*Warns against comparing Osinbajo with Buhari
*Says PYO’s plays roles as chairman of Buhari’s economic team
By Kemi Kasumu
“What Osinbajo is doing is discharging his responsibility as acting president. I don’t think he is on a mission to use Buhari’s absence to outdo the performance of Buhari. Or to expose Buhari’s weaknesses to Nigerians. Only the destructive actions of Ben Bruce and his ilk will eventually give birth to that notion.”
Those who are claiming that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) has shown himself in the absence of President Muhammadu Buhari as better than his boss have been warned to stop it.
They were told to rather appreciate that Osinbajo’s performance as Acting President did not make it look like President Buhari was not around.
A comment by an Abuja-based Abbas Datti, published in Daily Trust on Monday, disclosed the warning, saying if any notion that Osinbajo’s commendable actions currently eventually crops up as trying to use the absence of President Buhari to outdo his performance and “expose his weaknesses to Nigerians,” that citizens should hold Senator Ben Bruce responsible.
Ben Bruce representing Bayelsa East in the Senate of the Federal Republic, it would be recalled, had recently commended Acting President Yemi Osinbajo over the recent appreciation of the Nigerian Naira at parallel market and added that, “Whatever the acting President is doing to increase the value of the Naira is working. We appeal to him to teach his boss this magic he has.”
Since he made that comment on his twitter handle, it has become talk of the town among people that have been described mostly as wailing wailers especially people from Ben Bruce part of the country including the militants of the Niger Delta trying to say that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo is better than President Muhammadu Buhari.
But Datti warned that, “Though the giant stride made by Professor Yemi Osinbajo in this short period of time is commendable, this should not be a motive to invite another problem for ourselves beside the ones we have in hand. As we await President Muhammadu Buhari’s return, what Osinbajo needs is cooperation of every Nigerian to fulfill the pledges they made, not to wall off the closely intertwined relationship between him and Buhari.”
He went further to say that, “What Osinbajo is doing is discharging his responsibility as acting president. I don’t think he is on a mission to use Buhari’s absence to outdo the performance of Buhari. Or to expose Buhari’s weaknesses to Nigerians. Only the destructive actions of Ben Bruce and his ilk will eventually give birth to that notion.”
Abbas Datti warned that, “Drawing a comparison between the status of our economy under the presence of Buhari and in his absence could eventually cause friction between Osinbajo and his boss. It will resuscitate the fears of handing over the affairs of the state to the deputy in the absence of a boss.
“Moreover, this act would justify the ignoring of section 145 of the constitution which obliged President to hand over the affairs of the state to his deputy before proceeding on vacation.
“Osinbajo made great strides in these few days. And he deserved to be slammed with kudos for managing this country in the absence of his boss. The way he is managing the country is as if his boss is not on vacation.
“But in hailing Osinbajo, extreme care must be taken not to exult it to the level of creating the notion of portraying Osinbajo as better than Buhari. Or portraying Osinbajo’s policies as in contrariety to that of Buhari. Osinbajo as de-jure president is not creating policies that are contrary to Buhari’s policies. But rather, he is implementing those policies as the Chairman of the National Economic Management Team. He is acting on behalf of Buhari, and Buhari is the President of Nigeria.
“So whatever has been achieved by Osinbajo in Buhari’s absence will be listed in the scorecard of Buhari and Osinbajo,” Abbas Datti clarified.
