Why millions of Timi Frank’s concocted lies won’t move Osinbajo – INVESTIGATIONS

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Buhari, right, and Osinbajo.

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*Buhari didn’t reduce Osinbajo’s responsibilities – Abuja, Lagos sources

*No conspiracy, rift in Aso Rock, says APC

By Our Reporters

The DEFENDERcan authoritatively report and clear the minds of many that there is no iota of truth in news going the round that relationship between President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has gone sour.

Our investigations also showed that there is no rift between the two and revealed why the retinue of mischievously concocted allegation of fraud being spread against Osinbajo cannot move him but that it will turn back to move and consume the very owners of the concocted allegation.

This is as a source close to the Presidency and the two leading parties, All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who spoke to this newspaper under strict condition of anonymity, boasted that millions of such mischiefs by Timi Frank won’t move the Vice President.

Those who claimed existence of any rift, it was gathered, are people who are hit by popularity of Osinbajo as the busiest Nigeria’s Vice President so far and baffled by the cordiality of relationship that exists between him and his boss as impediments to advancing their political aspirations in still far away 2023.

Elements of this nature exist around President Buhari, within APC and in opposition.  Whereas those around the President are feeding him with such stories about Osinbajo with a view that it will sow the seed of discord between them and thus curry favour for themselves ahead of next election, those within opposition are relying on information of what the elements within say, which is all nonexistent issue, to reel out their falsehoods.

To their dismay, President Buhari has continued to refuse their advances and refuse to allow the unfortunate misrepresentation of his deputy to affect the cordial relationship which exists between them

“But for what reason will Vice President Yemi Osinbajo be bothered about any of such things? Is it about the so called N90 billion for election allegation by Timi Frank that is just a mere concoction, baseless and for what reason he is going to be sued? It is even surprising that people got the ears to listen to such blattant lies being told to the extent that some newspapers, print and online, were coopted into the spreading of them.”

One of the sources said ,”bubble don burst”against  the fake news merchants as everything that went on within them is now in the know of the Presidency and that in due course, they and their sponsors shall meet them in court.

Recall that a popular human rights lawyer, when it became clear to him that Osinbajo was going to enforce his fundamental human rights against all of the damaging allegations, had effected a social media discourse asking, “Can Vice President Yemi Osinbajo sue while still in office?”

Things like this the elements had done as lawyers and media practitioners but still failed because President Buhari would not give a damn as he has come to see the pastor-lawyer, professor and teacher of law whom he has worked with for over four years now as the best such companion he would have in office after his former Second-in-Command, late General Babatunde Idiagbon.

“For this reason and very many others, President Buhari cares not about what anybody says to him or on the pages of the newspapers negatively about Osinbajo and this is a major failing and big slap to the face of their plots, which, as for those around the corridors of power, they do because they don’t like the cordiality of relationship between the two leaders.

“To them they have a camp but to Osinbajo he and those who work with him, as it is obvious, have no camp,” the source said.

Our investigations  discovered that as far as Osinbajo is concerned, there is more job to be done than for him to respond to baseless allegations done mainly to distract the government and even the Vice President from concentrating on good governance along with Mr. Presidrnt. This, however, is not same position with the damages done to his personality, as, it was gathered, he will sue those responsible for the damages and press charges against media organisations, mostly only, which are yet to retract their stories and apologise, meaning that they are prepared to do what, in Yoruba parlance, is called abobaku, that is to go down with their sponsors.

He was once overheard to be warning his aides, the source continued, “The VP has no camp. All that I can confirm to you is that he has always warned his aides never to compare themselves with staff in the office of the President.

“In speaking to his  aides he describes himself as Chief Assistant to the President and has been so therefore loyal to the core in that regard”, The DEFENDER was told in the course of its investigations. He was said to have made it clear to his aides or anybody that he and all his aides are working hard for the success of the President and not for himself.

The source therefore made it clear that there is no problem between the President and the Vice President.

In the meantime, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has reacted to news stories suggesting a widening rift in the Presidential Villa between President Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo dismissing the stories.

Buhari didn’t reduce Osinbajo’s responsibilities

It was watertight to get anybody to talk on what the feelings of the Vice President were with establishment of Economic Advisory Council (EAC) as to the acclaimed reduction of his duties as hitherto delegated to him by the President.

But the source, this time frowning, said: “What do you mean? Economic Advisory Council (EAC) is an idea that came out by knowledge of both President Buhari and VP Osinbajo as a response to critics’ claims that economy experts were not allowed to give economic advice to government. Osinbajo was part of the plan and creation of the EAC and it kills not the National Economic Council (NEC) still chaired by him.

