Tinubu, Osinbajo- accusations of betrayal and the feeling of self-entitlement as state craft

BY GODSON O. MONEKE

Prof. Yemi OSINBAJO (GCON) and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed TINUBU are household names in the Nigeria political space. While Prof. Osinbajo is the elected Vice-President of Nigeria, Asiwaju Tinubu is a prominent leader in the governing APC. As the Vice-President, Prof. Osinbajo is the number two person in the current National Order of Precedence and it is certain that in all protocols arrangements, after the President, the Vice-President comes next. Although Bola Tinubu is generally acclaimed as the National Leader of the governing APC, I do not know how he figures out in the National Order of Precedence because the APC Constitution only recognizes the President as the Leader of the party.

Yemi Osinbajo orchestra rolls out in style

Therefore the title, National Leader of the APC which Bola Ahmed Tinubu bears is only used to humor him because it is not only unconstitutional going by the party’s written rules, regulations and constitution, it is nebulous and lacking in substance. It goes to show the arrogance and self-conceitedness of Bola Tinubu to allow himself to be sarcastically humored by such a vacuous and non-existed title as national leader of APC which is supposed to be used exclusively to address the President produced by the party. It smacks of indiscipline and absolute lack of respect for the Office of the President for him to choose to answer the same title which exclusively belongs to the President and Commander of the Nigeria Armed Forces of Nigeria produced by his party.

What betrayal is in the political portmateau of Tinubu/Osinbajo It is unfortunate that his handlers who are mostly sycophants failed to advise him all along that it was impolitic and rude of him to accept to be called by that title, National Leader of the APC in obvious spite of the sitting President. There cannot be two masters in any space and it is foolhardy to belittle the sitting Vice-President of Nigeria for being fiercely loyal to his boss, the President as is expected of him. I have always cautioned against party members destroying themselves during internal primaries thus making the work of the opposition party easier during the main elections. Therefore, I won’t be surprised at internal FALSE FLAG OPERATIONS and other MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION TECHNIQUES because our politicians never learn.

Slandering Osinbajo with dubious parallelisms

The fact that the man is very unassuming does not give Asiwaju Tinubu and his political apparatchiks the license to address him in any condescending manner. He is the country’s number two man for crying out loud. His declaring to be the next President of Nigeria does not stop anybody including Tinubu from having similar ambition. Where is this accusation of betrayal coming from? Did Nigerians reserve the position for Tinubu after Buhari’s turn? If it is true, then Tinubu should not worry since it is the same Nigerians who hitherto reserved the position for him that will decide who will be the President. It is then much ado about nothing to keep on bashing and harassing the Vice-President for exercising his constitutional rights. The impression I get from these noises is that Tinubu and his handlers are frightened by the declaration of Prof. Osinbajo to succeed President Buhari as the next President when the position becomes vacant at the end of his tenure. But then, there are other party members who are equally interested in becoming the next President of Nigeria. Does Tinubu now consider the VP his most formidable opponent in APC who must be destroyed for him to shine?

Yemi Osinbajo orchestra rolls out in style

It may be true that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu suggested Prof. Osinbajo’s name to then Candidate Buhari as optionB when his pressure to be the running mate to then Candidate failed. Asiwaju Tinubu is a desperate and selfish politician, he did this to Atiku under the former AC and to Buhari under the APC. He has always believed that a Muslim-Muslim ticket will fly in a religiously sensitive country like Nigeria so long as he is on the ballot. He conveniently forgets that the Abiola-Kingibe case was different and only happened because Nigerians were ready to condone some excesses just for the Military to leave the scene of governance. As political leaders, we should allow national interests to supersede our personal interests but it is not so with Bola Tinubu and his hangers-on do not see anything wrong with this mindset. To them, Bola Tinubu is infallible and anything that he wishes is alright even when as a human being it might be self-destruct. This is the danger in surrounding oneself with sycophants as a leader. They are never bold enough to tell the leader the bitter truth in order not to incur his ire. It is important to stress that there is nobody in this world who was not assisted by somebody else to attain his or her present station in life. That person could be your parents, relatives, relations or even complete strangers. So the habit of carrying as a trophy, the fact that you assisted somebody to grow at one or more stages in his journey of life is otiose. To expect such a beneficiary to be perpetually slavish and subservient to you and your household is to play God which is unacceptable. It diminishes the beneficiary and disrespects his personality when you go about telling everybody that you were the person who influenced or appointed him in a certain position. Whatever happened to humility, simplicity and modesty which are attributes of great men? When has loquaciousness become a virtue?

This writeup has nothing to do with the suitability or otherwise of either of the dramatis personae for the position being vied for. I am only against efforts by Bola Tinubu and his confederates to muscle Prof. Osinbajo out of a contest he has declared interest in as bonafide Nigerian. I am aware that apart from the VP, many other stalwarts of APC have indicated interests in the same position. So head or tail, Bola Tinubu must stand a primaries election in the party. Even in the Southwest geopolitical zone, there are still others coming out to vie for the same position. So why focus on the VP with the intention of intimidating and blackmailing him out of the race? It is important for aspirants to note that extreme popularity in the native geopolitical zones can not win one an election, aspirants require to be acceptable in other geopolitical zones to succeed. If Bola Tinubu is as strong as he claims to be, let him stand a free and fair election and clinch the party ticket. Anything short of that is rabble rousing.

