Osinbajo Mocks Sen. Adeleke, Melaye

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) has made a veiled mockery of the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the just concluded governorship election of Osun State, Senator Ademola Adeleke and his counterpart from Kogi State, Dino Malaye for being humorous.

Osinbajo, who spoke at the Independence Gala night held at the Banquet hall of the Presidential Villa on Monday night, said he agreed with the poll reportedly conducted by the British Independent newspapers which declared Nigerians as the happiest and most optimistic people in the world.

He added that Adeleke provided humour by dancing while Senator Melaye made people to laugh by claiming to escape assassination by hiding on a tree top for 11 hours.

Osinbajo said: “A few months ago, an important Nigerian politician who was on his way to a trial in a court said he was abducted. And after he escaped from his abductors, he remained hiding on a tree for 11 hours.

The most interesting part of that story is that many people online in particular, on the Internet, started to tell stories of different birds and how long those birds could remain perched on a tree. All these were the Nigerian contributions to that story.

“Yet another very important politician insists, and still insists that the most important attribute for leadership is dancing, and boy could he dance! And for those who think that that is ridiculous at least 200,000 people voted for him in a particular election.”

Speaking on how optimistic Nigerians can be, Osinbajo narrated the story of his personal driver to illustrate the optimistic nature of some Nigerians.

He said: “When I served as Adviser to the Attorney General of the Federation between 1987 and 1992, I had a driver who was always broke. But he was always so optimistic. He had 14 children, while I, his boss, had only one child at the time.

And I asked him, “Why do you just keep having so many children?” Of course he had more than one wife. He said to me in Yoruba, “I don’t know which of them can become President of Nigeria.

So, the more I have, the better my chances.” How optimistic can you be? Only a Nigerian can be that optimistic.”

Osinbajo also expressed optimism that Nigeria was set to become the envy of the whole world.

He said: “The reason why we are so optimistic is because we know that we are the best, we know we are going to excel, it may seem like it’s taking a while, and there are many problems,

but every one of the over 1,000 days that I have been Vice President for, I grow stronger in my complete confidence that we are going to be the envy of the whole world in a few short years. Well, you might say that that is optimistic, why not, I am a Nigerian.”