Public affairs commentator, Emmanuel Babafemi, tore apart a recent article by Sahara Reporters entitled: “EXCLUSIVE: While Junketing Around, Buhari Makes Osinbajo Redundant, Refuses To Approve Vice President’s Trips To Egypt, Indonesia, Vietnam,” as one lacking in merit for its fictitious allusions and mere conjectures having a probability too low to inspire any belief.
I have just read the above-titled piece which can easily pass as nothing more than fake news by Sahara Reporters. The made-up article makes several claims which are not only questionable but outrightly misleading and deliberately slanted.
What this report reminds us of is SR’s penchant for concocting information and deliberate acts of misinformation. There is hardly any reader of the online platform who has not made allowance for its zealous devotion to orchestrated falsehood in recent years. This report is simply another.
• Buhari makes the VP redundant, how is that possible with all three ongoing assignments from the President to him not to talk of the VP’s own constitutional responsibility?
• Strained relationships and estranged – another bold lie!
Having worked in government, if truly they are in government, the fictitious sources SR claimed confirmed the fake news should have added that recently, on President’s approval, VP Osinbajo led Nigeria’s delegation to the US, precisely on August 31, 2022, to seek global support on Nigeria’s energy transition. Isn’t this about Climate Change?
ALSO READ: Osinbajo travels to US, to meet Harris, Nigeria’s energy transition plan on the agenda
ALSO READ: Osinbajo travels to US, to meet Harris, Nigeria’s energy transition plan on the agenda
Again, on September 17, 2022, the same VP Osinbajo led Nigeria’s delegation to the UK to represent President Buhari at Queen Elizabeth’s burial. Who approved that? Is Sahara Reporters really for news dissemination or mischief-making?
ALSO READ: US VP Harris lauds Osinbajo’s on climate change, calls Nigeria’s VP an ‘extraordinary leader‘
In its years of practice, it has tilted towards the former than the latter, let’s look at its catalogue of fake news to substantiate my point on why one can’t immediately, or even later believe whatever Sahara Reporters publish negatively about Vice President Osinbajo.
• On Aug 10, 2020, Sahara Reporter published a story titled: “National Assembly To Investigate Corruption In NSIP Under Osinbajo, Uwais.”
• On Nov 4, 2021, it published another story titled: “EXCLUSIVE: Vice President Osinbajo Linked To Lagos Collapsed Building With Current Death Toll Of 36 Persons.”
• Likewise, on Jan 19, 2022, it published a story titled: “Osinbajo-led Economic Council Recommends Fuel Increase To N302 Per Litre By February.”
• Recently, on May 5, 2022, before the APC presidential primaries, it also published a story titled: “EXCLUSIVE: Vice President Osinbajo Gifts 300 Dollars Each To Over 400 APC Delegates In Adamawa, Taraba States.”
All the above are fake news, and deliberate falsehood this platform renowned for yellow journalism published against VP Osinbajo, who in his past seven years of meritorious service to Nigerians has been globally applauded. How can its latest bitter deep-seated ill will ever make sense? It is a concocted lie as usual!
The climate trips SR weaves its lies against, ordinarily, it is a presidential endeavour, and as he deems it fit, the President can delegate it to whoever he wants to handle it within his cabinet. And to put it on record, on September 28, President Buhari inaugurated the Nigeria’s Climate Change Council with him as the Chairman and Vice President Osinbajo as its Vice Chairman, which further exemplifies a symbol of robust relationships between the VP and his principal. SR, you lied!
At that same inauguration, President Buhari used the occasion to thank Vice President Yemi Osinbajo for heading Nigeria’s Energy Transition Plan, presiding over the global launch of the plan and initiating its marketing by engaging key stakeholders in the United States. Let’s be fair, Osinbajo has done well and Buhari appreciates his role in nation-building thus far.
The naysayers supported by hatchet jobbers in the past seven years have made frantic efforts to soil the relationships of these best presidential friends, administrators and leaders in Nigeria’s democratic history, but failed in all. What again do they want to achieve as this administration winds down in seven months?
Their failed attempts in seven years to separate the brilliant twosome can’t succeed in the remaining seven months. Buhari does not even know these scallywags exist, while Osinbajo is too focused on his national endeavours to be moved by these mendacious persons.
Against their ill will, this administration has outperformed the political opposition these famacides work for.
Where do we start? The game-changing achievements of the Buhari-Osinbajo administration are enough for a serious news medium to leverage the credibility of its platform than dwelling on falsehood.
It is on record that Osinbajo has contributed brilliantly to the successes of his boss in the country’s developmental projects starting from infrastructural ones like the building of roads network, the rail, power, and broadband infrastructure, especially the creativity introduced to infrastructure financing.
Directly involved here is the influence of VP Osinbajo in power sector interventions and initiatives such as the Solar Naija Programme launched under the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP), improvement in generating capacity; 266 Captive Power Plants and 16 Embedded Power Plants, and more.
Let’s delve into digital economy innovations, here the country has witnessed a rapid expansion of broadband access and digital identity.
We have the Ease of Doing Business Reforms, including legislative and justice sector reforms, as anchored by VP Osinbajo, likewise the Social Investment Programme, the award-winning microcredit scheme for informal traders under the Government Enterprises and Empowerment Programme, the N-Power and School Feeding Programme, and so forth!
Why won’t Sahara Reporters publish some of these Buhari-Osinbajo government’s achievements and enrich its website’s content instead of building a catalogue of fake stories? Do the needful, guys!
