By Senator Babafemi Ojudu
Fourth town hall in Lagos in a row. Back to back Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Sunday addressed the Christian community at The Grill in Ikeja, Igbo residents in Lagos in another function hall in The Grill, a group of disaffected politicians in Lagos at The Regency Hall in Alausa and youths and professionals in Lekki.
Hundreds of them were there and he some questions, many of which will try a fainthearted person. He then moved to address representatives of Igbos in Lagos and he took time to address their concern.
By the time he reeled out a list of Buhari appointees of Igbo origin and the projects ongoing in the East, the issues of marginalization and “non juicy” appointments fizzled out like smoke.
From there it was to Lekki where young men and women drilled him on issues of economy, unemployment and corruption.
For the disaffected politicians he generally pleaded with them to be patient while they remain committed to their party and its objectives.
With candor he took every question and patiently explained what appears as grey area in government policy, giving statistics here, examples there and throwing wits and humor in between.
It is surprising the little the people know, or do we say, are willing to know. For example how can anyone say that Ministries such as Trade and Investment, Education, Technology, Labour are not important or “juicy” enough for the Igbos.
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Or that the CBN governor and other Igbos from Delta State are no Igbos and therefore whichever position they are holding is not countable for Igbos.
He also addressed the issue of who gets the Presidency in 2023. He told the audience it is the votes that will determine. Let the South West, the South East as well as the South South go and mobilize the vote and whoever brings the highest number of votes on the table picks the trophy.
Overall it was a good day and very useful interaction between the leader and the led, one that has not been experienced on this scale before.
To cap it all Osinbajo walked into Ikeja City Mall where he had engagement with the Tejuosho’s who run a bookshop.
If you are at Ikeja City Mall, you might just meet VP Osinbajo as he makes his first stop at Glendora Bookstore. #Nextlevel #NextLevelEngagements #NextLevelNigeria #4plus4 pic.twitter.com/b0NsWLt5D7
— Tise.jay (@JayTise) January 20, 2019
He made a stop at a couple of shops. It was an afternoon of a thousand cameras. The young shoppers on seeing him could not resist the temptation to whip out their phones and took selfies with him.
He did it with the patience of a shepherd and his herds. Before we left the scene scores of the photographs taken were getting back to us and a particular one with an actor in it had under three hours attracted close to 20,000 likes.
This in short is a life in the day of this passionate junior partner in the task of building a great Nigeria.
