Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday jokingly thanked Senate President Bukola Saraki for not taking advantage of the vacuum in power before the presidential inauguration.
There had been fears and rumours Saraki’s PDP and its presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar were planning to disrupt the inauguration on May 29.
Osinbajo probably was wondering where the chip would fall in the twilight between the end of the APC old tenure and the new one that started at around 10 am May 29.
So at the state dinner organised in honour of President Muhammadu Buhari (already in Saudi Arabia for a summit) and his vice president inside the State House Banquet Hall, Osinbajo, in a joke, related his experience, as he represented Buhari.
According to him, as a lawyer and law teacher, he likes to test and interrogate legal scenarios.
“At one minute past midnight today, the four year term of the President and I ended by effluxion of time,’ he said.
“So from one minute past 12 of last night, May 29 to about 10:30 am when we were sworn in for a second term there was no president or vice President.
“Interestingly nothing went wrong, all was okay. When such a situation arises, it is the Senate President who acts as President.
“So when I arrived at Eagle Square this morning, some may have noticed that the Senate President Bukola Saraki and I were enjoying a joke.
“He said to me jokingly ‘You’d better be careful you know I am the acting President now!’. So we thank the Senate President for not doing anything funny.’’
Saraki is PDP’s national leader and associate of Atiku, the party’s loser in the Feb 23 presidential election, who is leaving no stone unturned to claim the mandate he said Osinbajo, Buhari, INEC, and the APC stole from him.