Eminent Yoruba leaders have blow hot against any arbitrary attempt to stampede Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo out of office.
The leaders who spoke to Daily Sun, opined that the vice president is being targeted ahead of 2023.
A chieftain of the Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-cultural group, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, speaking with advised that constitutional procedures be followed in unraveling the circumstances leading to the alleged mishandling of public funds.
He said: “I don’t want to dabble in a matter I don’t know much about. The matter is within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). And the man that hires can fire.
“All that I can say is that he (President Muhammadu Buhari) should not do anything that is unconstitutional to remove the vice president not matter whatever he is accused of. He must follow constitutional procedures.
“The allegations they are making against him are within the view people who are in his government. All I can say is that there are certain constitutional procedures to follow in carrying out an investigation. They should not rubbish him because they want to rubbish somebody from the south in anticipation of 2023.
“Whether or not he needs to waive his immunity in order to sue those who want to rubbish him is his own personal affair. All I am saying is that whatever will be done to him, it should be done constitutionally. Whatever he is accused of doing, it should be investigated constitutionally. There must be no arbitrariness in dealing with whatever accusation that is leveled against him.”
On his part, the newly elected Yoruba Leader, Prof Banji Akintoye, raised the alarm over the moves by some powers to treat Yoruba race as slaves.
His words: “Yoruba are in a terrible situation in Nigeria because the travail Osinbajo is going through shows that we are now becoming like slaves in this country. So, we need to dig ourselves out of it.”
While urging restraint until a full investigation into the alleged mismanagement of funds is carried out, he decried how the Buhari administration had been treating people from a particular section of the country as sacred cow, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
“There are people among those controlling the federal government who have a lot of heavy questions to answer, but they were protected by the powers that be.
“The important thing is for us to find out exactly what is happening, because all we are hearing is just like a smoke, but we don’t know where the fire came from. There cannot be smoke without fire. Although we don’t know where the fire is, we can see the smoke all around.
“We have been hearing a lot of negative things about the vice president. So, whatever may be happening to him now demonstrated that whoever is not part of the people who control the federal government of Nigeria is only allowed in the federal government on surveillance and tolerance. So, the person can be kicked out whenever they like,” he added.
In his own reaction, General Ishola Williams (rtd), urged the vice president to step aside, while making good his words to sue those behind the spurious allegations.
Williams said: “For me if the vice president knows he has done something wrong, as one of the founders on an NGO called Integrity, he should just step down quietly instead of being removed. But if he is sure that he hasn’t done anything wrong, then, of course, he should stay there.”
While admitting the possibility of the scheming for 2023 in the raging controversy, Williams maintained that it would be difficult for Buhari’s government to function effectively without Osinbajo, describing him as an intellectual arm of the presidency.
