By Grace Audu (ABUJA) –
President Muhammadu Buhari has led millions of other Nigerians in rejoicing with the Vice President, Professor Yemi Oluleke Osinbajo, who turned 66 today.
Osinbajo, an accomplished lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), who also hold the national honours award of Grand Commander of the Niger (GCON), was born on March 8, 1957 in Lagos, the nation’s commercial nerve centre.
He is is the 14th and current Vice President of Nigeria, having won the 2015 election with President Muhammadu Buhari on the ticket of the ruling All-Progressives congress (APC) and re-elected for a second term of four years in 2019.
In the goodwill message signed by his Special Adviser on Media & Publicity, Femi Adesina on Wednesday, the President equally felicitated with the entire Osinbajo family, wishing them many happy returns, as their son, husband and father turns another year, in good health and sound mind.
President Buhari lauded the sterling service the celebrant has provided to the country, as an academic, Attorney-General of Lagos State (1997-2007), and Vice President (2015 till date).
He applauded the deft way Osinbajo, a pastor with the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), has combined scholarship with governance, and pastoral work, commending such dedication to the younger generation whom the Number 2 man serves as a torchbearer to.
President Buhari wished the Vice President and his family joyful celebration, and greater grace ahead.
The Vice President’s wife, Dolapo, also a lawyer, also celebrated her husband at 66, describing him on her Instagram page as “gentle as a dove.”
Dolapo, who shared a lovely picture of her husband with white doves, wrote early this, “Oluyemi the man. Gentle as a dove.”
Prof Osinbajo, Nigeria’s Vice President, a former lecturer, had previously served as Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos state before being chosen by President Muhammadu Buhari as running mate after clinching the presidential ticket of the APC ahead of the 2015 general elections.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in its tribute on Wednesday, recalls that Osinbajo survived a helicopter crash in Kogi on Feb. 2, 2019, and won re-election on Feb. 23, 2019 for another four-year term with President Muhammadu Buhari.
He featured in the 2023 presidential primary election of the APC.
Osinbajo, Nigeria’s 5th vice president is the Chairman of the National Economic Council (NEC), which deliberates on economic planning efforts and programmes of the various tiers of government.
As the chairman of NEC, Osinbajo has superintended over critical resolutions on economy, health, technology, agriculture, infrastructure and security, among others.
At the onset of COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, Buhari asked him to chair the Economic Sustainability Committee (ESC) which drafted the Economic Sustainability (ESP) to shore up the economy.
He also chairs the Health Sector Reform Committee, National Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy Committee, and Presidential Committee on the Repatriation.
Osinbajo is also chairing the committee on Return and Resettlement of IDPs in the North-East, National Steering Committee (NSC) of the National Development Plan(NDP) 2021 – 2025 among others.
The vice president attended the Igbobi College, Lagos, University of Lagos (UNILAG) from 1975 to 1978, and London School of Economics and Political Science.
He was Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State from 1999 until 2007.
Osinbajo worked as a Professor of Law at the University of Lagos for many years; he was also a Senior Partner with SimmonsCooper Partners, a commercial law firm.
He is also a Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG).
Osinbajo and his wife, Dolapo, have three children.
(With additional report by NAN)