When President Muhammadu Buhari announced Professor Yemi Osinbajo as his Vice-Presidential candidate in the 2015 general elections, I had high hopes that the pair would make Nigeria great again. Th ey were on a mission to rescue Nigeria from the monumental fraud and fi nancial burden that the previous administration had infl icted on Nigeria and her citizens. But on assumption of offi ce in May, 2015, President Buhari and his deputy soon found that a lot more work was required to fi x Nigeria.
And it would require more than the puritan personality and immense popularity of the President who continues to enjoy massive support among his followers across Nigeria. After initial attempts by a few characters around the President to create a semblance of animosity between President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo, the two have gotten on very well and it appears that they enjoy a good working relationship. To be fear to the two leaders, they barely knew each other before the campaigns and it is clear that they hadn’t much time to bond before their inauguration. Th is alone could have been exploited to create disaff ection between them.
Fortunately for Nigeria, both Buhari and Osinbajo have inalienable conviction about saving Nigeria from imminent collapse; they both abhor corruption; they believe that they have been called to serve the people of Nigeria, and so everything else was put aside. In nearly two years in offi ce, they have both acquainted themselves well with the huge burden of fi ghting corruption, redirecting the economy from recession and providing purposeful leadership in the interest of all Nigerians.
What then is the diff erence? Since President Buhari went on his medical vacation and handed over power to acting president Osinbajo in January, Nigerians have been given the opportunity to see the diff erence in the character sketch of the two leaders and how their varying personality brands have impacted the country diff erently.
President Buhari is known for his spartan life style and ideology of having a strong and incorruptible personality in place to drive a system that is largely pro-socialism and caters for the interest of the majority even if some others are left to groan under the harmer of a ‘tight’ socio-economic order. Unfortunately, the Buhari of the early 1980s inherited a Nigeria in 2015 that is completely diff erent and driven by values and civil orientation of a 21st century democracy in a globalised world and other forms of sophistication and contrasting implications that makes it even more diffi cult to be brought under the command and control structure of Buhari’s style.
Th e foregoing has largely been responsible for the disconnect between Nigerians and a president in his 70s; who was out of power for over three decades and having no opportunity to refresh and retune in line with the many contrasting realities of the new Nigeria. Th e new Nigeria where corruption has become a way of life; where many individuals are now more powerful and richer than the country and its government; where everything that was considered impossible in the 1980s now stares right at you and in your very face.
Yet, even the most powerful citizen (the president)has to obey the laws in dealing with everything and everyone even if they represent threat to national security. In contrast, the acting president comes across as a modern lawyer, university professor and a Lagos-bred administrator. Much as the acting president shares President Buhari’s vision of a better and corruption-free Nigeria, the approach is bound to be diff erent.
Th e contrasting character sketches of the two personalities (a law professor and an old soldier) are diff erent. Certain elements of a personality brand (history, frame of experience, beliefs, values and exposure) determines what a person does, how it is done and the way your action is perceived by others.
Th at is a fundamental diff erence between Buhari and Osinbajo. For those who were unhappy with the pace of things in Nigeria despite the urgency that the circumstance demands, there seems to be some movement with motion in the country. Some sense of urgency has been infused into the country and it is looking as if the usual circumspection that had held back appointments into critical boards and agencies of government for nearly two years, among other critical state matters that were left lying down, are now seeing a sense of urgency.
Even the symbolic presence expressed one’s dress sense, posture, gesture, style, presentation (including choice of words) and the occasion or circumstance (momentous or otherwise) that characterise the engagement of a person defi ne one’s personality brand. Such is evident in the feedback from Osinbajo’s shuttle diplomacy to the Niger Delta, Imo and Kaduna states, among other appearances that has led to a thinking that there was something wrong in the messaging of the Presidency under President Buhari which seems to have been taken care of by the acting President Osinbajo.
