Aregbesola went too far in his attempts to humiliate and destroy his erstwhile political benefactor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
By Tiko Okoye
Like millions of Nigerians, yours truly was completely taken aback by the viscosity and intensity of venom the current interior minister and Bola Tinubu’s most trusted right-hand man, Rauf Aregbesola, spewed at his erstwhile benefactor and political mentor in the public square.
Majority of us have watched his next-levels’ rags-to-riches stories with some wishful thinking as, first, he was enabled to assume the office of Alimosho government council chairman, then commissioner of works, then governor of Ogun State prior to becoming a federal minister.
The script of Aregbesola’s tapestried rise from glory-to-glory is guaranteed to make any movie producer/director of Cinderella-themed flicks squeal with pure delight.
But he would be fooling no one but himself if he keeps claiming to be a self-made man without according deserving credit to the destiny helper in Tinubu who God used to lubricate his meteoric rise to fame, riches and power.
Aregbesola not only diminishes his stature in the eyes of the public by odiously denying what is obvious, but further underscores his treacherous attribute by biting the finger that so sumptuously fed him.
Apart from insultingly addressing his former(?) boss in the third person, and using the Sahara Reporters’ photo that went viral on social media platforms to mock (not defend) Tinubu for “urinating on himself,” Aregbesola accused the former of carrying on like a tin god.
Interestingly, Aregbesola seems to be suffering from a chronic case of selective amnesia otherwise he would’ve known that by vowing to upend Governor Gboyega Oyetola’s re-election bid and foisting his handpicked candidate – his former SSG – Moshood Adeoti, on APC members in Osun State, he was also committing the very ‘crime’ he attributed to Tinubu.
The interior minister justified his fiercely combative opposition to the governor’s re-election quest on the grounds that the latter is determined to destroy his (Aregbesola) legacies, even after pleading with him for two years. But doesn’t Aregbesola really get it? The 2018 governorship election was in all respects a referendum on his eight-year score card, and the APC almost lost!
The ruling party had to hurriedly broker a last-minute lifesaving deal with an erstwhile political arch-enemy in the PDP as at then – Senator Iyiola Omisore – that finally pushed over the line with a razor-thin margin of a few hundred votes. It would, therefore, be politically suicidal after the near-death experience for the incoming governor to continue the same repudiated ‘legacies’!
Why should Aregbesola feel ennobled by the trappings of the office of a federal minister to go for Tinubu’s jugular if not that he must have taken leave of his senses?
“Our nature,” bellowed ancient Greek philosopher Plutarch, “holds so much envy and malice that our pleasure in our own advantages is not as great as our distress at others.'” Truth be told, Tinubu has contracted the vilest form of envy and bitterness that is second to none for a politician that has never held a national elective office.
Lest, Tinubu collapsed the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) structure to make Muhammadu Buhari fourth-time lucky in his quest for the presidency after the first rushed attempt to form an alliance collapsed in 2011.
It is said that Tinubu was to be rewarded with the VP slot but geopolitics at the end gave it to somebody else. His candidates, including Femi Gbajabiamila for House Speaker, were completely sidelined, and scorn became his lot among APC members of the National Assembly and the party hierarchy.
On many occasions, Buhari himself, rightly or wrongly, conveyed the impression that he was siding with those seeking to give Tinubu his comeuppance.
It is, therefore, hardly surprising that when Tinubu’s reputation suffered further buffeting in the Edo State governorship election and the sacking of Adams Oshiomhole as APC national chairman, his traducers perceived him to be getting weaker and vulnerable, requiring just a well-directed shove to a death blow to his political ambition. The ageing lion was finally to de-fanged and caged, while young Turks strutted across the landscape.
The king is dead, long live the king!
The task of delivering that final shove – crystallising the mother of all coups de grace – fell to Aregbesola. It was structured to happen through the instrumentality of the high-stakes proxy war between a political godfather and his estranged godson, with the Osun APC governorship as battlefield.
Considering Tinubu’s political stature, bringing him down is a high-risk venture. But the pay-off is equally very high. Building his political brand around a giant-killer concept would give Aregbesola’s political stock a massive boost.
But things didn’t pan out as planned.
It is worth mentioning at this juncture that despite the thinly-veiled acts of humiliation, Tinubu has remained loyal to the party and Buhari through thick and thin. Not that he had other meaningful choices at the time anyway.
But as an uncommon political strategist, Tinubu perfectly understands the way politics is played in Nigeria. He didn’t deem it demeaning to stoop and painstakingly await the ideal time to roar and conquer – an attribute his mentees, such as Aregbesola, ought to have taken to heart.
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At the conclusion of the primary, the godfather’s candidate had made mincemeat of the godson’s, and it turned out to be a day the godson would rather wish to forget for the rest of his life as Oyetola walloped Adeoti in the interior minister’s ward in Ijesa East LGA. The ageing lion it was who survived, while the young Turks were roasted at the stakes.
The king is (still) alive, long live the king!
Tinubu must be mulling over the vicissitudes of life. One moment, he was the envy of many for the way he pro-actively groomed several men and women to assume leadership positions nationwide, only to be down in the dumps the next moment as he watches his seemingly impregnable political dynasty come unstuck like the Fuji House of Commotion.
Nobody ever expected Aregbesola to be counted among the insects eating the leaf from the inside, but the reality of life is that there is still no art of determining the mind’s construction on the face of a friend.
During one of the meetings of the stakeholders of the defunct ACN, Tinubu reportedly announced to a cheering audience that “Rauf Aregbesola is my trusted loyalist. If he gives me kola to eat in the dark, I won’t hesitate to eat (it).”
It is very doubtful if Tinubu would now accept kola nut from Aregbesola, talk more eat it, even in broad-day light. To think that this is the same Aregbesola that Tinubu – as testified to by VP Professor Yemi Osinbajo – spent a fortune hiring forensic experts from across the globe to enable him judicially reclaim his mandate.
Can Aregbesola retrace his steps and seek forgiveness and redemption as a prodigal godson? If it is to happen he must completely close his ears to do-gooders trying to impose themselves on his relationship with Tinubu and learn to safely navigate the idiosyncrasies and peccadilloes of godfathers, of which he is also one. Tinubu himself might be minded to draw his enemies even closer as a way of keeping them under vigilant surveillance.
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Aregbesola exercised very poor judgement in needlessly savaging his party leader.
“It is easy to fly into a (rage) – anybody can do that – but to be angry with the right person to the right extent and at the right time and with the right object and in the right way – that is not easy, and it is not everyone who can do it,” averred ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. Aregbesola has demonstrated that he doesn’t have what it takes.
That Aregbesola went too far in his attempts to humiliate and destroy his erstwhile political benefactor only goes to prove that he never truly bonded and belonged to the innermost caucus of the Tinubu political dynasty.
English espionage agent Harold Philby who was indicted for spying for the Soviet Union and betraying England vehemently denied ever betraying England because “To betray, you must first belong” (he was a sleeper Communist!). That might yet be Aregbesola’s cop-out mantra.