Osinbajo, The ‘Lawals’, And Those Who Want VP Out

The All Progressives Congress, APC in Kwara State was on Thursday quick to accuse the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the state of having masterminded the gun attack on the convoy of Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.

The accusation came handily as the attack happened just after the vice-president came out of Agbaji which is the ancestral home of Senate President Bukola Saraki.

Saraki is arguably the most hated political figure among the top leadership of the APC. Few months ago, he added more acrimony to himself when he crossed over to the PDP and became the campaign manager of the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

The PDP, however, asserted that the vice-president was not molested in Agbaji and that the attack happened in Alanamu Ward of Isale-Aluko where two prominent APC chieftains are based.

The two APC chieftains, Lukman Mustapha, a former banker and his brother, Moshood Mustapha, a former Saraki aide, are sons of a former commissioner for finance in the state, Usman Mustapha. They both sought the APC governorship ticket in a bitter contest that eventually produced Abdulrhaman Abdulrazaq.

The PDP alleged that the shooting of the vice-president could have been a fallout of the bitterness among the Mustapha siblings.

As a sucker, the PDP deposed that the shooting could also have emerged from what it claimed that the shooting could have been spurred by acrimony over the sharing of money meant for supporters bussed in for the vice-president’s visit.

Whatever the internal conflict between the chapters of the two major parties, the shooting at the convoy of the vice-president is bound to raise apprehension. Especially as it happened 48 hours to the presidential election where the vice-president is standing as running mate to the incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari.

This is not the first time the vice-president has escaped death in the course of his campaign for re-election.

On February 2 the vice-president’s helicopter crash landed in Kabba, Kogi State.

However, besides his physical survival, the vice-president according to multiple sources has also survived many political intrigues aimed at unseating him as President Muhammadu Buhari’s deputy.

The bitterness with the vice-president even goes to the inside of the famed cabal as the group of close associates around the president are called.

www.gwgnews.com was informed that the vice-president’s forward looking engagements including populist gestures on behalf of the presidency have not been easily accepted by some in the presidential villa. Elements in the villa are also embittered over his role in decimating some strong associates of the president notably, the two “ “Lawals”; erstwhile director-general of the Department of State Services, DSS Lawal Daura and the erstwhile Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Babachir Lawal.

He ordered the sack of Lawal Daura after the DSS invasion of the National Assembly in August 2018 and also authorized the suspension of Babachir Lawal as SGF in April 2017 and chaired the presidential committee that followed up with his dismissal.

Both Lawals were evidently not on the very good side with the vice-president and both believe their end in office were caused by the vice-president.

Sources have alleged a campaign by some around members of the Buhari cabal to cause his removal from the 2019 presidential ticket. That campaign was, however, strongly rebuffed by the president who saw him as a harmless political entity.

If not harmful to the president, but definitely to those who want to be president. Indeed, there are also indications that his rising profile and his increasing growth in politics may not have fascinated some of those who put him there to protect their interests.

Osinbajo in the opinion of some political actors is already forming a niche for himself and is now being rumoured as a potential 2023 presidential hopeful.

However, none of his potential 2023 presidential rivals especially his political leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu would have been pleased with an attempt on the vice-president’s life.

However, with his growing political stature there is no doubt that if the vice-president’s physical life is not endangered, then by every reason, his political ascendancy is now the object of potential and present assassination.

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