The declaration of Yemi Osinbajo to contest the 2023 presidential election has enraged Nigerians after the vice president promised to continue with the policies of the Muhammadu Buhari regime.

“If by the grace of God and the will of the people, I am given the opportunity, then I believe that first, we must complete what we have started,” reads the declaration statement of the presidential hopeful.

Nigerians have taken to social media to criticise Mr Osinbajo, whose declaration to contest the presidency they consider a threat to further worsen an already volatile country.

“Osinbajo wanting to continue from where Buhari stopped, is a direct threat to Nigerian lives,” according to @mrflinkz

Also, @je_mc2 tweeted that “Osinbajo wants to finish what Buhari started. Yes folks, it’s a threat.” While @chemicalbrodar described the declaration thus: “This is a threat. A big one.”

With less than one year to vacate the presidency, for close to eight years, Nigeria has been a crime scene under Mr Buhari, and with the assistance of Mr Osinbajo as his second in command.

Emboldened by Mr Buhari’s laxity, whose regime pays lip service to the atrocities committed by bandits, the proscribed terrorists have attacked airport, bombed trains, abducted thousands, while demanding huge ransoms from their victims.

The controversial operation safe corridor, birthed during Mr Buhari’s regime, has been highly criticised for reintegrating “repentant” terrorists, known for murdering thousands of Nigerians and ransacking villages, back into the society.

Over 1,000 repentant Boko Haram terrorists have graduated from the programme to the chagrin of many citizens.

Messrs Buhari and Osinbajo, premising their campaign slogan to fight against corruption in 2015, have shielded officials who defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress, while using the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to witch hunt politicians from the opposition party.

Aside from the perceived bias in fighting corruption, Mr Buhari’s regime is also accused of recklessly borrowing and re-looting recovered loots first stolen by past administrations such as that of late military dictator Sani Abacha.

The nation’s debt has also increased the most under Mr Buhari who has borrowed three times more than all the past presidents combined since the nation returned to civil rule in 1999.

Under Mr Buhari, critics of the regime are also being silenced, as was the case with the #EndSARS protests, where military officers gunned down unarmed demonstrators at the Lekki Tollgate in October 2020.

In an attempt to stifle the voices of his critics on social media, Mr Buhari banned Twitter for several months in the country, a gross violation of the rights of citizens to freedom of speech.

Mr Osinbajo’s statement to continue Mr Buhari’s policies sound like a warning bell to Nigerians who want to rid themselves of the present regime’s ineptitude in tackling the nation’s crisis.