The Tinubu I know from afar, by Richard Akinnola

I may not be a Tinubu follower or associate and l don’t even want to be (l don’t even know where his house is on Bourdillon road, ikoyi), but l would not hesitate to state his positive sides. 

The closest l have been to Tinubu was when we met at the house of late Yinka Odumakin when both of us visited his widow same day.

When my friend, Tokunbo Afikuyomi mentioned my name and asked me to take the closing prayer, Tinubu’s eyes brightened up with a smile and nodded. Apparently, he too was seeing me at a close range too for the first time.

His visit to the Odumakins struck something in me. If you knew how vitriolic and acerbic Yinka was to Tinubu in his last few years, it could only be a man with a big heart to pay a condolence visit to the home of his traducer.

I hope his associates who hold political offices would learn from this. As Governor, l knew how Tinubu was close to our community. After the death of Chima Ubani, he gave the widow a house and scholarship to two of his children (l hope subsequent governors in the state followed up).

The Lagos state government also named the Government House press centre after Bagauda Kalto, a journalist with TheNews that was killed by the Abacha junta. So, l hope those who surround him at the highest level who may plan sinister things against the perceived critics of his government or functionaries, (like those DIA soldiers who abducted Segun Olatunji for two weeks because of a publication against a top Villa official), should know that they are not working in the best interests of their principal.

Most of the atrocities perpetrated by Major Hamza Al-Mustapher, the CSO of General Abacha, were probably done without the imprimatur of the Head of State but in our history and narrations, we attribute them to Abacha government. I hope this sinks in. One down side though regarding our community. The unpaid emoluments of late Ayodele Akele who was the Lagos state Labour leader that was sacked by Tinubu. I raised the issue with BRF when he was the governor but apparently his hands were tied because the sack was done by his boss. This has to be redressed by the Lagos state government.