When I dropped my pen last week, after the concluding part of my piece, titled, “Jagaban, Presidency and the rest of us”, I did not envisage the massive reaction it attracted. I almost regretted the mobile link to the article, because by 3pm, when I switched on my phone after Jumat service, last Friday, about 37 text messages had dropped. The numbers grew rapidly, from readers across the states, especially the North, in the hours that followed.
It was interesting how different readers with diverse backgrounds, queued, with strong words, behind their role models, even beyond ethnic barriers. For confidential reasons, I would not want to disclose the result of the unintended poll rating here, but the slant of opinions has made a reopening of the closed Jagaban/Presidency discourse inevitable.
This is particularly in view of the many calls for the South West to either rally around the former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, or lose its growing authority in the Nigerian political space to the detriment of the development of the region.
A particularly hilarious but thought-provoking text message came from one Emeka, who said, “The beginning of your article, titled, ‘Jagaban, Presidency and the rest of us’ suggested that you were a diehard Tinubu supporter, but your insinuations towards the end, though may be true, leaves one confused as to where you really stand.
All I want to advise you Yorubas is that whether Tinubu is a monkey, baboon, a small thief or an armed robber, you must stand by him. He is the greatest asset you have as a race; a great politician. Betrayal among our own people is why we are where we are today….”
This, and some other controversial long messages showed the extent to which the recent reports on the sidelining of the APC national leader had divided supporters and even the opposition along sharp boundaries in the build up to the 2019 elections.
While I do not always want to subscribe to regional or tribal considerations, especially where the main goal is a healthy Nigeria, where everything works, I would say that the discussions in the last few days have thrown up an opportunity for the South West to reflect on past political events; tales of betrayals and counter-betrayals and where they have landed this special zone.
For instance, in spite of the widely acclaimed socio-economic and political intelligence of the average Yoruba man, other tribes have, going by history, succeeded, 95 percent, in using those who have been fortunate to be in the right places at the right time, against the smartest of the race, for selfish reasons.
A revered elder statesman, who called to react to the article in focus, but would rather have his identity protected, lambasted some of the ministers serving in the President Muhammadu Buhari cabinet, saying, “Omo ale nii fi owo osi juwe ile baba e”, meaning, plainly, that only a bastard would describe his father’s house with his left hand.
He aligned his views with those of controversial critics like a former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, who, in a recent article, identified a “small cabal of power-brokers” launching an offensive against the former governor of Lagos to include President Buhari, his nephew, Mamman Daura; and Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari.
What I tried not to believe was his assertion that those who had used their left hands to describe their fathers’ houses were four key South-West players currently around Buhari
as ministers and party leaders, who he said, had joined forces with Nasir El Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna State, and the aforementioned people, as crack strategists and realignment enforcers in the unfortunate quest to demystify Tinubu’s political sagacity.
This is because some of the people he referred to were those some observers had described as hitherto lily-livered professionals, who either climbed on Jagaban’s dictatorial political style or his pool of “intervention resources”, to stardom. Why would they then want to bite the finger, which not only fed them, but also provided them with a fertile land for continued harvest?
Why would they align with “foreign” forces to uproot, unwittingly, the branch on which their political weathers gather? It just doesn’t add up, except if we choose to go by the
arguments of many analysts, who shaped my opinion on why the “Tinubu godsons” became rebels as highlighted in the second part of my previous piece.
Yet, Tinubu’s perceived “imperious” relationship with star students of his strategic political college; the alleged friction around “suspicious” construction or other money-spinning
deals; and the kingmaker baton, which Jagaban has refused to pass on to his successors, should, ideally, not form the basis for an unintended but perilous South-West political fragmentation.
when northerners disagree for political reasons, it takes no time for them to … realign in
support of their own before any other. But past events have shown that seeds of dischord
planted among South-West frontliners have always germinated into uncontrollable branches of political war.
History has shown that some of the heroes of the Yoruba race, who had been hoodwinked into joining hatchet jobs designed to cut “problematic” men of the people short, had themselves met their waterloo before realising how badly they’d been used. Cantankerous as he is, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State probably hit the nail on the head while
condemning a recent sponsored protest against the APC leader at the party’s national secretariat.
Quoted by various newspaper reports, he said, “It is unfortunate that Tinubu is now being vilified by a party he invested heavily in and his fellow kinsmen that he brought up
politically are part of this conspiracy. “When other tribes protect (their) own, it is becoming historically common among the Yorubas to allow themselves to be used against their leaders, just for momentary political gains at the expense of the collective interests of the Yoruba nation.”
Monarchs had linked the betrayal of the great Obafemi Awolowo to illustrous Yoruba sons; while our own late MKO Abiola was also, from authoritative accounts, first betrayed at home before the mother of betrayals by his close friends, up North, among other high-wired kith and kin perfidies.
From experience, when Northerners disagree for political reasons, it takes no time for them to iron the issues out and realign in support of their own before any other. But
past events have shown that seeds of dischord planted among SouthWest frontliners have always germinated into uncontrollable branches of political war, which take forever to end.
This obviously calls for a rethink of South-West politics. The economy of the region will boom only when role models shun greed and “bad blood” for the common good.
