Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands – 1 Samuel 8: 7
This biblical quote (above) epitomizes the subversive praise of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, as he acted for ill President Muhammadu Buhari, in those testy times of the administration.
Tiny David had just slain Giant Goliath, the Philistinian. Sensation-craving Israelites, like present-day Nigerians, just went berserk!
But that was subversive in King Saul’s troubled ears, and the resultant David-induced paranoia would prove fatal for the eventually ousted king; and near-fatal for the young man, David, himself.
Like the Jews of old, many aNigerian just yakked, with impressive innocence, at the great vice-presidential strides — no crime.
But with some spiteful lobbies, that praise was a deliberate ploy, to goad Prof. Osinbajo into new vanity, and put a wedge between him and the president.
That would have re-played the ugly Obasanjo-Atiku presidential feud, that all but crippled their second term (2003-2007).
Was Osinbajo taken in by all the razzmatazz, friendly or fiendish? If he was, he didn’t show it.
Besides, watching President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo at the 10th Bola Tinubu colloquium in Lagos on March 29, the body language was clear: neither Saul nor David; absolutely no vanity or paranoia — just one seamless, self-reinforcing “kingdom”, primed for, in Jeremy Bentham-speak, the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Indeed, the duo would appear the political equivalent of another famous scriptural quip: Paul planting, Apollo watering, grace sprouting!
At that colloquium, Osinbajo-in-Buhari established a clear nexus between fighting corruption and freeing hitherto stolen resources for human development — and gave logical reasons why folks must continue to talk about it.
Geez, could leadership be so simple and unobtrusive, when not poisoned by empty conceit and tragic ego; and when the thrust is the people’s welfare, not the crust of personal glory and solo riches?
Perhaps if President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar had struck such a working ethos and work chemistry; and if both were perceived non-venal and as clean as the whistle, the decayed polity wouldn’t have logically metastasized under President Goodluck Jonathan, which made the Buhari Presidency such an imperative.
That returns the subject to the nexus between corruption and crippling under-development, with its attendant mass poverty.
Prof. Osinbajo made a graphic and telling point, citing the Jonathan-era ”strategic alliance” heist at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), from which Nigeria allegedly lost US $3 billion (about one trillion Naira).
From the equivalent of that trove, allegedly pocketed by the thieving lobbies that cut the deal, the Buhari presidency is now proposing to fix the following ongoing crucial roads nationwide: Abuja-Kaduna-Kano road, 2nd Niger Bridge (which a NAN source says is now over 40 per cent completed), Enugu-Port Harcourt road, East-West road, Sagamu-Ore-Benin road (though in all fairness the Jonathan government fixed a stretch of that road), Kano-Maiduguri road, Abuja-Lafia-Akwanga-Keffi road, and the old Lagos-Abeokuta expressway, passing through Ota-Ifo-Wasimi, all in Ogun State.
But the occasion was not really for physical infrastructure, which stats nevertheless the vee-pee’s speech ran through. It was rather to showcase the Buhari government’s comprehensive investment in social infrastructure, despite depleting resources. That policy is driven by the Vice President.
The theme, “Investing in the people”, was therefore a vivid feedback on the state of the Buhari social safety net programmes, to a select gathering, with the president himself in-situ.
Personal testimonies, which often pushed the house into a frenzy, underscored how those social infrastructural stats had positively impacted on citizens — the lowly, the vulnerable, the disinherited and the abandoned, for whom “government” had for too long been nothing but a loud abstraction.
The social investments are captured under a quad of programmes, being implemented concurrently: Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) with the street lingo of “market moni”, the N-Power Programme, split between graduate volunteers and trainees, all aimed at stemming high unemployment and the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), which beneficiary testimonies sent the hall thundering with cheers.
CCT — of N5,000 monthly — is for the society’s poorest and most vulnerable. It is a classic welfare state’s direct intervention in cash; and it is on in 21 states so far (with the remaining 16 waiting to follow, if you add the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja).
Thus far, 297, 973 households, harbouring 1, 033, 294 Nigerians are current beneficiaries, according to Dr. Temitope Sinkaye, the national coordinator of the programme.
GEEP is in the realm of entrepreneurship, driven by a hub of trade cooperatives.
Of GEEP, Mrs Toyin Adeniji, its coordinator quipped: “GEEP is the largest and most ambitious microcredit scheme in the history of Nigeria, providing interest-free loans of N50, 000 to N250, 000 to over 300, 000 Nigerian micro-enterprises (market women, traders, artisans, youths and farmers). It is a direct effort of the Federal Government to break the multi-decade jinx of economic growth without shared prosperity at the base of the pyramid.”
A couple of “market moni” beneficiaries were also there to testify to its impact on their business bottom line.
The most graphic testimonial of the day came from the NHGSFP, the school feeding programme, with one of the beneficiary pupils, a girl from Akwa Ibom, cooing “O, my God! O, my God!”, to show her relish for the daily menu, again sending the house into a rapture.
As at February 2018, 7, 487, 441 pupils in 22 states have been beneficiaries, 75, 333 cooks have reportedly been empowered and 26 states “have completed food safety and hygiene training, as well as medical screening for cooks.”
But the most telling, in terms of tactics and strategy against joblessness, would appear the N-Power Programmes. N-Power volunteers, with a stipend of N30, 000 a month, are an immediate counter to graduate unemployment. N-Power volunteers are integrated, as quality manpower, into CCT, GEEP and NHGSFP.
N-Power training, code-named “N-Power Build”, is a strategic programme to train top-notch artisans, in seven key areas: automobile, carpentry and joinery, welding and fabrication, electrical installation, masonry, plumbing and pipe-fitting, and painting and decoration, vital areas where current skills levels are at best sloppy.
A corollary, N-Power Junior, is being grafted into the regular school system to target young Nigerians from ages 6 to 18 in skills like coding and computer programming, computer hardware repairs; and 2D and 3D animations, including scriptwriting for films.
As the Vice President proudly rendered his account, in front of his beaming and cheering principal, something was crystal clear.
If the Nigerian top two had always reinforced themselves, in integrity and brilliance, our country would never have been in this hole.
It’s all about value-laden leadership. That is the sane path to tread.