How can somebody in his right senses say that a sixty something year old Vice-President who indicated interest to succeed his boss after his tenure has betrayed another sixty something year old megalomaniac who is nowhere near the seat of power? Who is actually betraying who here? The Vice-President cannot be said to betray a private individual in eying the position of the President. As a matter of fact, if Bola Tinubu is not self-serving in his politics, he should be supporting the Vice-President to become the President and not the other way round. It is arrogant and amounts to playing God for Bola Tinubu to attempt to shunt the queue and declare interest in becoming the President in spite of the Prof. Osinbajo who is the Vice-President. .

Would Bola Tinubu have been Governor of Lagos State were it not for the influence and intervention of the late Abraham Adesanya, Bola Ige, Reuben Fasoranti, Pa Adebanjo and the other heavyweights of Afenifere. Was he not defeated by the late Funsho Williams in the AD Primaries until the results were overturned by the Afenifere leaders? How is Bola Tinubu treating the Afenifere leaders without whom he would not have been what he is in the current Southwest politics? Did he not betray all of them and tried to make them irrelevant? Is he in talking terms with Pa Adebanjo, one of those instrumental to his becoming the governor of Lagos State? You see, when one wrongly points an accusing finger at a perceived adversary, his four other fingers would be reminding him of his ugly past. A deeper study of the above personalities and their political odysseys would reveal who between the two is a serial traitor and betrayer. I do not see any betrayal of Tinubu in what the VP has done unless you can show the world a signed pact between the two that Prof. Osinbajo would not pursue a higher aspiration in which Bola Tinubu shows interest. The VP’s readiness to compete with all oppositions cannot be a betrayal of Tinubu because Tinubu is not the only contestant in the field. People should desist from using words loosely, carelessly and inappropriately.

I believe that Bola Tinubu is qualified in his aspiration which he calls a lifelong ambition but it must not be at the expense of other people who equally have their respective ambitions. Granted that Bola Tinubu added some political values to the lives of his many protégés and ipso facto expects some loyalty from them, he must understand that other people people also added values to his political life too or has he forgotten? As the late Gen. Abdulkarim Adisa once said, LOYALTY IS NOT A ONE-WAY TRAFFIC and is never commanded. You don’t take it for granted, you must continuously nurture and service it to make it available to serve you when you need it. As people are loyal to you, they also expect same from you. It is a symbiotic relationship and must flow both ways. Bola Tinubu does not believe in the two-way definition of loyalty as according to him, loyalty must be to him and to him alone. This explains why he is fast losing his erstwhile loyalists, some of who are now his sworn enemies. Mr. Fashola was his Chief of Staff and he later made him governor. What was his tenure as the governor of Lagos State like? Was he allowed the freedom to operate and given the freehand he deserved as governor? When Ambode was chosen to succeed him as the governor of Lagos State, was it not done to spite Fashola considering the frosty relationship between them and how Ambode left the Lagos State public service as the Accountant-General of Local Government in the State? What was the negative and bad press given to Mr. Fashola to stop him from being appointed Minister in Buhari’s Government intended to achieve? Dr. Fayemi was a loyalist of Tinubu and what is the relationship now? Why did Olusegun Mimiko refuse to collaborate with Tinubu despite the assistance Tinubu gave him to retrieve his mandate as governor of Ondo State? What is Tinubu’s relationship with his number one loyalist, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola like today? Mr. Ambode was the Governor of Lagos State until he was humiliated out by Bola Tinubu engineered forces. Is that how to sustain loyalty? Take a look at the various fates of other former loyalists and show how they now see Asiwaju Bola Ahmed TINUBU, their erstwhile boss? How come that it is Tinubu alone that determines whether the Lagos State Governor is entitled to a second term of Office and not his performance as Governor according to the people? The Lagos State Governor today does what Tinubu wants and not what the voters want. So long as an action pleases Bola Tinubu, the Lagos State Governor must do it whether the Lagos State voters want it or not. Let INEC conduct a free and fair election in Lagos State so that water can find its level.

The fact that somebody was your junior at one stage in life does not mean he cannot be your superior at a later stage. That is why the cliché NO CONDITION IS PERMANENT is rife. The fact that Prof. Osinbajo was the Attorney General to the government of governor Tinubu does not mean that Prof. Osinbajo cannot be the President of Nigeria over and above Tinubu later in life. Tinubu would not have risen to where he is without the support and hard work of these able lieutenants. It has never been a parasitic relationship. Some were his foot soldiers while others were the intellectual powerhouses and think tanks. Why is Tinubu humiliating them one after the other? Does he think that such strategy will endure? The fact that I am your driver today does not mean that my children will equally be drivers to your children tomorrow. It doesn’t work that way. For example, the Ooni of Ife has a father and an elder brother both of whom are still alive. Did they stop him from becoming the Ooni when the gods chose him? Muhammadu Buhari is today the President of Nigeria, was his father the President of Nigeria? Why would Tinubu want to cage somebody’s destiny because he did him a favor at a stage in life, is he God? Those who are egging him on should stop this nonsense because PRIDE GOES BEFORE A FALL!!!