Ahmed Bola Tinubu Another MKO in the Making

By

Dr. Wunmi Akintide

WUMIONE@aol.com

 

This piece has taken so long for me to complete The delay is informed by my patiently waiting for the outcome of some developments in the life of this unusual American trained southern Nigerian politician, and another Yoruba leader with a few myths around him, as we speak..

    

Some have called him an adopted son of a prominent and powerful women leader in Lagos, the New York of Nigeria, and that much of his Mida’s touch and political power is attributable to that factor alone. As a Nigerian and a “New Yorker” myself, I could care less if Bola Tinubu is a dropdown from the sky like Oduduwa before him, or if is true his biological mother died of mental illness, like is often rumored about “Olowoporoku”  another prominent politician and former NPN Federal Minister from Ilawe-Ekiti. Nigerians like to tell a lot of stories about our leaders, and you will be silly to believe everything you hear. Being an adopted child or the offspring of a mentally deranged mother, if that were true of Tinubu, does not a difference make to me as a clinical psychologist by training and certification.

       

I judge the man by the strength of his character and what he has accomplished in transforming himself, the political landscape of Lagos State and Nigeria and his staying power as a politician with some vision and multiple talents.

   

Since the exit of Obafemi Awolowo, the greatest Yoruba Leader of our generation, to profoundly shape or dictate the pendulum of Nigerian Politics, as “the great divide in Nigerian Politics” as opined by Ibrahim Babangida, the Yorubas as a group, have been struggling, in vain, to find a successor or a clone who can best fill the giant shoes of the late sage.

   

For a brief moment, we thought the late Governor Bisi Onabanjo of the Aiyekoto fame was going to be the man. There was Governor Lateef Kayode Jakande who was actually named “Baba Kekere” in anticipation. Then there was G.O.K Ajayi who was conferred with the “Asaju” title by the Ooni Sijuade Olubuse, Arole Oodua himself. There was Pa Abraham Adesanya who was picked the leader of the famous Afenifere Group and Pa Emmanuel Alayande who was leader of the Yoruba Congress of Elders. Then came the Cicero of Esa Oke, the eloquent and unflappable uncle Bola Ige of blessed memory. There is also the talk of our own Chief Reuben Faseide Fashoranti of Akure being mentioned as possible successor to the great Awo.

   

There was speculation for a brief moment that Awo’s successor might even come from outside the circle of his political associates like late Pa Alfred Rewane and even Pa Olawoyin of Offa or is it Omuaran. Late Bada Barawu MKO was also speculated as a possible successor following the emergence of SDP as Party of the Progressives. There is            the Balogun of Owu himself, the one and only Olusegun Obasanjo whose loftiest gratification he is now seeking on the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs scale, is to be recognized as the undisputed leader of the Yorubas. He, General Obasanjo in his mind or psyche, has gotten everything he could ever ask for, in national politics and in the international arena. What is still missing is a University degree behind his name and a desire to be named and accepted as the undisputed Leader of his people like Awolowo the undisputed Heavy Weight Champion of Yoruba Power.

    

The Open University System should hopefully meet that need for the General in a year or two. What is not going to be easy, however, is his obsession to replace the great Awo in the hearts of our people. Ahmed Bola Tinubu, I would admit, has a better chance, than Obasanjo or any other Yoruba leader of prominence, to fill that slot, at this point in time. Why? Because the same Obasanjo, using all the opportunities opened to him as Head of State for 11 going to 12 years, and the power of the Federal Government, including rigging of elections in his “do or die” streak, has managed to dent or uproot some of the fine legacies of Awo by putting all the LOOBO States in the column of the NPN/PDP minus Lagos State.

     

It would have been a total sweep of the Awo political machine and philosophy, but for the staying power of Omo Iya Aje, Ahmed Bola Tinubu who has taken all the arrows thrown at him by Obasanjo and even some of his erstwhile associates in the UPN and AD, and he is still standing firm, as we speak. I give him kudos for that feat. Ahmed Bola Tinubu is as smart as they come. We have all got to give him credit for that. Obasanjo was all out to demystify him and to cut him down to size but like Sunny Ade has beautifully suggested in one of his blockbuster album or tracks, “Omo Aje fi sile o le panije” meaning “the offspring of the witch can, sometimes be as dangerous as his parent” if you can believe that.

    

Ahmed Tinubu has not only survived Obasanjo, he may have miraculously found some favor with the new Pharaoh in town who could have the arrows aimed at Tinubu returned back to sender, a prayer point that Pastor Olukoya has made famous in our country.

