Why Tinubu is being ‘bannonized’

I don’t think any presidential candidate in the history of Nigeria has been vilified as much as Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the flag bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Aside from Nigeria, I don’t think any presidential candidate in any of the prominent countries in recent history has been attacked with so much viciousness.

Donald Trump versus Hilary Clinton comes close. In the United States, ahead of the 2016 presidential election, there were campaigns to stop her from becoming the first female president of the country. Steve Bannon, from whom I coined the term ‘bannonized,’ was employed for that hatchet job. And he did it very well.

He is an American media executive and political strategist who was hired by Trump for the sole aim of mudslinging. He threw so much dirt at Mrs Clinton that it almost became part of her. The term ‘crooked Hilary’ became like a slogan of the supporters of Trump. Bannon once said that ‘’my goal is that by November 8, when you hear her name, you’re gonna throw up”. It is the same thing that the Nigerian version of Bannons seeks to do to Tinubu. They want to make him a pariah. They want people to hiss whenever they hear his name.

It’s obvious they are out to tarnish the image of Jagaban and they are succeeding. Before his interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in December, the Nigerian Bannons were in control of the narrative. The word out there was that “Tinubu was avoiding interviews because of his incoherence”. But after that interview, the narrative changed a bit.

Some people are asking: What could be responsible for this level of campaign of calumny against him?

In the BBC interview, the former Lagos governor himself said: “I’m the frontrunner, that is why I’m getting many arrows”.

Apart from being one of the major contenders like he said, political seasons in Nigeria are usually toxic. Attaining the highest office doesn’t come on a platter of gold. It’s a season of insanity. It’s a season of fighting dirty. You would be told how your mum conceived you if you choose to run for the highest office in the land.

A mountain was made out of his reliance on ‘teamship’ for interviews and meetings. Well, there is a saying that you are only as good as your team. And I think Tinubu knows that to perform very well in any facet of life, you really need a good team.

Tinubu emphasizes teamship, something he demonstrated in his best outing in my opinion. If he has a team just for answering questions in public, discerning minds believe that he would definitely have a team when it comes to governance. His antecedent and his current moves suggest that his team would be given free hand to carry out their duties. And the array of intellectuals around him gives a ray of hope to some who are sitting on the fence in regard to the election. As I mentioned earlier, you are only as good as your team.

I think Tinubu is one man that many people, including some elites, can’t imagine becoming president. Their source of worries is like a tree with many branches. They are afraid that someone who is fully aware of what power is, wants to become president. They are afraid that a man who is wealthy wants to become president.

How do you bribe your way into becoming a political appointee if the man at the helm of affairs is said to be very rich and more concerned about the competence of the appointees rather than their financial status? How do you control someone who was not only governor of Lagos but holds sway to date as his successors are members of his party? They think he is already too powerful as it stands. They can’t imagine someone like him wielding almost absolute power come May 29, 2023.

Also, he has not been forgiven for the fall of President Goodluck Jonathan. He was the leader of the forces from all walks of life that drove the greatest upset in Nigerian political history.

While Jonathan’s campaign was floundering, Buhari’s campaign ahead of the 2015 election was the height of his populist movement that had been building up in the north for years, and Tinubu knew that teaming up with Buhari was all that was needed to be done to win and cement his place in history as one of the people who brought about ‘change’.

He has said so himself that he is after a good legacy. He wants to leave his name in the footprints of time as one of the best presidents in history. Not an easy feat to achieve given the circumstances but also not impossible. Nigeria is endowed with human and material resources. What is lacking is the personnel to tap those resources.

To be honest, apart from a few persons like Theresa Tekena, many of the APC youths on social media aren’t doing a good job in trying to promote Asiwaju. They try to go lower than their main online opposition (OBIdients) instead of winning people for Asiwaju in a civil way. It was almost getting out of hand until the likes of Bayo Onanuga and Dele Alake came on board; two men with many years of experience under their belts. Onanuga’s statements have won over some people I know who were on the fence. Alake, on the other hand, announced his arrival on the scene via a space he hosted on Twitter a few months ago (last year).

In that space, he talked about Tinubu and his antecedent and was able to win new supporters for his principal.

To cap it all was Tinubu’s BBC interview. It was a pivotal moment. A moment of brilliance.

No one can promote you like yourself. Tinubu with that interview was able to dispel rumours of not being able to answer questions himself. It was a relief for many of his supporters, an eye opener for many of the sceptics, and a blow to many of the members of the opposition who ran with the narrative that he lacked the intellect to be interviewed by local news outlets. Well, they don’t come bigger than the BBC.

But a question that’s on the lips of many people is: How did Femi Fani-Kayode get into the picture despite his destructive method of campaigning? In the build-up to the 2015 general elections, he was one of the major people who made the average southerner believe “APC is a replica of the Muslim brotherhood party in Egypt” with the sole aim of ‘islamizing’ the country. FFK being part of your team is a setback. The man has used unprintable words to describe Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar (who has been civil throughout this campaign) and especially, Datti Baba-Ahmed, Obi’s running mate. The fact that FFK was given a prominent role in Tinubu’s campaign given his antecedent, is something a lot of decent people are grappling with.

For Tinubu, the 2023 election is a race against naysayers. A race against the constant mockery of him and his family. A race against the narrative of not having regard for Christians due to the Muslim-Muslim ticket. And last but not the least, a race against underdevelopment: which is of the utmost importance to Nigerians.

Mohammed can be tweets @Yusufwrites