“And they said the Social Investment Programme (SIP) has been taken from Osinbajo’s office to the ministry. Yes because it is the ministry that properly speaking should manage the SIP not Presidency. That was why the President created the Ministry of Humanitarian, Disaster Management and Social Development to now properly manage the SIP. That is what the Ministry does.

“SIP could not have continued to be in the Presidency. What the Presidency had done with it in the last four years was to say yes, it is doable, we can do it, we have established it. Just to show the standard and then move it to the Ministry not to take on the programme.

“In fact the President plans to make the Ministry of Humanitarian, Disaster Management and Social Development a legislative matter so that nobody will come one day and it is no longer fashionable,” he said.

He said, “So, be assured that relationship between President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo is fine. President Buhari makes it clear to his aides that he has no problem with Osinbajo and Osinbajo has no problem with him. They respect each other. There is nobody in Nigeria that can accuse either the President or Vice President of anything,” he said.

APC spaks

In a statement on Wednesday, the APC Publicity Secretary, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, debunked all the speculations and conspiracy theories as ‘hogwash’ and ‘overdrive’. He said the crisis only exists in the sponsors’ fatuous imagination.

Here is the APC reaction

Recently, the media has been awash with an absurd conspiracy of an imagined rift in the presidency, which according to conspirators led to the alleged ‘whittling down’ of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s roles in the administration. This happens to be one of the many fake news flying around in recent days.

First, the conspirators went on overdrive following the setting up of the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) comprising some of Nigeria’s most independent-minded economists (some vocally critical of government’s fiscal policies) to advise the President on economic policy matters, including fiscal analysis, economic growth and a range of internal and global economic issues, working with the relevant cabinet members and heads of monetary and fiscal agencies.

Constitutionally, while the power of the Vice President is derived from the President, the conspirators deliberately choose to ignore Section 141 of the Constitution, which spells out the Vice President’s statute membership in the National Security Council, the National Defence Council, Federal Executive Council, and the Chairman of National Economic Council.

Then, sponsored hogwash reports emanated that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) gave the Vice President N90billion for the 2019 election — a rejected and disgraceful template of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which saw the party deploy public and counter insurgency funds to finance their political activities during their failed 16-year rule of the country.

Addressing Nigerians on the occasion of the country’s 59th independence anniversary, President Muhammadu Buhari announced plans to upgrade the National Social Investment Programmes (N-SIPs) to a full fledge ministry status with the take-off of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.

The conspirators are desperately trying to link government decisions on the N-SIPs, which have been under the office of the Vice President since it started in 2016 to support the conspiracies, however mundane.

In the same October 1 address, the President announced the recent redeployment of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF). Was this also to ‘whittle down’ the powers of the OSGF?

In our respective and collective efforts to support the development of our country, we cannot afford to fall into the superficial in assessing actions of government.

Instututionalising the N-SIP for greater impact

Since implementation of the N-SIPs in 2016, the programme has impacted over 12 million direct beneficiaries and over 30 million indirect beneficiaries. The SIPs are already gaining global and local acclaims across the globe on account of its nationwide social impact, particularly from endorsement by the Africa Development Bank (AfDB), World Bank, World Economic Forum, Action Aid (Nigeria), Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) among others.

A question we should ask the conspirators and their partisan sponsors is how did they miss the import of the President’s decision to create a whole ministry to superintend the social investment programmes and humanitarian issues?

How did they not realise that the President’s action is an indication of the importance he attaches to policies that are targeted at the poor?

Why does it appear that the so called analysts always do not see things from the point of view of the poor? When policies are targeted at the elites, analysts always seem to see those and understand them for what they are, but choose all the time to see the mundane when policies address issues that bother on the welfare of the masses.

Warehousing all Social Investment Programmes, such as N-Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, National Home-Grown School Feeding and Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programmes (GEEP) under a full Ministry and appointing a substantive Minister with the full complement of civil service structure is a statement of President Buhari’s renewed commitment to pulling millions of Nigerians out of poverty.

We can understand PDP’s incurable shortsightedness and its leaders’ disdain for the good of the ordinary Nigerians, but we urge a more rigorous and educated critic of government actions from those who have taken on the noble responsibility of reviewing public policies. This is a duty Nigerians expect of the media and the critics.

The Vice President played a frontline role in the conceptualisation of these policies and programmes and the President, in demonstration of his trust for him, charged him with the responsibility of nurturing the programmes to the current stage. Tremendous successes have been recorded under the guardianship of the Vice President. In demonstrating the administration’s commitment to the cause of the poor, these interventionist programmes have been elevated to the Next Level with the creation of the new ministry.

The purveyors of the conspiracy theory about the imagined rift in the Presidency have missed the opportunity to see the commendable efforts of this government. Perhaps, if these policies were about the elites, they would have focussed on the positive imports rather than fishing for a crisis that only exists in their fatuous imagination.


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