Acting President,Yemi Osinbajo, says President Buhari sees him more as a son than the Vice President.
Osinbajo said this when he spoke at the Emir of Katsina’s palace today May 11. Osinbajo is 60 years old and President Buhari is 74 years old.
“President Buhari has taken me more like a brother, in fact sometimes more like a son than a VP” Osinbajo said.
Hmmmm! You may,indeed, be wrong. Cash. There is personal in inter-personal relations, and formal in informal. The dynamic between 2 leaders cannot be over or, underestimated. Life experiences compared will endow a ‘father-figure’ to one and a ‘child-figure’ to the other. Once there is cordial and mutual regard and sometimes, consensus between 2 parties, then there is no issue of boundary-crossing. Let’s not forget that aside being a former military leader, PMB has endeavoured the presidency 3 times previously and with his Vice being a technocrat and renowned advocate, their relationship couldn’t be more matching in a multi-tribal, multi-religious administration. And their relationship is more transparent in their accord much more than Nigeria has ever witnessed.This may explain the use of the term ‘Coordinator’, meaning that the Vice president has been delegated to do all the president should be doing in the latter’s absence, sometimes with consultation, more often autonomously. Rubble rousing is a strategy for the dissenters, making it an ambiguous statement, thus, diverse meaning the term ‘coordinator’. We witnessed during former President Yar’adua’s absence that the ‘game-plan’ changed and the dissenters from both sides played both ends of the pitch to disparage the mechanism of governance – where the looting got more intense and uncontrollable.
As endearing as that may sound Sir, “Mr. Vice President,” that’s actually an awful thing to say or admit publicly as the Vice President of Nigeria.
I may be wrong on that but I think you could find so many other different ways of showing or saying how the president has taken you in to his confidence. Many other words such as: “protégé,” “mentee,” etc. might suffice. You might as well say “that you are Buhari’s boy…which I know you are not.”
Cash Ezimako