By Dele Momodu
Fellow Nigerians, once again, this is not the best of times in our dear beloved country, Nigeria. After we had thought, gladly and gleefully, that no government could be worse than the recent Buhari administration, we are now confronted by yet another monstrosity.
In less than two months in
power, Tinubu’s government started collapsing whatever positive legacy Buhari
left behind. Yet, we would have assumed and expected a President Bola Ahmed
Tinubu to be far better prepared and more visionary than Buhari and his
lacklustre team was. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the case.
While I’m not about to give an
overview of Tinubu’s wobbly stewardship so far, and so soon, I’m constrained to
put my thoughts and unequivocal opinion on the ongoing Tinubugate on paper. I’m
doing this in my personal capacity as a Nigerian citizen and as a true and
truthful friend of Tinubu. I believe only a true friend can look you straight,
eyeballs to eyeballs, in the face, and tell one of the world’s most powerful
men, the Gospel truth.
I have no doubts in my mind
that the majority of Tinubu’s so-called friends and ubiquitous hangers-on are
pretentious hypocrites. Tinubu has also not helped himself by encouraging both
royals and puppets alike to worship at his feet and turning him into a demi-god.
I’m convinced that they serve him no useful purpose. I will establish this fact
in a minute.
The Tinubugate did not begin
yesterday. It started after Tinubu returned from exile and metamorphosed into
the Governor of Lagos State in 1999 and instantly became the biggest
beneficiary of our epic battles in exile during the NADECO days. In all
honesty, we were all happy that he was amply compensated for his salutary
efforts.
But unknown to us, trouble was
brewing. We didn’t know how or what led the legal luminary, Chief Gani
Fawehinmi, to exhume all manner of “false declarations” contained in the forms
submitted for Tinubu’s gubernatorial bid. On October 11, 1999, just months
after Tinubu contested and won his election, Chief Fawehinmi’s powerful interview
was published on the cover of Newswatch magazine, with the screaming headline:
WHY TINUBU MUST GO – Gani Fawehinmi. The fearless Lawyer also granted another
interview on the cover of The Source magazine, with an even more acerbic
headline: “TINUBU IS A CRIMINAL – Gani, and a rider below: Deserves 10 years in
jail! On top of the same magazine was published a worrisome story: The Tinubu
Story: THE SOURCE UNDER THREAT.
This was the first tell-tale
sign of the new and toxic Lagos State to come, a Lagos of one man, one
permanent ruler, reminiscent of the Sicilian Mafia, which we privately
rechristened the “Cosa Nostra” of Nigeria.
Some members of our “exile
confraternity” were naturally alarmed. But we were somehow timid and, thus,
carelessly dismissed Gani’s case as, at the very best, alarmist and
unnecessarily meddlesome. A few of us who were very close to Gani Fawehinmi
knew it would be difficult and of no effect, to approach him and try to
persuade him to drop the case.
The other sad revelation was
when some of Tinubu’s commissioners started fretting and sweating profusely.
God is my witness. Many of them, out of panic, about the imminent impeachment
of Tinubu, were, stylishly, dissociating themselves from their boss. We heard
all kinds of gibberish, from some of them, who are even in government today:
“we brought our integrity into this government, we can’t allow anyone to
tarnish it”
Let us digress a little. One of
them, extremely close to Tinubu, was the first to tell us about “the
falsification of Tinubu’s age, the identity of his original parents from
Iragbiji, his forged academic records”, and so on. This chain-smoker claimed
absolute knowledge of Tinubu’s life.
He told us in my Accra home
that anyone who tells Tinubu the truth is instantly marked down as an enemy, so
he has stopped telling him the truth. With this kind of mindset, you can
imagine what quality of advice Tinubu gets regularly.
Then, out of the blues, my very
daring and loyal friend, Tokunbo Afikuyomi, decided to bite the bullet on behalf
of Tinubu. What he did was reminiscent of the “lamb of God who took away the
sins of the earth…” He, like a kamikaze soldier, took absolute responsibility
for the errors contained in Tinubu’s files. Miraculously, Tinubu was saved, and
we were all relieved. Everyone is asking me how has Tinubu compensated
Afikuyomi, and my answer is I don’t know.
