V.P Yemi Osinbajo has been trying to explain why he suddenly lost favour with President Muhammadu Buhari, as many put it, and his explanation has been stoking the embers of wilder speculations within and outside Aso Rock.
As the explanation goes, Buhari is only taking back some of his responsibilities he delegated to the presidency’s poster boy Osinbajo, including managing the economic team and the Social Investment Programme, which are two of the strategic responsibilities the vice president handled.
Many, however, believe the law professor over-reached himself as acting president when Buhari battled a syndrome of ne’er-get-overs in a London hospital for months in the first term.
Osinbajo disregarded the Aso Rock cabal and took three drastic decisions, according to a report.
“They accused Osinbajo of sidelining them when he took critical decisions during Buhari’s medical leave. If you remember, there was a lot of drama surrounding the confirmation hearing of Onnoghen and the removal of Daura,” the Punch quoted an Aso Rock source.
As acting president in August last year, he sacked DSS boss Lawan Daura, the blue-eyed boy of the cabal, and replaced him with Matthew Seyeifa; he also officially sent a letter to NASS to make the Ag. CJN Walter Onnoghe a substantive one March last year. The V.P was also said to have allowed the chairman of the presidential panel on looted assets recovery, Okoi Obono-Obla, too much reins.
The newspaper, quoting Aso Rock sources, said the decisions hurt the cabal, a power circle within the presidency many believe comprises Chief of Staff Abba Kyari and Mamman Daura, Buhari’s cousin.
Seyeifa and Onnoghen have been summarily kicked out since then, despite Osinbajo sympathy for the CJN, as expressed in his comment about Buhari being unaware of the arraignment of the nation’s topmost judicial officer.
The last man Obono-Obla was axed recently (for corruption) and the panel dissolved. The ICPC is already digging into him.