Ex-CBN dep gov: Some people want to use and crush Tinubu

Obadiah Mailafia, a former deputy governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), says there are some unidentified people who want to use Bola Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos state, and “crush him.”

In an interview with PUNCH, Mailafia said though, Tinubu could discern talents and mentor them to leadership roles, he has been “abjectly naive.”

The former deputy governor of CBN said this when he was asked to comment on a statement credited to Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, on zoning arrangements for the office of president.

Mailafia described the governor of Kaduna as “a man of ambition who is susceptible to grand self delusions of the order of Bonaparte.”

“The 1999 constitution does not require ‘zoning’ as such. However, I believe that evolving constitutional conventions and norms lead us ineluctably in that direction,” he said.

“Governor Nasir el-Rufai is evidently a man of ambition, and often susceptible to grand self delusions of the order of Bonaparte. Obasanjo in his memoirs describes him (el-Rufai) as someone who is loyal only to himself.

“At a dinner lecture in Lagos recently, he fired salvos at the lion of Bourdillon, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The latter, we all concede, has this extraordinary clairvoyance and percipience for identifying talents and mentoring them for leadership. But Jagaban Borgu has been abjectly naïve.

“He does not know that they just want to use him and crush him. He would be wise to be wary of those whose traditions of rulership allows them to give their daughter to you in marriage only for the sole purpose of finding out your innermost weaknesses, the better to destroy you.”

He said it appears that Tinubu does not seem to understand “the kind of political animals he is dealing with.”

“He doesn’t realise that the game-plan is to exploit to the fullest his political and financial capital and to forebear with him until such a time as they are in a position to run him aground,” Mailafia said.

He added that Tinubu has the right to aspire to become president but “the north will not relinquish power any time soon.”