“Even when his government ordered the military to crush the EndSARS protests leading to the killing and maiming of young protesters in Lekki, the VP’s old neighbourhood, the Vice President kept quiet”.
Perhaps it is the curse of our leaders that they do not know the impact of their policies or lack of policies on the population they purport to lead. Because how else do you explain Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s promise to complete this administration’s unfulfilled “promise of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty within this decade.” Is the VP not aware that instead of lifting Nigerians out of poverty, the administration has plunged many Nigerians into poverty through its various job-killing economy-shrinking policies? The best way to take people out of poverty is by empowering them with their own income-generating opportunities not by gifting them N5000 ($10). The Buhari-Osinbajo administration has failed to create new jobs while decimating old ones. Our unemployment rate has gone from 5% in 2015 to 35% by 2021. You cannot lift people out of poverty while most of your citizens are either unemployed or underemployed.
The Vice President has also promised to continue the current agriculture revolution, saying, if elected, he will take the revolution to the next level. The agriculture revolution is probably one of the few policies of this administration that has seen some modest success but at a great cost. Nigeria, indeed, has cut its food import bill from $3.4 Billion in 2014 to $2.7B in 2021. But despite increased local production of food items like rice, food inflation has run rampant for the last seven years and poor Nigerians are forced to buy overpriced local produce. Virtually, every food item has more than doubled in price since 2015. Some have seen their prices rise by more than 300%, despite the government’s promises that its expensive agricultural investment, food import ban, and the misguided but short-lived border closure policy will help bring down food prices by encouraging more local production. This has not happened obviously, as local supply struggles to keep up with local demand.
Also Read: Osinbajo’s Threat to Continue Buhari’s Great Work (1)
Some may argue that the Vice President cannot be judged entirely by the actions of this current administration since he is ultimately not the final decision-maker. But the Vice President has not distanced himself from any of the major policies affecting the lives of Nigeria. Even when his government ordered the military to crush the EndSARS protest leading to the killing and maiming of young protesters in Lekki, the VP’s old neighbourhood, the Vice President kept quiet. He was also nowhere to be seen when his government slapped an embargo on protesters’ bank accounts and international passports and banned Twitter.
Needless to mention that Osinbajo is not the only Vice President to be assessed by the general performance of the administration he co-leads. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has always been judged by the performance of the Obasanjo-Atiku administration 1999-2007 even though the VP was notoriously at loggerheads with his president for much of their time in office. This was also true in the United States, Joe Biden and Al Gore, vice presidents to Barack Obama and Bill Clinton respectively, when they ran for president. In any case, Vice Presidents including Osinbajo love to use the achievements of their administration to campaign, so it is only fair they are also asked hard questions about the failures too.
While Professor Osinbajo is within his right to run for president, it is crucial that Nigerians are not blinded by all the public relations and branding efforts that will attempt to sell him to us as some sort of messiah we have been waiting for. We must not forget the lessons of the last seven years and should see 2023 as our chance to severe our ties to not only Buhari but also his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo.
