Today, May 29, 2023, Bola Ahmad Tinubu will be inaugurated as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
It feels so surreal.
I have been staunchly against Tinubu politically since the then opposition parties came together for APC to better their chances at beating Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 presidential elections.
I do not know him personally of course and I can’t say that I know in detail of the feud between him and Obasanjo when he (BAT) was the governor of Lagos State.
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So why have I been against him politically? I have lived in Lagos for about 14years now. I came in when Fashola was governor of Lagos. People liked Fashola. There was so much talk about how he had brought sanity to the streets of Lagos especially Oshodi.
But there was this underlying leadership of Tinubu underneath it all. Tinubu might have left the governor of Lagos seat, but he was somehow the unspoken leader of the state.
When Ambode was introduced as the APC gubernatorial candidate for APC, no one knew much about him. He had been the handpicked successor to Fashola. That was in 2015. By the time he was rounding up his term as governor and gearing for reelection, there seemed to be a divide between him and Tinubu and he lost his endorsement to go for a second term.
His rejection was loud and embarrassing as there was an open ballot election in which APC party members queued to vote for Jide Sanwo-Olu to be the flag bearer of the party. The mind-blowing thing was that Ambode was seen to be performing. No one really knew Sanwo-Olu. He had no political experience hitherto.
But such is the Tinubu influence. Tinubu somehow became the kingmaker that can bestow and end political careers.
Having said all of these things, Tinubu seems not to have done anything out of the ordinary. There is no country or any political entity that is without Godfathers.
No political entity is without key men who over the years have amassed wealth and power and influence so much so that they determine who gets a chance to lead anything.
While there is something that feels mafia-ish about this sort of setup, it is not unusual. Ambitious men will stop at nothing. Tinubu has always been ambitious. I sort of assumed that he was content being a kingmaker.
But the moment he supported Buhari and provided his political influence and vehicle to help bring Buhari to power in 2015, I became concerned.
I supported Goodluck Jonathan mostly because I didn’t think that Buhari was an improvement (and boy, was I right). All I saw behind Tinubu’s quest to see Buhari as president was his own ambition.
Tinubu is many things but no one can doubt that he is intelligent and cunning. He knew exactly who Buhari was and what he was capable of (not)doing. But the political good will that Buhari had in the north coupled with a staunch support from Tinubu’s own domain was going to give PDP a good run at the presidency.
So I asked myself why would Tinubu support an obviously mediocre choice of a president? Surely he knew Buhari could not perform. It soon became an unspoken consensus that Tinubu had presidential ambition himself. And because one good turn deserves another, he had lent his support to Buhari to gain Buhari’s support for his ambition.
But why be offended by that? Isn’t that what politics is? Making alliances that will reassure the victory of a political ambition.
But I am allowed to make my deductions and lend my support or withdraw my support for any candidate and my reasons for not supporting Tinubu are as follows.
1. He delivered the worst president Nigeria has ever had when he supported Buhari.
2. When things were going wildly wrong in how Nigeria was being run, he never intervened even by making a statement denouncing the state of affairs. Nigeria was burning but he kept quiet because he didn’t want to jeopardize his ambition.
3. When the West was experiencing kidnappings and violence attacks by Fulani terrorists, Tinubu famously asked where the cows were. He could not make a statement to decry these atrocities because he would not jeopardize his ambition.
4. He was on the wrong side of the ENDSARS debacle. He could not condemn military action on Lekki Toll Gate.
All I see and hear is that Tinubu is willing to sacrifice anything in favour of his desire to rule Nigeria. And I am not sure that means that his concern will be our best interest.
But he has been voted in as president (contested results) and I truly can’t believe that he is finally getting what he has gunned for all these years. I used to say he will never be president of Nigeria but I have learnt the old age lesson once again. Never say Never.
Have a good week people. May this administration be favourable to all Nigerians. Amen.