   

Left to Obasanjo alone, Lagos State should have been hijacked into the column of the PDP, if not from 1999, but certainly from 2003 and most certainly in 2007, based on the rigging formula already perfected by the PDP. The 4 billion Naira revenue or so due to the newly created Local Government Councils in Lagos State from the Federal were wrongly withheld by Obasanjo in total disregard of the Court order. The idea was to starve Lagos State of funds and to put the Government “Omo Aje” in total disarray for much of his second term as Governor. Obasanjo also made sure that the EFCC his attack dog, was distracting Tinubu by frequently dangling the sword of Damocles over his head telling Tinubu he was going to be arrested at the end of his term. It was predetermined by Obasanjo, that “Omo Aje” must be made to spend the rest of his life in jail on leaving office. Obasanjo was cock sure the PDP was going to win Lagos even before the first vote was cast.  Can you believe that? You better do, because that was the plan.

  First of all the immunity from public prosecution in our Constitution which had tied the hands of the EFCC and the Conduct Bureau behind their backs would not let “Omo Aje” like his other colleagues, face any prosecution before his term was up. “Omo Aje” knew from the “get go” what he was up against, and he took steps to counteract it to the best of his ability.

   

Bola Tinubu was decidedly better prepared than all of the AD Governors combined in 2003.They all failed woefully because they were tricked into submission and surrender by Obasanjo..Ahmed Tinubu was the only one standing at the end of the day.

    

In more civilized polities around the world, that feat alone was enough to single out Ahmed Tinubu as a leader to be reckoned with in the former AD, which broke into factions after that onslaught. The faction led by Tinubu , has, however, become the launching pad for the AC in much the same way like the PDM founded by General Musa Yar Adua had become the launching pad for the PDP after 1999.

    

The relics of the former AD and the DPA led by Chief Falae had gone into the last elections totally unprepared and blindfolded.. Of course, they not only lost badly in the polls minus the rigging antics of the PDP, they were beaten to third position or worse in Ekiti, Ondo, Osun, Oyo and Ogun states. The AD and DPA were humiliated in Ondo State, my home base where the new Labor Party floated and registered only three months before the elections, has gone ahead to give Agagu and Oluwateru  a beating of their life despite their rigging propensity. The carnage has left Architect Olu Agbesua of the DPA  arguably one of the best candidates in that election, and my only horse in the race, by the way, scratching his head in total disbelief.

 

“Omo Aje” Ahmed Tinubu working in flawless partnership with Oba Akiolu of Lagos had done it again. He made a number of strategic moves that made the election a walkover for the AC in Lagos State despite Obasanjo’s best effort and limitless resources.. Atiku Abubakar the AC presidential candidate himself not only lost in Adamawa, his home base, because the PDP had beaten him to the punch. Not so for “Omo Aje” who won Lagos State, arms down, for new Governor Fashola, one of his personal advisers.

     

Ahmed Tinubu’s political machine in Lagos was as effective as Mayor Daley’s political machine in Chicago Politics. Lagos State was about the only State won by AC. Ahmed Tinubu has used that victory to prove a point that nobody could deny him because politics is a game of numbers. You could be the best politician in the old world. You have got to be able to win to remain in the game. Who says “Omo Aje” is not a political wizard in Lagos and Nigerian Politics? Let such a person stand and up and be counted. Ahmed Tinubu is a leader and I am hedging my bets on him as one of the successors, if not the best candidate right now, to succeed Awo if the Progressives would ever come together again in the same camp. That is the truth that many of our friends in the AD may not want to hear.

  

Forget all that the nihilists are saying about this Bola Tinubu. To me he has earned his wings. If Ahmed Tinubu were operating in America or Britain, he has got all the qualifications to be considered  a serious leader. Sending him to jail should be totally out of the question, and I am confident he will fight and win that too when all is said and done. He has defied the odds, many times too many. He has single-handedly put the Obasanjo-led  PDP into shame in Lagos, and the Lagos State Tribunal has just ratified that.

     

If Tinubu decides to cross over to the PDP, as I suspect, he might well, do, in the best possible scenario under Yar Adua, he will be doing so from a position of great strength. And if he remains in the AC to reorganize the Party and give it a national spread, he will also be a force to reckon with in that Party, because survival as observed by Harold Wilson remains the art of Politics. I don’t believe in the overtures being made by Yar Adua to the AC and ANPP and the PPA to come join a National Unity Government. That to me is a trap and a plan that is certainly dead on arrival, given the history of our country.

  

It is a plan to kill or weaken the Opposition which is a plus, if you can call it that in any kind of democratic system, but more so in a presidential system. We need a virile opposition as the Government-in-waiting if the ruling party fumbles. Having a Government of National Unity is a first step to creating a Dictatorship and Nigeria must not go there. I don’t care what President Yar Adua is promising the opposition, the GNU is a win win for him and his PDP, and a death of kiss for the Opposition in Nigeria, if the truth must be told.

 

We need leaders like Ahmed Tinubu to lead the Opposition, if that is what it has come to. Tinubu is an “Osagyefo” of a kind in my judgment. He is a great politician not in the mode of an Adedibu of course. He is about the closest clone you will ever find to Awolowo, and he has it in him to lead by the number of things he has done, and the number of battles he has fought and won.

