The Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday said he was nominated by ‘somebody somewhere’ as the presidential running mate to Muhammadu Buhari.
The Vice President’s response was in clever avoidance of what would have earned him a seat in the raging controversy surrounding the nominations in the President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet.
Prof. Yemi Osinbajo while carefully avoiding name calling noted this in reaction to the controversial biography of the president, “Muhammadu Buhari: The Challenges of Leadership in Nigeria” authored by Prof. John Paden.
The book had claimed that Buhari chose Osinbajo as his running mate despite an alleged opposition to the move by a national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
The author further claimed that list of suitable candidates forwarded to Buhari at the time included the then Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola.
Osinbajo in reaction said at a dinner organised for former Niger Delta agitators at the Presidential Villa in Abuja: “I was in a group of young men and women and one of them asked the question how did I become Vice President?
“I was never a politician or anything like that. So I tried to explain it is quite simple that someone somewhere has to recommend you.
“Somebody somewhere has to give you a helping hand, whether to be a Vice President or to be an aircraft pilot or to be an engineer, somebody somewhere has to give you an opportunity.
“I think that all of you that are here today are the beneficiaries of the opportunities that you have somehow received. And this is why this event is so important. I think that it is one way we have to remind ourselves that we are bound as individuals to give opportunities to everyone.”