Nigeria’s Presidency on Tuesday night fired 35 aides of the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo.
A news medium, Daily Nigerian, had reported on Wednesday that the president, who is currently in London on a private visit, sacked 35 of the vice president’s 80 aides.
Hours later, an online medium, TheCable, lent credence to the story, saying it had confirmed its authenticity from some senior presidential aides.
But, as at the time of filing this report, there was no official confirmation of the report or otherwise.
Some individuals privy to the information, said the vice president hopes that the trend will be reversed when the president returns from London, according to Thisday.
It was learnt that the sacked aides, whose Presidential Villa tags had been retrieved, were sent out of the seat of power in a bid to reduce Osinbajo’s perceived high number of aides.
But a good number of others were of the belief that the sack was political and was only a part of the measures to render Osinbajo irrelevant.
As event continues to unfold, the past one month has not been the best of times for Osinbajo as a number of privileges he enjoyed in the first term of Buhari’s administration have been withdrawn.
For example, Buhari who at different times went on vacation for 10 days in his first term, had voluntarily handed power over to his vice, who accordingly discharged the functions of his office, is currently away for 15 days without dignifying him with such honour.
Earlier, the president had moved the Social Investment Programme of the administration to the newly created Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Investment.
Buhari had also replaced the Economic Management Team chaired by Osinbajo with Economic Advisory Council led by Prof. Doyin Salami which reports directly to him.
Onlookers believe these seem to show that these are not the best of times for the vice president.
Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, while considering the recent events, issued a statement in the week where it said Osinbajo is practically no longer part of Buhari’s administration.