March 27, (THEWILL) – After months of evading a situation where he will have cause to be face to face with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the inevitable happened.
The national leader of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) and a presidential aspirant on the platform, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, finally came face to face with Osinbajo at the party’s national convention on Saturday.
The meeting couldn’t be avoided as they both needed to be on ground for the epoch event. Besides, their seating arrangement was such that they were just a few meters away from each other and so couldn’t possibly avoid each other.
And so they exchanged pleasantries and shook hands.
There has been evidence of a crack between the two men, allegedly caused by Osinbajo’s ambition to take over from President Muhammadu Buhari at the end of his tenure in 2023, even though he is yet to make that public, a move that constitutes an existential threat to Tinubu’s own presidential ambition.
About three weeks ago, during Osinbajo’s 65th birthday, Tinubu very unlike him, waited till the day after to send birthday wishes to him.
Tinubu posted a terse message on his Twitter and Facebook accounts and accompanied the message with a photograph of himself, Osinbajo and their wives cutting his 67th birthday/colloquium cake, rather than a photograph of the celebrant.
A week after, during the lavish ceremony that marked the installation of Oba Lekan Balogun, as the 42nd Olubadan of Ibadan, Tinubu was conspicuously absent, but he did send Femi Pedro, his deputy when he was governor of Lagos State to represent him.
For a man, who has been junketing around the South-West to drum up support for his presidential ambition, his absence at the ceremony spoke volumes about the state of his relationship with Osinbajo.
What made this all the more worrisome is the fact that he willingly sacrificed his attendance at the installation ceremony of the new monarch, who is incidentally his close friend and whose presence would have been a morale booster for the new Olubadan.
He simply refused to attend the ceremony just to avoid Osinbajo.
Ivory Ukonu is a versatile journalist with many years of experience, with entertainment and society reporting as her area of core competence.
