Tinubu in the eye of history

During the days of struggle against military rule in Nigeria, President Tinubu was the beneficiary of a well packaged media campaign which portrayed him as an icon of the National Democratic Movement (NADECO). He was before then a little known provincial politician from Lagos and the fact that he bore the famous Lagos/Abeokuta name ‘’Tinubu’’ also helped him to progress steadily in the often tempestuous nature of Lagos politics. And as is well known, famous surnames matter a lot in Lagos society. Thus the bearer of unmistakeable Lagos names like ‘’Alakija’’, ‘’Kosoko’’, ‘’Dosunmu’’, ‘’Oshodi’’ ‘’Tinubu’’ ‘’Adele’’etc with the historical significance attached to the names is given some deference.    

BAT (some nickname!)as he was popularly known from his initials of Bola Ahmed Tinubu was a political protégé of Prince Ademola Adeniji Adele (son of Oba Adeniji Adele of Lagos) the late former Chairman of Lagos Island Local Government who himself was an associate Epe-born Chief Dapo Sarunmi, the head of the Primrose Political Movement in Lagos.

He began his trajectory into elective politics as one of the Senators representing Lagos state     under the Babangida military political engineering structures. And with the annulment of the June 12 elections, he began his political activism by immersing himself into the nationwide June 12 struggle championed by NADECO. When General Abacha who took over from Babangida muscled out the Ernest Shonekan led Interim Government and subsequently reneged on an alleged agreement to hand over power to Chief MKO Abiola the winner of the June 12 elections, Tinubu fled to exile abroad from where he continued the June 12 struggle.

It was from exile that he helped financed the struggle for democracy in addition to maintaining a team of media influencers within and outside Nigeria to favourably package and present him as one of the icons of NADECO. And it was from this vantage position that enabled him to become the Governor of Lagos state when Abacha passed on and a new civilian political dispensation commenced in 1999.

In the course of Tinubu’s tenure as governor, when the first harsh glare of his academic records and his activities and lifestyle while sojourning in the United States of America came to light, Tinubu’s well packaged public image as a hero of democracy by his team of media influencers robustly came to his rescue. Chief Gani Fawenhimi the irrepressible popular late legal luminary and social activist who first broke the unpalatable past academic records and lifestyle of Tinubu abroad found himself under all kinds of verbal assaults from Tinubu’s media hounds. Fawehinmi was threatened and subjected to vile verbal lynching and even physical assaults for exposing the ugly past of Tinubu. Thus Tinubu escaped the necessary public scrutiny that would have allowed Nigerians to know and take a definitive decision on his eligibility to hold public office as happened to the Speaker of House of Representative Salisu Buhari who faced similar public scrutiny, ironically brought to public notice by Tinubu’s media honchos. The same people who opened Salisu Buhari’s ‘’Nyansh’’ per his academic records to the Nigerian public, robustly helped covered that of Tinubu in the Nigerian public space on similar issues.

If this media hypocrisy and propaganda had not intervened to save Tinubu, Nigerians would have known who Tinubu really is as opposed to what was presented to us of him by his team of well-paid media influencers. And perhaps the electoral authorities as well as the Judiciary and responsible Nigerians and the country at large would have come together to decide his political fate in compliance with the time-honoured principle of enlightened self-interest.

But due to the dubious deployment of media hype and packaging, Tinubu was emboldened to continue his political trajectory to the point where he has now become self-evidently the clearest danger not only to our democracy but to the country as a whole.

This became evident from the first moment Tinubu took office as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria when without any preambles and necessary consultations with stakeholders he undertook a series of harsh economic and social policies that have had the effect of impoverishing Nigerians. Since then his subsequent policies in that direction had not been to mitigate the effects of the situation as Nigerians have called on him to do but to rather exacerbate them in a devil-may-care posture.

But perhaps the most damaging of Tinubu’s policies are in the political arena where he has been engaging in the systematic desecration of the democratic political structures that have carried us this far into our democratic journey. In his bid to advance his personal political interests, Tinubu has constricted the political space in his ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) reducing it to what an insider calls the ‘’Asiwaju Political Congress’’. Tinubu has also cultivated the likes of Nyesom Wike who is a member of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to destabilize the party thereby denying it the opportunity of playing the role expected of it as a legal and constitutional recognised opposition. President Tinubu has also been linked to the series of crises rocking the Labour party as well which has rendered it almost ineffective.

There are also incontrovertible grounds to believe the widespread allegations that President Tinubu has emasculated the Judiciary and Legislature, the two constitutionally recognised independent arms of government from the informed opinions of legal experts and public affairs analysts on the judgements and rulings of the courts as well as the resolutions and bills passed by the National Assembly.

President Tinubu has not restricted his interference to the Political Parties, the Judiciary and National Assembly alone. He is seen interfering and influencing in the political affairs of states not as an arbiter guided by the principles of fair resolution, but to advance his personal political interests in flagrant disregard to constitutional and legal provisions.

This is what Nigerians have observed in President Tinubu’s recent declaration of state of emergency in Rivers state. The intervention was not only decidedly partisan; it flouted the constitutional and legal provisions of the decision. President Tinubu cherry picked the clauses that which gave him the power to so intervene but deliberately ignored the more important constitutional conditions which stated notwithstanding he had no power to suspend the Governor, his deputy and members of the state house of Assembly all of whom were elected, as he did in his declaration.

Several constitutional and legal experts as well as commentators on public affairs have pointed out that the declaration amounted to a coup on democracy and that President Tinubu had set a dangerous constitutional and political precedence where states like Kano and Osun and God knows which other states would have to be visited with such measures as they also have similar issues of contention with the federal government. It portends a dangerous political situation where we might not only end up with several states under emergency rule, but hundreds of elected officials rendered suspended.

In the light of these developments Nigerians are asking, was the Tinubu who purported fought for democracy in the days of yore doing so for the reasons of restoring the rule of law as we were made to believe, or was he just using the opportunity at the time to plot his way to power especially as he is seen now inclining towards becoming a political despot?

The travails of Shettima

Let us face it that in any political system, the Vice President is as is often said ‘’ a spare tyre’’. The VP is elected on a joint ticket with the President who is his principal, and has his or her functions recognised and clearly spelt out in the constitution. But in practise, the VP can only exercise his powers as far as the president allows him.

Political correctness may not allow Allanguburo Shettima to say it, but presidency insiders say he has been relegated to the dog house in the presidency and his job is now shared between Chief of Staff Gbajabiamila, First Lady Remi Tinubu and First Youth Seyi Tinubu.

It will not come as surprising because in his days as governor, President Tinubu used three deputy governors; Kofo Bucknor-Akerele, Femi Pedro and Abiodun Ogunleye.

Gadu can be reached via [email protected] and 08035355706 (Texts only)