  

First it was the certificate racketeering charge they first made against him. That was nonsense and at best a tempest in a tea cup. and it was diversionary to tell the truth. The man was an Accounting major at College, and he did serve in Mobil, as treasurer working with Nigerians and friends like Akinyelure from Idanre, Solomon Oladunni from Oke Agbe, Akoko, Geologist, Mr Sawyer from Abeokuta, Bode Fadase from Ondo and Toyin Obe from Akure. He studied and graduated from Chicago and among few of his close friends in his student days were people I know very well. They include Professor Niyi Akinnaso of Idanre of Temple University in the US. Niyi was a former student of mine at Olofin Grammar School, Idanre. So is Mr. Olumide Akintan, my brother-in-law who today works for Tinubu, as one of his advisers.

 

Ahmed Tinubu is one tough cookie of a politician, a great Muslim by faith and a bridge builder who believes in demolishing walls and building relationships with people outside his own home state of Lagos. Among his friends and political associates are former Governor Akande of Osun State, Architect Olu Agbesua of Akure, and so many others I know across the country. This man has been a successful Senator, a powerful and influential two term Governor and a shoo-in for the Presidency, if it is zoned out on rotational basis. That man could easily have passed for a Vice Presidential nominee in a ticket led by Atiku Abubakar, or any other person from another zone.

   

Tinubu has created additional Local Governments in his State, and was one of a few Governors in Nigeria to do so exercising his constitutional rights as the Governor of Lagos State. It was a smart move on his part that explains his victory at the last elections When Obasanjo tried to intimidate him, he went to Court and he won convincingly. Obasanjo’s refusal to carry out the Court order did not faze him or force him to retreat.. He managed to turn Obasanjo and that move could serve as the first salvo to having Obasanjo defrocked for good as life Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees, a move that could conceivably bring people like Atiku,. Audu Ogbe, Abubakar Rimi, Solomon Lar and others back into the fold with effortless ease. 

   

Tinubu found some ways to survive, and to beat Obasanjo at his game. That is the kind of leader we need in Nigeria. Now the new President who is anxious to prove to the country and the world, he is not an outlaw like his anointer, has just ruled that the money a total sum of 4 billion Naira or thereabout be refunded back to Lagos State with immediate effect, giving Tinubu a great victory, and offering the Fashola Government a new lease of life that is good for all in the commercial capital of Nigeria and the epic center of Yoruba solidarity and power..

 

Ahmed Tinubu became Senator the first time around because he played smart. He was then working for Mobil Nigeria, and Mobil a smart Multi National Oil Company was  looking for political patronage and looking to bankroll a Senator who would be their ears and eyes at the corridor of power. They found that Senator in Ahmed Tinubu their former treasurer. They supported Tinubu and, he won that election as the honorable SDP Senator from Lagos. He was not only effective as a Senator, he led the Opposition fight against the Military and was one of the unsung heroes and voices of reason putting pressure on the Military for the stolen mandate of MKO to be returned to him. In so doing, he became a hero on his own terms till tomorrow. Ahmed Tinubu is another MKO in the making in terms of building IOUs all over the country that he might conceivably tap into, in the foreseeable future.

 

Ahmed Tinubu has rightly bagged the Chieftaincy title of Asaju of Lagos., just like the late Obafemi Awolowo was once the Asaju of Yorubas and the presumptive father of the Ooni Sijuwade Olubuse who was gracious enough to honor Awolowo’s wife with the title of the Yeye Oba of Ile ife. That is one title that Obasanjo could have killed to have given to his late first lady in succession to Mama Hannah Dideolu Awolowo who is quite advance in age now. By conferring that title on Dideolu, the reigning Ooni Olubuse has, more or less, promoted Obafemi Awolowo to the second most important individual in Yoruba History...

     

That is one honor that Obasanjo would have wished to have as the leader of the Yorubas. The honor could still go to Obasanjo, down the road, because the current Ooni, as a business genius, is also another smart and razor-blade sharp leader of the Yorubas who is always three or four steps ahead of all his contemporaries. He could massage Obasanjo’s ego by offering him, the only title, the General would gladly accept for its symbolism in response to the imperatives of the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs. As one set of needs are being met, a different set of needs emerge as human d beings wait for Death to draw the curtain for good.

   

My point here is that Ahmed Tinubu may jolly when have his eyes set on the same prize and he will be a formidable candidate for the honor as well. But for him and what he stood for in Lagos State and Nigeria, I would argue that Awolowo’s legacies and myth would have been seriously put in reverse, if not somewhat dented or damaged by Obasanjo. I concede that it is really difficult for Obasanjo or any Yoruba Leader to want to obliterate Awolowo from our hearts and consciousness without damaging themselves beyond repairs, in doing so, as Baba Iyabo has found out.

 

I rest my case.

Dr Wunmi Akintide