Leading Nigerian born publisher of globally celebrated OVATION International magazine, and former presidential candidate of National Conscience Party in the 2011 elections, Aare Dele Momodu, has explained why Vice President Yemi Osinbajo should not be supported to vie for the next presidential election.
Momodu’s comment came even as President Muhammadu Buhari said on a Channels TV’s interview that his favourite candidate would not be unveiled because he feared the person could “be eliminated”.
Buhari’s measured response was widely understood to mean that the favourite candidate is VP Osinbajo, more so as groups composed by those close to the Presidency have been rooting for the VP.
But Momodu, the publisher of OVATION Magazine, sneered at attempts to draft Osinbajo into the presidential race, saying he did not deserve it.
Speaking during a media interview, the top journalist, who recently joined the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said the mischievous attitude of the VP and others in the APC central administration made him not to consider joining the party in the first place.
He said although Osinbajo is pre-eminently qualified to contest for President but that his acts while serving as VP betrays public expectation from a man of his calibre.
Momodu said, “I hold the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo in the highest esteem. He’s qualified to be President of Nigeria: brilliant, cerebral in everything.
“But I cannot imagine that all of them are in APC and Buhari continues that rascality.
“I can’t believe it; so it’s something I will say anywhere. I can’t defend it (that Osinbajo and the others look on at Buhari’s rascality).
“Their brothers and sisters were being massacred, were being raped (as for ‘sisters’);were being kidnapped, and they said nothing.
“They did nothing as far as I am concerned. That’s my grounds against them. That’s why
I went into the opposing party.”
Momodu recalled that Osinbajo recently accosted him at a public function, accusing him of joining the opposition. But he said he pointedly told the VP in the public that he left because of Buhari’s demeaning style of governance, about which Osinbajo and others said nothing and did nothing.
The publisher, therefore, said that the presidency should not be left in the hands of a robot or a pretender, stressing that the present regime of Buhari has stagnated the country and that Nigerians should beam their searchlights in the direction of credible replacement, come 2023.
