VP Osinbajo At The Democracy Day Dinner/Gala Night (Full Remarks) On 29/05/2018

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REMARKS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, THE VICE PRESIDENT, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, ON THE OCCASION OF THE 2018 DEMOCRACY DAY DINNER/GALA NIGHT HELD AT THE STATE HOUSE BANQUET HALL, ABUJA, ON TUESDAY, 29TH MAY, 2018

PROTOCOLS

Let me say that it is a very special privilege and honour for me to host you on this very special occasion of the Gala night, in celebration of Democracy Day and the third anniversary of our government.

It is a very special pleasure indeed, and I say this on behalf of the President and Commander-in-Chief, President Muhammadu Buhari. For those of us in government, I think it is an opportunity to thank God for the extraordinary grace that brought us here.

I, for one, can say that five years ago, if someone had told me that I would be Vice President at all, let alone celebrating three years in office, I would have doubted that they were thinking right, but here we are.

One of the reasons why I never thought I would be in politics is that I always thought I had enough baggage already. I recall that when I was about to rent a place to live, the landlord said to me that there were two kinds of tenants he didn’t want. He did not want a lawyer, and he didn’t want an Ijebu man, and I qualified on both disqualifications. So, now you can imagine what it is like to add one more – a politician, to all of that.

In fact, I was greatly discouraged when a gentleman at an event like this, told a story about how an armed robber walked into a bank and three people were standing there and he said to the first, pointing a gun at him saying, “Give me your money,” and the man said, “I am a doctor”, and he said “bring your money”. The robber pointed to the next man and said, “I am sure you are a teacher, bring your money.” He went to the third person and said, “give me your money”, and the man replied, “I am a politician”, and he replied saying, “okay, give me my money”.

With all this baggage, one must be careful about being a lawyer, a politician and then an Ijebu man.

But we have good reasons to be grateful to God for the wonderful ways that he has worked with our government and ensured that in the past three years, we recorded such a rate of success.

I reminded someone two months ago that we are not even three years old yet and are being compared to some of our friends who have been in office for 16 years. It shows that we must be doing very well.

I want to thank everyone for taking the time to come celebrate with us today, especially those who had to travel from out of Abuja to share this time with us. I want to just thank you and wish you a happy democracy day.

Thank you.