King
Nebuchadnezzar gloried in his kingdom and declared: “Is this not magnificent
Babylon, which I have built as a royal capital by my mighty power and for my
glorious majesty?” (Daniel 4:30). While the words were still in his mouth, a
voice came from heaven to inform him that the kingdom he was boasting about had
been taken away from him.
Similarly,
Bola Tinubu, “the Ashiwaju of Yorubaland,” surveyed his kingdom and decided to
make a boastful proclamation. Speaking of himself in the third person, Tinubu
declared: “Nobody, no one under the sun, under the United Nations Human Rights
Charter, can stop Bola Tinubu’s ambition.” Famous last words! The voice of the
electorate in the South-West has answered Tinubu. His personal ambition is
certainly not in the interest of the people.
De-mystification
of Tinubu
Tinubu’s
claim to fame lies in the strength of his ACN party in the South-West. The only
resistance was Ondo State, which was controlled by Olusegun Mimiko’s Labour
party. But the assumption was that it was only a matter of time before Ondo too
would succumb to the Tinubu juggernaut. However, in the 2012 gubernatorial
election in Ondo, Mimiko not only prevailed once again, the ACN candidate did
not even come second. He was beaten to a distant third by the PDP.
This
indicated that the Yorubas were already getting fed up with Tinubu; determined
that they will not be sold into his slavery. In a letter to Mimiko
congratulating him on his victory, Reuben Fasoranti, the leader of the Yoruba
group, Afenifere, said: “This victory, amongst other things, is victory over
god-fatherism, a rejection of political imposition and slavery from outside the
state.” “We entered into electoral cooperation with you (Mimiko) in the
election to counter an emerging group under the leadership of few
disrespectful, snobbish, arrogant, ravaging and power-thirsty politicians.”
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The obvious
reference here was to Bola Tinubu and his ACN colleagues. In many respects,
Tinubu has become the most hated politician in the South-West. Association with
him is increasingly as politically contagious as leprosy. The emerging
consensus in the South-West is that Tinubu has overreached himself with his
heavy-handedness. It is past time to cut him back to size. Thus, Fasoranti
added to Mimiko: “There is a need for the exhibition of fair play and justice
to all and carry the banner of progressive politics into national politics now
that the eclipse of the ACN is unavoidable.”
Ekiti
Waterloo
This
prognosis has proved to be prophetic. The defeat of Tinubu’s party in Ondo has
now been followed by its trouncing in the just-concluded gubernatorial election
in Ekiti. Ekiti was presumed to be one of Tinubu’s South-West strongholds. The
incumbent governor, Kayode Fayemi, is one of the darlings of Tinubu’s
new-fangled APC.
Indeed, some have been touting Fayemi as a possible APC
vice-presidential candidate. However, rather than confirm that Ekiti is firmly
in Tinubu’s camp, the people of Ekiti decided to send a loud and clear message
to Tinubu. They no longer want to have anything to do with him and with his
party.
Tinubu’s
Fayemi did not only lose the Ekiti election, he lost it by a landslide. He
obtained 120,000 votes to Ayo Fayose’s 203,000. Fayemi lost in every local
government area of the state. Coming on the heels of its defeat in Ondo, the
APC rout in Ekiti is conclusive proof that Tinubu’s fabled stranglehold on
South-West politics has ended. Indeed, Tinubu is now a political liability in
the South-West.
Rather than bring votes to the APC in the region, he is now
more than likely to lose them.
This
accounts for the confused reaction of the APC to the election. Local and
international observers declared it free and fair. The losing local candidates
readily accepted defeat, including Fayemi, the APC candidate. But Tinubu and
his APC cohorts from outside the state are challenging the defeat in a pathetic
attempt to make excuses for such disgraceful trouncing in putative APC
territory. Only the gullible will believe this face-saving charade.
On the
contrary, a prescient observer of the APC debacle in Ekiti made this
observation: “Tinubu is no Awolowo and that illusion is being put to test. He
doesn’t have the gravitas of Papa Awo and in fact, many of these South-West
state governors will soon discover that they are more electable without
Tinubu’s name. Tinubu cost Fayemi the election and if he knows what is good he
should stay in the background if Osun State (whose election is due two months
hence) is not to fall in a domino.”
“Useless”
Yoruba Obas
It was a
long time coming, but Yorubas in general are now fed up with Bola Tinubu
arrogance and with his determination to rule the South-West as his fiefdom. A
politician is supposed to be subject to his people. However, Tinubu believes
the Yorubas are subject to him.
