I believe you have all noticed. Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo is regaining his stature and waxing reformist on some of the problems dogging Nigeria. He is breaking out of the supposed cabal-stitched straitjacket into a tinderbox of chutzpah. It seems he has elected to remove the duct tape from his mouth at this time. But it is puzzling why the vice-president is picking this time in the life of the administration he represents to pipe up. Is there a 2023 graph under plot?
Really, Nigerians pined to hear Osinbajo, a professor of law and senior advocate of Nigeria, talk up when the Buhari administration dispatched DSS agents to desecrate the residences of judges in the most ungodly hour. Nigerians strained their ears in vanished hope that even a whisper of condemnation against the assault on journalists and activists by the government will be let out by the vice-president. Even if not spoken, there are unspoken gestures the vice-president could have used to convey his position on the extra-judicial exertions of the administration if he really differed. Yes, Nigerians longed to hear Osinbajo speak up for those massacred in Southern Kaduna; those kidnapped and killed by bandits. The vice-president held so much promise even in a very unpromising government. There was wild jubilation when he was acting president – at the time President Muhammadu Buhari was on a medical sojourn in London. But he failed to level up to the expectations. He simply refused to call a spade a spade when the graves of innocents were being dug.