THE NATION
ALL things being equal, and to the glory of God, Tinubu would be crowned the 16th President of the largest economy in Africa and most populous black nation on the earth in less than 24 hours, without the heavens falling down. But don’t be deceived. The prevalent mood leading up to Inauguration Day cannot be likened to the peace of the graveyard or the calm that follows a storm.
Quite on the contrary, there’s no shortage of sore election losers and their delusional supporters – both spiritual and temporal – who are leveraging on the easy access of a madding mob to the internet to lay siege on the nation much like an army of occupation. Their avowed objective is not only to browbeat and dominate any persons who don’t share their magisterial pontifications on which candidate ought to have won, but to also weaponize the judiciary against an election fairly and squarely won and lost.
Let me categorically state without any fear of contradiction that Tinubu was the equivalent of a Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo who every opposing player sought to mangle and take out of the game! But what must still rankle with Tinubu is the betrayal of mentees and close disciples, who had climbed on his back to power and glory, only to work against his interest at every twist and turn.
Allegations of discrepancies in the form submitted to INEC in 1998 when he was seeking to contest the Lagos State Governorship Election (aka ‘perjury’) and drug trafficking are not novel. Perhaps, not too many can recall the dogged attempts by the stormy petrel of the Nigerian Bar, Gani Fawehinmi, to unseat Tinubu during his first tenure in office, talk more the tongue-in-cheek confidential memo dispatched to the United States by then-Inspector General of Police Tafa Balogun “earnestly seeking clarity on the rather disturbing story about Bola Tinubu’s drug trafficking in the US in the past.”
That Tinubu went on to serve a second term after this episode ought to leave no one in any doubt that he was completely exonerated by the State Department. And this really shouldn’t come as a surprise to those knowledgeable about the game of Russian roulette that played out between Obasanjo and Tinubu between 1999 and 2007.
Obasanjo was a one-man riot squad who single-handedly changed Senate Presidents at whim, took it upon himself to approve candidates nominated by PDP to contest elections and determine those with “k-legs” who deserve to be ‘un-nominated’! He was the same charging bull in a china shop who used the rump of state legislatures to impeach governors who didn’t worship him, and who flattened Odi in Bayelsa and Zaki-Biam in Benue to the ground just because he felt like it!
There isn’t a scintilla of doubt that he would’ve very much relished the opportunity to make mincemeat of Tinubu, the one governor who had actually grown the liver to curb his imperial aspirations and executive rascality, such as suing him at the Supreme Court and winning as well as being the last Alliance for Democracy (AD) governor standing after the Obasanjo/INEC Chairman Prof Maurice Iwu-contrived tsunami that pummelled the South-West in 2003, if he (Obasanjo) had so much as the slightest shred of evidence to nail Tinubu.
The point being made is that where the likes of Fawehinmi and Obasanjo have failed, I can hardly see Atiku and Obi making any traction on these rehashed moonlight tales that have since – like all conspiracy theories – grown into a cottage industry, spawning an array of ‘social media expert lawyers and pundits’ eager to catch clout. Their moves are simply designed to excite their supporters with false hopes, and engineer grounds for finger-pointing and name-calling (“corrupt judges who have been bought by Tinubu to do his bidding”).
“Envy,” bellowed First Century Greek philosopher Onasander, “is a pain of mind that successful men cause their neighbours.” He must be right, else it would be difficult to understand why majority of youths aka the millennials and Gen Z – particularly in the South – don’t seem to appreciate, or have been misled to hate and refuse to render due honour to, one of the greatest champions of multi-party democracy and Rule of Law in the Third and Fourth Republics (1992-1993 and 1999 – present respectively).
Don’t get it twisted; this essayist isn’t saying that Tinubu is a saint since I’m neither one of his mentees nor have I ever met him. But who is a saint among the rampaging wolves who call themselves politicians in Nigeria, including the ones whose names are written in the Bible and the Quran? Albeit, the best way to assess a man’s ability is to understand his story – the principal reason a resume is demanded at a job interview. It’s certainly worth the effort to peruse the Jagaban’s antecedents.
Tinubu represented Lagos West and served as chairman of the all-powerful Appropriations Committee in the Senate of the Third Republic. He was a founding member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) that courageously battled to preserve democracy under the autocratic Gen. Sani Abacha. Like most of his colleagues, Tinubu paid a hefty price for his involvement in the struggle.
At a time when all those who contested the February 25 presidential poll were either overtly or covertly supporting Abacha for any number of personal reasons and/or silently growing their private business empires, Tinubu was in exile for five years – separated from his wife and little children who were in the USA for the first three years while he was in the United Kingdom. He was the principal financier of Radio Kudirat clandestinely established to battle military authoritarianism in Nigeria. The regular stipends he reportedly made available very much helped to alleviate the adversities and vicissitudes of exile for fellow June 12 activists in NADECO Abroad.
It’s a well-known fact that without the coming on board of Tinubu and his men, Muhammadu Buhari, who had futilely tried thrice on his own account, won’t have made it to Aso Villa in 2015. Yet, when it was time to share the spoils of APC’s victory, Tinubu was completely left in the cold! Adams Oshiomhole, who was perceived to be supportive of Tinubu was shoved from the office of national chairman to make way for a caretaker committee led by Yobe State Gov. Mai Bala Bunu, perceived to be anti-Tinubu.
Let the reader draw his own conclusions from the reality that despite the PDP never winning a presidential election in his state and that Tinubu’s running mate, Kashim Shettima, was the two-term governor of the neighbouring Borno State, Atiku beat Tinubu in Yobe, even as Bunu won his re-election race by a landslide.
From Buhari’s body language and policy actions, no one was left in any doubt that there was little love lost between Tinubu and himself. He only seemed to back-pedal after six Northern APC governors went to Aso Villa to explain to him in ‘simple English’ why it’s in everybody’s best interest to provide a level playing field to all aspirants.
Then came the Naira redesign policy implemented by CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele. That it was a political hatchet job was clear to all but it obviously didn’t matter to Buhari that the policy would sound the death knell of the special purpose vehicle he used to realise his own long-held presidential ambition just as long as Tinubu didn’t win the impending presidential poll.
I did predict long ago that Tinubu’s over-20 years of permutation and preparation notwithstanding, he would experience a very tortuous and thorny odyssey to Aso Villa. While I empathised with Tinubu, I had – and still harbour – no sympathy for him. Truth’s that the challenges confronting this nation are such that would require an uncommon President forged in the fires of overcoming adversities to effectively handle. There’s no gainsaying that a weaker man would’ve buckled more sooner than later under the enormous strain of unrelenting vicious campaigns of calumny orchestrated against Tinubu.
It’s a thing of joy that unlike the humiliating loss of face national heroes like Fawehinmi, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Olu Onagoruwa, Mokwugo Okoye and Arthur Nwankwo, among others, suffered in the hands of an ungrateful electorate when they contested elective offices, Tinubu – in harvesting the fruit of his labour – is mapping a new redemptive trajectory and deconstructing the allegory of men fighting hard battles only for women to strut and hug the national stage to narrate Arabian tales.
But even as I wish him well on his inauguration and the years after, I also proclaim: Tinubu, may your road continue to be rough for the collective good of Nigerians and black folks in Africa and around the world!
•Okoye, is a public commentator.
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