I have received, for the umpteenth time, a video of the arrival of Prof and Mrs. Osinbajo at the Lagos airport. The arrival was without the pomp and pageantry that holders of exalted political offices receive in Nigeria. Along with the video are tendentious and silly snide remarks.  

It would have been easy for Prof Yẹmí Osìnbàjò to do what most politicians periodically do. He could have instructed some of his staff and supporters to organize an impressive crowd to await his arrival at the airport. 

For far less than ten million naira, he could have distributed bales of Ankara along with snacks and some chicken change to singing women and noise belching men. 

Needless to say, the capacity of a politician to stage such shows is directly correlated with the extent of his involvement in crude, appropriative, cash-and-carry politics. 

May God bless Yẹmí Osinbajo for not embracing the wayward exhibitionism that often defines the thoughtless populism of the Nigerian political class. His job as Vice President has been done. A hallmark of the Christian life he professes is to be able to truthfully say with Apostle Paul: "I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 4:12-13. 

Osìnbàjò does not need a red carpet. The real losers are not Yẹmí and Dọlapọ Osinbajo but those whose superficiality makes them to define a leader by the carpet on which he walks.