The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has noted that “somebody somewhere” nominated him to the position he currently occupies as the nation’s number-two citizen, even as he was silent on the identity of the “somebody”.
There was controversy earlier this month when the author of the biography, “Muhammadu Buhari: The Challenges of Leadership in Nigeria”, Prof. John Paden, claimed that President Muhammadu Buhari chose Osinbajo to be his running mate above a national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, despite enormous pressure from Tinubu to do otherwise.
This claim in the book is without respect to the general belief that Tinubu was instrumental to the emergence of Osinbajo, who served as his Attorney-General when he (Tinubu) was the governor of Lagos State, as the APC vice presidential candidate in the 2015 election.
Speaking at a dinner organised for former Niger Delta agitators at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Wednesday night, Osinbajo made a veiled reference to the controversy when he admitted that he was nominated by “somebody somewhere”.
According to him, “I was in a group of young men and women and one of them asked the question how did I become Vice President?
“I was never a politician or anything like that. So I tried to explain it is quite simple that someone somewhere has to recommend you.
“Somebody somewhere has to give you a helping hand, whether to be a Vice President or to be an aircraft pilot or to be an engineer, somebody somewhere has to give you an opportunity.
“I think that all of you that are here today are the beneficiaries of the opportunities that you have somehow received. And this is why this event is so important. I think that it is one way we have to remind ourselves that we are bound as individuals to give opportunities to everyone.”
The Vice President also stated at the event that all Nigerians, including the future generation, will remain losers once Niger Delta militants continue attacking oil and gas installations in the region.
Comments