Wale Alonge
Asiwaju Tinubu made a costly tactical error in his Abeokuta declaration. He might have intended to make it the coming off of the gloves in his disdain and frustration with Buhari’s opposition to his presidential ambition, but it’s execution couldn’t have been more amateurish. Instead of exuding confidence, Tinubu appeared more like the heavyweight champion Mike Tyson who cornered by the barrage of Holyfield fistful pounding, lashed out in frustration and fury to bite off his opponent’s ears.
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One of the political strengths of Tinubu is his reputation as someone who brings in and mentors politicians from across Nigerian ethnic divide into higher office. He diminishes himself if he anchors his mandate not on his political strengths as a detribalised political achiever, but as an ethnic candidate seeking the presidency as the anointed and entitled Yoruba candidate.
He also sounded desperate, egotistic, condescending, and entitled when he described his political protégés as the babies he has been carrying for decades and now it is his turn to take the presidency as his entitlement. It just didn’t come out right. I am sure his team is on high damage control effort especially with the northerners who accompanied him on this disastrous outing. By speaking in Yoruba surrounded by his northerner supporters and making a dig about not begging Buhari for Fura, a popular dish in the north, he might unwittingly have made this a Yoruba versus northerners fight. An argument he would lose because all indication is that Buhari is supporting another Yoruba candidate, even though many have argued that it was part of Buhari’s strategic plan to pave the way for another Fulani presidency in Atiku.
But for me, Buhari wouldn’t have been President-Tinubu
Tinubu also made a huge mistake by overplaying his kingmaker role in installing Buhari as president. First he didn’t make any news or added to his political arsenal with that declaration because everyone already knew his role in cobbling together the coalition that produced the APC and catapulted it as the first opposition party in Nigerian history to dethrone an incumbent. More importantly, history is replete with many kingmakers whose heads have ended on a platter of silver at the the behest of the kings they helped to install. Politically, by overplaying his kingmaker role in Buhari presidency, not only did he remind Nigerians that he Tinubu was a major player in foistering the disastrous Buhari presidency on them, he has now taken his fight to the hornets nest of Buhari. Politics is a game of addition, in which one tries to consolidate one’s base without turning the opposition into a virulent enemy. Buhari might arguably be the most unpopular president in our lifetime,but he is still a formidable political foe one does not want to anger unnecessarily. In politics the strategic imperative is to keep your own people close to your chest and your opponents close enough so that you can carrel them to your corner.
Three days in politics is an eternity, so it is too early to count out Tinubu, but his frustrated outburst in Abeokuta was totally unhelpful to his cause.
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