Re: How Sambo is losing ground in Aso Rock

The cover (up) story in Sunday Trust of March 31 titled "How Sambo is Losing Ground in Aso Rock" provided convincing clues to the existence of a campaign of calumny and petty propaganda targeting VP Namadi Sambo unleashed by those involved in the on-going hyper-ambitious jostling for a supposedly vacant VP slot in the 2015 elections.
It started with a similarly skewed hatchet job in some sections of the media a few weeks ago that only stopped short of declaring the office of the VP vacant, in a laughable promotion of the restless obsession of an overambitious personality from the North West zone for the office currently and confidently occupied by VP Namadi Sambo. From the flawed logic and contradictions that littered the Sunday Trust version of the vendetta it is clear that desperation is fuelling the blackmail to ridiculous extents of wishful writing.
Let it be stated emphatically that objective analysis of the performance of Vice President Namadi Sambo cannot and should not be a forgery of concocted circumstances designed to create doubts and misinform the public. It is maliciously misleading to regard Alhaji Sani Zangon Daura's description of VP Sambo as "powerless" as that of "many northern leaders" because such contradictory conclusions can only be associated with "northern leaders" as criticism, not compliment. The Vice President is the second in command in the hierarchy of authority and responsibility constitutionally recognized in our democratic dispensation, period. He it is who will step into the office of the President in case of eventuality, and also exercise all executive powers.  I don't think even Zangon Daura can come up with a more "powerful" leader from the north!
The ulterior motives concealed in the pseudo-analysis come to the fore like writing on the wall. Throughout the article repeated references were made to the constitutional provisions for the office of the VP and several allusions made to the reality of "appendage" linking it to the Presidency, with particular emphasis on the President's discretion in assigning duties and functions to the VP.
This peculiarity has its implications but these have never been vicariously heaped on the neck of a VP like a hangman's noose, as the political witch-hunters tried to do in the article. It is an irony that the reporters turned a blind eye to these vital factors while highlighting the contrived inadequacies of VP Sambo as personal liabilities. The VP cannot do more than is lawfully assigned to him, even if he is a superhuman being!
 For the avoidance of doubt about capability of the VP or confidence of the president, VP Sambo has been delegated by President Goodluck Jonathan to chair the Nigeria Economic Intelligence Council (NEIC), the National Planning Commission (NPC) and the National Council on Privatization (NCP). He has been supervising the Independent Power Projects as the Alternate Chairman of the Presidential Action Committee on Power (PACP) and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). All these are in addition to his statutory membership of the National Security Council and the National Defence Council as well as vice-chairman of the apex Federal Executive Council.
The campaign to tarnish the good reputation of VP Sambo to the "overambitious personality" to quote a section of the media owned by an opposition party has been raking up hollow regional politics with a view to causing confusion in the presidency.
The Sunday Trust article latched onto this retrogressive agenda extensively in its fault-finding fancies that VP Sambo was not pushing for the northern interests in the government. It is pathetically sentimental to focus on VP Sambo as a northern leader when everything about his emergence, functions and acclaimed staying power has an exclusively national essence and relevance. To suit their prejudiced intentions, the northern governors, members of the National Assembly, ministers and local government chairmen are portrayed as less responsible for pursuit and protection of the interests of the people of the North than the Vice President.  In reality, if the northern governors alone could devote themselves as sincerely and selflessly as VP Sambo in discharging his mandated responsibilities to the nation, there would be more development than politics of ambition and aggrandisement in the North.
Minjibir wrote from Kundila Housing Estate, Kano.