IT is obvious now that, for the first time in his illustrious political career, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, the much touted National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has fallen into a political ditch.
He needs a helping hand to get out fast. If the APC manipulates itself to victory in Ondo State (by using the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the Judiciary to ensure that a fake candidate, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim, stands for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, it might signal the end of the Tinubu political saga in the South West.
Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change,CPC, masquerading as the APC that won the general elections last year will have two states in the zone (Ondo and Ogun) in its kitty.
Being the party in power, and with the Tinubu loyalist governors in Oyo and Osun not eligible to run again, Buhari can use the same INEC, Judiciary, Directorate of State Services, DSS, and the “may-my-loyalty-never-be-tested” former Tinubu boys like Babatunde Fashola to make a grab for the rest of the South West come 2019.
APC leader, Bola Tinubu If that happens, the pro-Caliphate, Kaduna Mafia Arewa North led by Buhari would start calling the shots in the politics of the South West on their terms, and no longer in alliance with a “homegrown” political leader of the zone.
That will bode very ill, not only for our democracy that thrives better on inter-regional alliances (which was what brought Buhari into power) but will entrench Buharist Northern domination; a recipe for national instability and eventual disintegration.
Buharist Arewaism (coded into his 97%/%% parasitic formula for the distribution of the Nigerian commonwealth) has been on open display since he assumed power on May 29th 2015. It has shown itself in the manner in which the Federal Government was formed, the deployment of the security agencies, the repositioning of the top echelon of the Federal Bureaucracy, the denial of the South the right to produce the substantive Head of the Federal Judiciary (the Chief Justice of Nigeria) and in the way the INEC has been robbed of its Jonathan-era independence.
It is also manifesting in the Islamisation of Non-Muslim communities in the Middle Belt and South by armed Muslim militias masquerading as herdsmen, the frequent abductions of under-aged Christian girls by emirs and Islamic clerics who promptly marry them off to themselves or other Muslims without the consent of their parents, the manner in which “blasphemy” murder suspects are being set free when the law enforcement agencies bother to get them arrested and tried; and the way the Federal Character principle in the constitution is contemptuously ignored while a brash reign of nepotism is plunked down the throats of Nigerians.
Who knows in what other forms we will be seeing it in the years to come? How do you describe the possible outcome of these burgeoning anomalies that have reared their ugly heads in just 18 months? Is it normal for human beings subjected to these arrogant violations not to do something about it (eventually)? I am not sure this is the type of APC Federal Government that Tinubu and his kinsmen from the South West who put Buhari in the Presidency had envisioned.
I saw it coming, and I warned and warned. But I was called dirty names here on this forum by the horde of hired e-rats whose ranks have rapidly shrunk of late like our famished economy.
Tinubu had dreamed of an APC Federal Government in which the North and the West would partner in calling the shots for the rest of the country, with his Lagos whiz-kids showing Nigeria how they did it in Lagos.
I warned here that Buhari, from his track records as a former military ruler, Executive Chairman of the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, and his utterances as a politician (“I will always propagate Sharia to all parts of Nigeria”; “the dogs and baboons will be covered in blood”, and so on) was not the kind of person who would share power with a Westerner, Easterner or Minorities of the North or South.
Tinubu had a golden opportunity to put his support in favour of Atiku Abubakar.
He and Atiku had met and shared power in the defunct Social Democratic Party, SDP. Atiku has many faults, but he is much more cosmopolitan, has friends all over the country and is reputed for his sound sense of organised procedure. These are totally absent in this chaotic Buhari’s government. Tinubu chose Buhari because the masses of the Muslim North were fanatically behind him. They saw him as their messiah with a magic wand to drag them out of Boko Haram insurgency and extreme poverty. I hope he has met their aspirations. He obviously hasn’t met Tinubu’s. So, if Buhari’s APC wins the Ondo governorship without Tinubu, the Party will begin to feel they can do without him.
The pronouncements of Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau that Tinubu’s absence in the electioneering process would not affect the party is instructive. When Tinubu was deeply involved in the Ondo elections in 2012, his party still lost.
So, if APC wins now that he has withdrawn his support, his days as a factor in the party are gone. It won’t matter that the PDP candidate, Barrister Eyitayo Jegede, was shackled to give APC’s Rotimi Akeredolu a free ride. The South West must not allow its political fortunes to be dictated by Northerners.
This region has, historically, fought to maintain its independence and core agenda in Nigerian politics. Tinubu’s misadventure in handing the zone over to Buhari is threatening to take away the region’s power to decide its own future. It will not be in the interest of the nation for this to happen.
Not at this juncture, when the South East and the South-South zones have found their own independent footings and are able to determine their respective political directions. The West must not fall.
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