It is noteworthy that Festus
Keyamo had jumped on the bandwagon of those seeking to impeach Tinubu at that
time. This is another story for another day. I cannot wait for my memoirs to be
ready in order to put names and faces to the main dramatis personae.
Let’s now fast forward to the
year 2002. There was a popular magazine known as The Week. It planned a cover
story on Tinubu. Somehow, the story leaked out to then Governor of Lagos State.
Tinubu immediately, and with automatic alacrity, reached out to the Publisher
of the magazine, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and pleaded that the scandalous story
should be dropped.
Out of love and respect for his
friend, Atiku reached out to The Week magazine Management and got the story to
be stepped down. The Editors were miffed by this development, and in the
aftermath, led to the resignation and exit of the Editor, Mr Simon Kolawole.
The meat of my epistle today is
that there are many didactic lessons to pick from this Tinubugate. Tinubu
eventually left office in 2007. But he never really left Lagos alone. He became
Nigeria’s ultimate godfather, who determined, almost to the pin, who gets what.
Many of his acolytes knew he was capable of turning them into emergency
Billionaires and were ready to stand ramrod on his mandate. This, I believe, is
the crux of the matter.
Now, why do I blame Tinubu and
his die-hard fans? Two major reasons are carelessness (or is it negligence?)
and recklessness. Why would a man who left office since 2007, 16 long years
ago, fail to clean up the records that nearly got him impeached in the first
instance? And given the fact that he couldn’t have personally handled those
documents himself, why did the hordes of minions claiming to love him till
eternity fail to deliver a world-class file for his documents?
The Laws of Nigeria never
insisted that a Presidential candidate must attend a university. In the last 16
years, Tinubu should have ensured his personal documents were thoroughly
checked to be squeaky clean before submitting them to INEC. If necessary, he
could have easily gone back to school (Atiku still went to school recently to
update and upgrade himself) and try to erase all the previous controversial
details. As for his conflicting dates of birth, he should have settled for a
preferred birthday date, like President Olusegun Obasanjo did. It can never be
a crime that a child’s parent did not record or obtain his birth certificate.
As for claiming to have worked for Deloitte and others, he should have limited
himself to “I have worked for big multinationals globally and they truly
enjoyed my services and valued my contributions” without mentioning specific
companies and dates.
As for parentage, I would have
told the world about my humble background and poor parentage. It is nothing to
be ashamed of, and it is not a crime to be adopted and acquire the name of
one’s foster-parents. Everyone knew how Chief MKO Abiola played the role of a
father figure in my life, including travelling all the way to Ijebu-Igbo and
Ijebu-Ode for my wedding in 1992, but that never stopped me from celebrating my
poor parents.
And if there were peculiar reasons for
obliterating ones original family history, that can still be easily explained.
A public figure cannot afford to keep too many secrets. For far too long,
Tinubu has blatantly refused to open up his private life to the members of the
public. The repercussions of this stifness have been hugely calamitous to him
and his immediate family. With more openness, this could have been avoided.
Let me now go to the specific
handling of the Chicago scandals. For me, Tinubu and his noisy supporters have
made matters far worse than it should have been. Only his blind and shameless
supporters will continue to argue over a saga that started over five decades
ago. All of us who knew the truth and looked the other way brought this
calamity upon our country. And it is grossly unfair.
Instead of Tinubu standing up
as a man to offer sincere and unreserved apologies to Nigerians, his “brood of
vipers” are busy insulting the long-suffering people of Nigeria, and studiously
rubbing salt and pepper on our festering wounds. This is most unfair. This can
only aggravate the anger of our citizens, especially the youths.
The first thing Tinubu should do is to climb down his high horse and experience reality for once. No man, no matter how powerful, can achieve everything by force, all the time. The popular story of EFUNSETAN ANIWURA, IYALODE IBADAN is very instructive. Power is transient.
I’m certain there is a hand of
God in this latest eruption about Tinubu’s record, which has refused to go
away.it is no longer about Atiku, Obi, Kwankwaso, Sowore and others. This is
about Nigeria. Atiku has played his part honorably at home and abroad.
What he achieved in Chicago was
a monumental victory for our democracy. Because of Atiku, many Nigerians will
have their pride restored. The burden has already been transferred to all of
us. Whatever the outcome of the Supreme Court case, it is obvious to me that a
new era beckons for us all except for those who choose to be voluntary slaves.
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