The over-bearing influence of Tinubu in Ekiti
politics was one of the major issues of the campaign. The message of the
electorate is that this would no longer be tolerated. This message was superbly
championed by Fayose who presented himself as a man of the people, determined
to stop the hemorrhage whereby Ekiti money was routinely shipped to Lagos to
further Tinubu’s political ambitions.
A smart
politician does not broadcast his contempt for his people. However, with the
arrogance of power, Tinubu derided Yoruba Obas as “useless.” He declared “ex
cathedra:” “The good Obas in Yorubaland who are forthright, firm and stand by
the truth are not up to five, they are just three.” With these words, Tinubu
drove a nail firmly into his own political coffin. While he derided Yoruba Obas
as “useless,” he went up North to Kwankwaso to engineer the installation of a
“useful” Emir of Kano. Therefore, the Ekiti people decided to tell Tinubu that
they have no use for him and that their Obas are not useless.
The success
of Fashola in transforming the face of Lagos was sold as the ACN/APC template
in the South-West, and this had some traction for a while. Fayemi too presented
himself as a “performing governor” with major projects right across the state.
But when asked why he did not build low-cost housing in Lagos, Fashola replied
contemptuously that he could not find any low-cost cement to buy.
But as its
defeat in Ekiti now demonstrates; the elitist high-cost APC needs low-cost
voters in order to win elections. What the PDP did mischievously in Ekiti was
to capitalize on the electorate’s cynical preference for pounded-yam over
tarred roads.
Lessons from
Obasanjo
The
rejection of Bola Tinubu today in the South-West also lies in the very betrayal
of his earlier success. Tinubu championed South-West resistance to Obasanjo’s
determination to sacrifice Yoruba interests on the altar of a contrived
alliance with the North. While that alliance clearly served Obasanjo’s
interests, independent-minded South-West voters saw nothing in it for them.
Foolishly, Tinubu is now presenting himself as yet another architect of the
same rejected alliance with the Northern caliphate, for the sake of his own
personal political ambitions.
Following
the crisis that ensued after the annulment of M.K.O. Abiola’s victory in the
1993 presidential election, there emerged a general consensus that the 1999
election should be zoned to South-West Yorubas in the interest of national
reconciliation. However, Northerners decided they would determine who the
Yoruba candidate should be. Obasanjo was fished out of prison and anointed as
PDP presidential candidate.
This Yoruba
choice by Northerners was rejected by the Yorubas. Although Obasanjo went ahead
to win the election nationwide, he lost woefully in the South-West. Thereafter,
he was derided as a president without coattails in his own backyard. Obasanjo’s
response as president was to make a play for PDP victory in the South-West in
2003 by hook or crook. Every trick in the book was employed to bring South-West
states under PDP control.
Failure of
success
The PDP
rigged the 2003 elections masterfully and wrested back power from every
ACN-controlled South-West state except Lagos. Even in Lagos, the INEC went
ahead to proclaim a fictitious PDP victory on its website, before this was
belatedly withdrawn with ignominy. The brilliant South-West answer to this PDP
treachery was Bola Tinubu.
Tinubu drew
a line in the sand, held on to Lagos, and struck back from this stronghold to
win back all the lost South-West states in 2007. He won because the people of
the South-West refused to mortgage their future to the political interests of
Obasanjo and his allies in the North. It is therefore surprising that, with the
arrogance of power, Tinubu is now following the same failed footsteps of
Obasanjo.
Instead of
learning from Obasanjo’s blunder, Tinubu too has now decided to unite his
ethnic ACN party with the Northern caliphate. With the contempt for the people
that has come with years of monarchical control over the ACN, Tinubu presumes
South-West people will follow him sheepishly into this alliance with the North,
just because his burning ambition to become the vice-president of Nigeria now
demands it. But what this has achieved is to show that Tinubu’s ambitions are
anathema to South-West interests.
Anybody who
thinks Tinubu’s APC will succeed in the South-West does not understand
South-West politics. The Yorubas are too proud and fiercely independent to
agree to play second-fiddle to anyone because of a man called Tinubu. S.L.
Akintola tried the same gambit in the 1960s, and the South-West rejected him.
The same rejection has befallen Bola Tinubu.
Lagosians
are disgusted that Tinubu has privatized their politics. His wife, daughter and
even son-in-law have been steam-rolled into vantage political positions. The
state’s finances are tied to Alpha Beta. Tinubu has even gone ahead to anoint
Akinwunmi Ambode as the next governor of the state without the benefit of any
election. This is asking for trouble. If Tinubu is not careful, a big implosion
is likely in APC Lagos State over the issue of the choice of the next governor.
Every which
way in the South-West, the message is crystal clear: “Tinubu’s imperious
dynasty is over: long live the sovereignty of the people.
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