By Taju Tijani
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Jagaban of Borgu and former Governor of Lagos State, has been serenading us with his Herculean efforts as a political lifter who orchestrated the political fortunes of many Nigerians to a place of high office. In Ogun State last Thursday, Tinubu became a wailer loudly calling out names of Nigerians he had helped climb the greasy pole of high political office. The list of orphans his wealth helped from dark places included all the South West Governors and even President Muhammadu Buhari. He was the dominant actor who shaped their political glory with his wealth and connections.
In his island of self-created egotopia, Tinubu, in anger, echoed an obvious truth: “If not for me that stood behind Buhari, he wouldn’t have become the president. He tried the first time, he failed, the second time, he failed, the third time, he failed. He even wept on national television and vowed never to contest again but I went to meet him in Kaduna and told him he will run again; I will stand by you and you will win, but you must not joke with Yorubas and he agreed. Since he became the president, I have never got ministerial slots, I didn’t collect any contract, I have never begged for anything from him, it is the turn of Yoruba; it is my turn.”
Tinubu’s power to take command of the circulation of thoughts and political arrangement, however dictatorial and threatening, has never been his concern. His hold on Lagos and the South West has been a long and irritating self-perpetuating political dynasty that brooks no challenger. Today, Tinubu might be facing an overdue poetic justice from the hands of the people he helped groom to high offices. Among the Yoruba, the handwriting on the wall is crystal clear. To them, Tinubu is today orbiting between public shame and worse, losing the all-important APC primary to this shadowy but omnipotent anti-Tinubu gang up!
With the emergence of Atiku Abubakar as the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate for the position of President come 2023, Northern reactionary forces are now perfecting gaslighting orthodoxy against the ambition, aspiration, and political dream of Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu, come 2023. You will recall that in May 2019, the Governor of Kaduna State, El Rufai gaslighted Tinubu with a powerful grenade.
The grenade launched against the Jagaban of Borgu, the Asiwaju of Lagos and the National Leader of APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was to checkmate Tinubu’s omnipotent and overreaching political influence.
El Rufai’s anger, argument, narrative, polemical assault, crude vulgarities, and disrespect of Tinubu were all designed to further reinforce El Rufai’s iconic signature as a dismantler of godfatherism in politics. He wanted to be seen as an epochal figure who desired to help Lagosians redirect the course of Lagos political culture of slavish and subservience attitude towards the whims and caprices of the mythic Tinubu, who, in all honesty, looms larger than life in South West politics. The seed of El Rufai’s barbarian transgression against Tinubu has today grown to the secret revolt going on against him.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a master of political witchcraft. A whole oeuvre of his political life will form a course of study in any university. For decades, he has been weaving his political sorcery on the South Western Nigeria’s political savannah where captive politicians are automatically sired to obedience, loyalty, and respect.
His home-grown Baba Sope political doctrine is driven by brutal and merciless dictation from the Bourdillon headquarter in Ikoyi. There is no escaping from the merciless fork of his political assassination against any offender, naïve enough, to contradict the whim and caprices of Baba Sope. He charges at political dissidents like a wounded cougar demanding blood, body, and broth. Politicians under his tutelage from Lagos to Kogi live with fear of this lovable and enigmatic politician who could mutate between benign benevolence, into a deadly Mafia enforcer, using invisible footsoldiers like Mr Musiliu Ayinde Akinsanya (MC Olu Omo) all the way to intimidation, blackmail, and divination.
Within the South West political architecture, Tinubu has introduced a full blown democratic oligarchy where he knights anybody he wishes – be a banker, civil servant, housewife, journalist, pastor and common tout into places of social and political relevance in SW Nigeria, his fiefdom!!! That monarchical power is causing massive inflammation within APC and leaving room for dissidents and rebels.
Tinubu’s grip on South West political levers is constantly at war with Yoruba unsleeping passion for liberty, and hence the clamour to reduce his political voltage. This defenestration of the Tinubu political power became a persistent utopian dream for many homo modernus within the APC family who will later package their anger into Otoge and the recent Soro Soke wake up call. For nowhere is Tinubu more persecuted, hounded and sabotaged than in his own party, the All Progressive Congress (APC). The intricate dialectic of destiny and fate cannot be confronted by mere political wizardry. What is most shocking is the ongoing gaslighting of Tinubu? The ambiguities of his 2023 presidential candidacy seems darker and darker.
The straw of comfort and support is fading fast from his natural constituency – the Yoruba people. Yoruba are becoming sullenly hostile to a cult of personality and godfatherism in Nigerian politics. As I write, the people he helped into political limelight are the very ones imperilling his presidential dream. The list of the rebels cannot be more ironic. Governors Kayode Fayemi, rather than campaign for Jagaban, threw his hat into the race, Dapo Abiodun is not campaigning for his benefactor, Gboyega Oyetola is not a campaigner, Rotimi Akeredolu is not a campaigner, Senator Ibikunle Amosu is in the race too, Babatunde Fashola, Rauf Aregbesola, Akinwumi Ambode, Femi Gbajabiamila, Lai Mohammed, Olurunnibe Mamora, Sunday Dare and Abike Dabiri-Erewa are all facing different directions.
Tinubu is today facing a mass expression of well-co-ordinated political mutiny from inside his own camp – his party! What is at play is a malignant, manipulating and gaslighting fireworks against Tinubu’s 2023 presidential ambition from the engine room of Fulani political arrangers of Nigeria.
In politics, there is no weapon more deadly than receiving a Judas kiss from the men and women who once dined and drank with you and today are the hindering forces against your life’s greatest trophy. Is Buhari going to memorialise Tinubu’s contribution to our democratic renewal with insult and clannish betrayal? Are the Fulani who are the regents of our civic values, the shapers of our political destiny and the gatekeepers of Aso Rock decided to throw Tinubu under the bus of irrelevance? Is Tinubu not reliving the travails of Chief MKO Abiola all over again?
Can anybody tell me if Tinubu has not been psychologically manipulated in believing that someday in 2023 he would be the next matador in Aso Rock? Can someone tell me if Tinubu has not been emotionally drained on all fronts in harbouring insane desire to rule Nigeria? Can someone tell me if Jagaban has not been crushed as things now stand? Buhari who has been gaslighting Nigeria has now succeeded in equally gaslighting the man who delivered him to Aso Rock! Can we still trust anyone in politics of Jeun Soke?
Or is the APC primary going to be a moment of shock and awe that will return the trophy of Houdini of Nigerian politics back to our Jagaban? Be warned, Tinubu wants Aso Rock and not a self-constructed egotopia of loneliness, sadness, and political castration.
