country and its great peoples. Which is why I am today, with utmost humility, formally declaring my intention to run for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on the platform of APC,” Osinbajo said in the video.
“If by the grace of God and the will of the people I’m given the opportunity, I believe that first, we must complete the progress started, radically transforming our security and intelligence architecture, ensuring justice for all and the observance of the rule of law.”
Presenting himself as a needed leader with the right experience for a country largely polarised by the activities of secessionists in the southeast, banditry and terrorism in the north and kidnapping and ritual killings in the southwest and south-south, Osinbajo avoided talks about the country’s high level of insecurity, dwindling economy and record-high unemployment.
He promised to rapidly advance infrastructural development and create a tech economy that would provide jobs for millions of young Nigerians. He also promised to build on the foundation laid by his predecessors and build a united nation where everyone sees fellow citizens as brothers and sisters no matter their ethnicity.
Osinbajo, 65, is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, law lecturer and a senior pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), adjudged the most populated pentecostal church in Nigeria with the highest membership.
He started fuelling speculation about his presidential ambition when he transferred his APC membership from Lagos to Ogun state, his state of origin, in February 2021 during the APC membership registration and revalidation exercise.
His political aide Babafemi Ojudu gave some clues about Osinbajo’s ambition in 2021 when he openly declared that he would not support Tinubu, who is regarded as his political benefactor.
By the declaration, Osinbajo would be challenging his political godfather Bola Tinubu, Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi, Ebonyi State Governor David Umahi, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, and others for the ruling party’s ticket.
Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos state, poached Osinbajo into politics from the University of Lagos, where he was a law lecturer and appointed him the state’s Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice for eight years – 1999 to 2007.
Tinubu is also believed to have nominated Osinbajo as Buhari’s running-mate after the merger of political parties in 2013 to form the APC.
“I did not, and I had never met Bola Tinubu before I was appointed commissioner,” he said at the 50th anniversary of Lagos in 2018.
Although seen by many as a brilliant technocrat and a good orator who could make the right political decisions to turn things around in the country, as witnessed during the short period he acted as President while Buhari was away on medical vacation in the United Kingdom in 2018, some still believe he is a chip off the old block of the older politicians who have failed to transform the country despite the abundance of resources available to them.
As the Vice President of a government that has failed to save the economy in seven years with inflation, unemployment, government borrowings and the cost of goods and services hitting an all-time high under the Buhari/Osinbajo government, Osinbajo’s ambition would face intense scrutiny from the electorates if he emerges APC candidate.
In a country where 33.3% (23.18 million) people are jobless, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), his ambition would be mostly scrutinised by young electorates who have been victims of Nigeria’s rising unemployment and police brutality.
As one of the few political leaders who fraternises with young Nigerians and the country’s tech industry, young electorates expected him to identify with them and use his office to get justice for EndSARS protesters killed on October 20, 2020. Although Osinbajo offered condolences two days after and promised victims would get justice, his government has continued to deny that protesters were killed at the Lekki toll gate.
Some have started rejecting him as an option in the next election, describing him as a part of the Buhari government that could not deliver the change promised in 2015. Loyalists of his political godfather have also started trolling him and throwing jibes at him on social media for bidding to challenge Tinubu, who said to become President is his lifelong ambition
After surviving two helicopter crashes in eight months between 2018 and February 2019, while in the line of duty, conspiracy theories claimed some politicians were trying to eliminate him ahead of the 2023 election. Buhari also voiced a similar narrative when he said he would not reveal his preferred candidate so that he would not be eliminated before the election.
In an election where police brutality, rising unemployment, inflation, economic woes, terrorism and insecurity, among other issues, will dominate conversations, Osinbajo would struggle to detach himself from the failure of the Buhari government to fulfil many of its campaign promises and make life better for Nigerians than they met it when they were elected in 2015.
