Among the declared candidates for the presidential poll slated for February next year controversy continues to trail the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu. As a former Senator and Governor of Lagos State Tinubu has indeed left a legacy, positive or negative, worth remembering and talking about. Tinubu is not afraid of controversies and he continues to court same given his antecedents and ‘life-long ambition’ to become President by hook or by crook. As a ‘kingmaker’ who made even the incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari, President it remains to be seen how far he would go in his desperate quest to supervise the affairs of a great nation with huge econo-social challenges.
While Atiku Abubakar, the frontrunner for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is 75 years old Tinubu is alleged to be 70 but rumours still abound about his real age, his real names and academic credentials. At 75 Atiku is healthier compared to Asiwaju! While it is true that God gives sound health (and life in general) perhaps Asiwaju Tinubu’s lifestyle in the past must have contributed to his degenerating health profile.
From the efforts made by the late legal icon, Gani Fawehinmi, to unmask Tinubu’s perjury and fraud to current litigations over his academic discrepancies Asiwaju is swimming against the tide. But count him not out yet. He had once declared that he was prepared to go dirty like a pig playing inside gutter to be able to realise his ambition of ruling us. Thus far he had spent heavily to bribe delegates during the APC National Convention in Abuja. Even if Lucifer must be consulted Asiwaju is prepared to do so in order to trounce the opposition!
Though Atiku reportedly outspent Asiwaju in terms of ability to ‘buy’ delegates in an elaborate show of dollar-rain the campaign leading to the presidential election announces itself on the horizon as one to be gruelling, tasking and tough. Asiwaju Tinubu and Atiku have many questions to be answered in order to convince the electorates to cast their votes for them. Incumbency factor or broken broom or divided umbrella cannot help out here!
The former Lagos State Governor had declared in Abeokuta arrogantly that it was his time or that of his tribe (Yoruba) to produce the President post-Buharism. Where that leaves the Igbos is left in the realm of imagination. If justice and equity should be applied in the search for who succeeds Buhari next year then politicians of every hue ought to have queued behind Igbos to produce the next President. But Nigeria is a nation founded on fraud and injustice. And inequity!
Yet in as much as one is for the Igbo presidency in deference to the signs of the times ethnicity is secondary in our estimation as to who replaces the underwhelming retired Army General from Daura. Nigeria as presently constituted has endured fundamental national damage orchestrated by the Fulani gang in power overseeing a surrogate presidency.
Questions of probity, integrity and accountability would continue to follow Atiku and Tinubu wherever they go during the campaign. Atiku has to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that he is, indeed, a Nigerian and not a Cameroonian as some of his traducers alleged. He has to debunk the allegations that he was fantastically corrupt while serving the nation as a former Customs boss and Vice-President under Olusegun Obasanjo. Again, beyond playing soccer for some minutes, he must show us evidence of his sound medical history.
Tinubu, on the other hand, must dispel rumours that he is suffering from a terminal ailment by presenting a credible medical report to the contrary. He must prove that he actually went to primary and secondary schools. Hiding under the claim that certificates obtained during the academic periods were ‘stolen’ or missing would not help his cause. The Asiwaju has to come clean about his real age. And his real names!
He must answer probing questions about how the internally-generated revenue in Lagos is being managed or mismanaged. How he has managed to impose Governors on Lagosians for decades on end. How and why hoodlums and thugs continue to be associated with him. He must explain how ‘bullion van’ diplomacy became part of his profile! How he became stupendously rich by the strength of his systematic graft and maneuverings.
Asiwaju Tinubu who is ‘blessed’ with the power of the tongue must tell us why he described the presidency as a job not meant for grave-diggers and brick-layers. Of course he was right in his description as no artisan (brick-layer or mortician or grave-digger) ought to have any temerity to want to be President. When one belongs to the analphabetic club (s)he should know their place in the society.
Asiwaju Tinubu was right that the presidency is a thinking job. But what he failed to mention was that it was not a job for the indisposed or mentally or physically challenged. Tinubu may put his thinking cap on upon gaining access to Aso Villa but he is mentally and physically challenged, nay diminished. The same thing applies to Buhari who had made London a regular visiting place for medical tourism. We do not need another ailing leader who would jet off in a jiffy to check out the other medical thing in a foreign hospital.
We need a President who will be patriotic and foresighted enough to build a state-of-the-art world-class hospital capable of treating all maladies in our shores. We need that President who will not be junketing all around the world in search of solutions for their deteriorating health challenges!
Politics is not meant for the illiterate even though Nigeria had had the history of producing one or two at the Government House. Remember the late Aliyu Sabo Bakin Zuwo? He was once a Senator and was elected Governor of Kano State in October 1983 holding office briefly until the military coup on 31 December 1983 that brought General Muhammadu Buhari to power.
When asked by journalists about the mineral resources in his State the barely-educated Chief Executive had responded by citing “Fanta, Coca-Cola etc!” We have since produced other illiterates and semi-illiterates ruining our collective national life as a people under siege. They could be found presently in the National Assembly and other high offices.
For President Buhari, himself accused of belonging more or less to the unscholarly fold, once you can speak Hausa or Fulfude then Western education can go to hell! Once you are from the north and a Muslim then academic credentials have little significance!
Upon his emergence onto the national stage following the palace coup against the then President, the late Shehu Shagari, Buhari was tough on corruption and indiscipline. 3.4 million Naira was said to have been found ‘stacked up’ in Zuwo’s home in Kano when it was searched by the then military government! In 1985, a Special Military Tribunal found Zuwo guilty of three charges and sentenced him to prison.
Kano State has made ‘history’ in Nigeria as a place where corrupt elements are produced. Yet it boasts of a massive electoral value nationally! The late brutal dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, was from Kano. He stole billions of Dollars from us during his dictatorial madness. ‘Abacha-loot’ has had different episodes spanning decades! Now, you have a sitting Governor of the State who was caught stuffing millions of Dollar bribe inside his ‘babanriga’! Abdullahi Ganduje is very smart when you watch the viral video depicting his high-wire corruption.
But the long arm of the law has yet to catch up with him. He has connections in high places! And he had the gubernatorial temerity to depose the former Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi! Sanusi as the former Central Bank of Nigeria boss and world-class intellectual the Gandujes of this world, academic lilliputians et al, cannot afford to co-exist with the radicalism espoused by Sanusi.
Today, Asiwaju Tinubu is in good books of Ganduje or vice versa. Wherever he went Ganduje and the former APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, are following behind. Ganduje and his wife were rewarded recently with a chieftaincy titles in Yorubaland! And Asiwaju was there to eulogise him! Ganduje and Comrade Oshiomhole may be given Ministerial or Ambassadorial jobs upon ‘Emi-lokan’ clinching the presidency.
Whatever happens Asiwaju Tinubu must know that he is campaigning for a tough job his physical and mental attributes may not support. The late ex-President, Musa Yar’Adua, died on the job because Nigerians ignored or were forced by the imperial Obasanjo to ignore his terminal ailment. Never again should such presidential infirmity, nay tragedy, happen to us.
We wish Asiwaju Bola Tinubu sound health and longer life!
SOC Okenwa
