Osinbajo: Between Tight Schedule And Fear Of Outshining The Master

This week, being the first in March, has been a busy one at the seat of power. On Monday, it started with the usual monthly meeting of the economic management team headed by the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo.
Immediately after the meeting of the country’s economic think tank, he met with international developers and investors of a  project called Gas Revolution.
Following the renewed interactive engagements of the federal government with oil-producing communities in several states in the Niger Delta region, a plan to put in place a gas industrial park that is valued at about $20B through a Public-Private Partnership model, is now in process.
Tagged the Gas Revolution Industrial Park (GRIP), Ogidigben, the project envisaged to be a regional hub for all gas-based industries will cover 2700 hectares with fertilizer, methanol, petrochemicals and aluminium plants located in the park already designated as a Tax Free Zone by the federal government.
Later that same day, the Special adviser political to the President, Babafemi Ojudu spoke to journalists about the trending topic dominating the media space- the comparison between President Muhammadu Buhari and his deputy, Osinbajo. From all indication, the briefing was to put the record straight on the issue which was unnecessarily overheating the polity.
No doubt, Osinbajo’s advisers must have  read Robert Green’s bestseller  48 laws of power which must have jolted them to do the damage control that briefing was probably intended to achieve. The first law of power in the book simply says ‘Never Outshine the Master’. “Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity.  Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power”, the law states.
Apparently wary of that particular law, Ojudu took a leaf out of the book by dousing any tension and speculation that the acting president was trying to outshine his master. The political adviser  described the  recent comparison between the president and his vice as a ploy by the opposition to cause unnecessary division.
Ojudu labelled those spreading the  falsehood  as mischief makers, who do not wish the  country well. He noted that they these set of persons who are always promoting crisis and will not allow the people to benefit from democracy were the ones promoting this kind‎ of divisive tendencies.
He remarked, “ I think it is thoughtless. I also see it as a ploy by the opposition to cause an unnecessary ‎ division. It is a joint ticket. The president and the vice president were elected based on the manifesto of the party and since they were sworn-in they have been committed to implementing that manifesto.
“The same people who said we never had economic team, no policy, nothing are the ones saying this. It is now the policies we are implementing are maturing and they are seeing the results. It is not a question of one person being better than the other person”.
Tuesday was another busy day at the Presidential Villa. Osinbajo attended the   inaugural quarterly civil service lecture series, with the theme, ‘Civil Service in a Change Environment: The Change is Now’, at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa where he lamented that despite modest gains recorded by the Nigerian civil service, it has remained at its lowest ebb, owing to corrupt tendencies that has permeated the system.
He said the system which had firmly stood against injustices and high-handedness that characterized the military era, when leadership was mainly by promulgation of decrees, suddenly came crashing when civil servants began to see their functions as means to achieving personal aggrandisement, rather than the common good of the Nigerian state.
That same day he also launched the Private Sector Advisory Group for the Sustainable Development Goals. Later that day, Prof. Osinbajo met regulatory agencies during a follow-up meeting with the Abia State governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, medium & small scale business stakeholders from the State and some federal government regulatory agencies.
The Acting President had visited Aba to flag-off the Presidency’s MSMES Clinics where medium & small scale businesses are brought together in one spot with federal government regulatory agencies they interface with.
In the meeting, Osinbajo met with the governors of Cross River, Senator Ben Ayade; Akwa Ibom, Mr. Emmanuel Udom and Ebonyi, Mr. Dave Umahi, alongside top officials of the National Boundary Commission led by the Director-General, Dr. Muhammad Ahmad, to review updates on boundary  and boundary demarcation issues.
Before the meeting ended, the aides of the acting president had informed Journalists that there will be no briefing. When the governors came out they all declined interviews. From the look on their faces, it was obvious that the meeting didn’t go as planned.
On Wednesday it was the usual Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting. After the meeting, the minister of power, works and housing, Babatunde Fashola hinted that the federal government had approved N701billion as Power Assurance Guarantee for the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET).
The facility which will be made available by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is to guarantee the payment for the evacuation of power produced by Generating Companies (GenCos) for the national grid.  After the meeting, some hours later, the acting President met with the security chiefs to get an update on the security situation in the country.
After the security meeting, the acting president allayed fears on the president’s health so that Nigerians would not begin to say now that he was receiving security briefing, the president might not come back soon. He said, “No no no! Almost every month these briefings are held. It is routine and it is the president who puts in place this whole idea of regular briefing. It is even more important that we do so because of some of the issues arising like the cases of kidnappings and I wanted the IG to inform us fully.
“Besides, the president is a process person and certainly I am going to speak with him on developments here. So, it is not an indication of anything. It is only an indication that we are committed to the security of the nation.  The primary duty of government is to ensure lives and properties and that is why we have to be regularly briefed. The good thing is that our men are doing extraordinarily well in the North East and Southern Kaduna has also been contained. The peace building process is also going on very well”.

Source: Leadership