Editor’s note: Ini Akpan Morgan, Naij.com’s guest columnist, wonders why anyone would try to tarnish the reputation of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, given his political legacy. Share on FacebookShare on TwitterBola Tinubu It is a confirmed fact that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s political sagacity cannot be rubbished, indicted or impeached. I daresay that amongst all the politicians in this country, none of them compares to the Asiwaju. “Nothing compares … Nothing compares to you uh…” I cannot defend the accusation that Bola Tinubu is corrupt because I have a naturally-induced limitation as to see a man like God sees him. This is the reason I cannot defend Tinubu from his accusers. But the recent praise-singing by DAAR Communications PLC, credited to this Nigeria’s political idol, one standing like Nebuchadnezzar’s towering image of the Danielan era, shows how intimidating a political lord he is. I think those who dare him should know how to position themselves without prostrating to lick their vomit. Like I said earlier, the Asiwaju’s alleged corrupt disposition remains only in the imagination of his political opponents. But one thing is clear: from the time he voluntarily resigned his headship of the audit secretariat of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited to contribute to the political development of Nigeria, in spite of the pleadings by his superiors and friends alike, the Asiwaju has not looked back. He remains deft, committed and bulldozing. The rise of Bola Tinubu Let me briefly defend my position on him being, for me, the only politician who has shown cause and interest in advancing and deepening Nigeria’s politics, and, in effect, suggest how his selfless, committed struggle and contribution to the mission to make Nigeria great rule him out from the class of the average Nigerian politician. So, to some level of human conviction, I have accepted the honest truth that it is hard to accuse the Asiwaju of corrupt practices and find the evidence to support such accusation. No be today e start na! Apart from his being the overall head of audit of MPN, and a brilliant one at that, Bola Ahmed grew up under the investment tutelage of an astute business giant, Hajiya Abibat Mogaji, the late legendary Iya oloja of Lagos state, who also happened to be his mother. Even as a management staff of Mobil Producing, he nursed and nurtured diverse business interests. Bola Ahmed is also one politician who did not touch Nigeria’s wealth before venturing into politics. Neither can anyone point to who can honestly lay claim to being the Asiwaju’s political godfather. He appeared upon the political turf in Nigeria as a development partner of the late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, the father of modern politics in Nigeria, standing alone. As we proceed, I will however expose Shehu’s leadership strides and his pan-Nigerian disposition. Taller Bola Tinubu came on to the Nigerian political terrain in the aborted Third Republic, wielding enormous wealth which measured up to the same level of the sponsorship of Shehu in the now-defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP). It was at this time that those who foreran our political system before his emergence saw what a political colossus he would become. That was when people like Atiku Abubakar and Babagana Kingibe were running errants for Yar’Adua as “boys” while Bola sat as Shehu’s political strategist. One thing testified to this fact: as the 2003 presidential election approached, with the National Assembly already inaugurated, it was the aspiration of the Asiwaju to seek the office of the Senate president. Let me at this point stress the contribution of Shehu to the national positioning of the present political ideology of “rotation” and his signature upon it. He nursed being president of Nigeria but when Ibrahim Babangida barred his interest, it was his idea to shop for a presidential candidate from the South-West, the situation that birthed what is known to us today as the June 12th mandate. He was not like the usual Nigerian politician who would have insisted that, because he could not run, another Northerner should replace him. What Bola suffered in the course of his aspiration of becoming Nigeria’s vice president last year, because of the the unfortunate notion that some section of Nigerians cannot accept a “Muslim-Muslim ticket” from the APC, was the same fate he suffered in 1992, when he was coasting home as Nigeria’s Senate president. Bola was accepted by the SDP leadership to be their Senate president should the party win the Shehu Yar’Adua’s presidency. The time came, and Yar’Adua had to shop for MKO Abiola, who came into the presidential race late, a feat he achieved because of the death of Simbiat, his wife, who insisted that it would be over her dead body that her husband would play Nigeria’s politics. The SDP leadership then persuaded Bola to drop his ambition of being the Senate president because Nigerians cannot accept to locate the presidency and the Senate presidency in the South-West. In terms of political sacrifice, a phrase both Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara hate to hear, Bola Tinubu stands waist taller than any Nigerian politician. Like the Christian lexis “… as it was in the beginning, so shall it be now…” Just like Bola single-handedly made Yemi Osinbajo the incumbent vice president, presently the acting president of Nigeria, so did he single-handedly install Iyochia Ayu as our Third Republic Senate president. Selfless fighter There is so much more to tell about this selfless politician. As a member of the SDP, he was the second biggest contributor to the party — without access to government money. During the tyrannical regime of the late Sani Abacha, when many respected Nigerian politicians were endorsing Abachs as the “only one whom the cap fits,” Bola, together with the late Alfred Rewane and others, raised a civilian army in the defunct National Coalition for Democracy (NADECO) to fight Abacha’s dictatorship. He funded Radio Kudirat and deployed the reverred Professor Wole Soyinka as the voice behind it, a lesson Radio Biafra did not learn from: the voice behind that radio is mediocre. The entire world took the message of that radio station seriously. Today, we cannot tell how Abacha died in his sleep but we are sure it was the work of mercenaries. To the credit of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, we had a vibrant deepening of the political party systems of this country. No individual politician has founded and successfully nurtured three political parties in one dispensation as he has so far done. Apart from being one of those who, with Bola Ige, founded the Alliance for Democracy (AD), he single-handedly raised the Action Congress (AC) to resist Olusegun Obasanjo from taking Lagos state into the PDP, and he came out victorious. Since then, the Afenifere, the Yoruba cultural organization, lost its glory, and as at today, they have become a part of the goat herds that eat Nigeria’s yams. Bola and the APC We all know the spirit behind the APC and the emergence of the present administration. Bola does not have a godfather, but I am one who believes that Bola has raised political children, like the incumbent vice president, and politically breast-fed president Buhari at a point. His political offsprings are some of the best hands Nigeria has, except for prodigal sons like Musiliu Obanikoro, who is a trained “finger-biter” of people who feed him. Muhammadu Buhari has been an opposition candidate that failed at three presidential elections. Before his third attempt, in 2010, Bola Tinubu, Bisi Akande and Lai Mohammed visited Buhari in his Kaduna residence to sell the idea of a mega-party merger that could wrestle the soul of Nigeria from the witchcraft of the PDP. At the end, Buhari refused to negotiate and, as Bola and company were leaving, Bola said to him: “Sir, you cannot be president with votes from the North only”, and Buhari replied: “Let me see to that myself”. By the time he “saw,” he announced his retirement from partisan politics. He lost every hope he had, but Bola did not. In 2012, the three wise men from the West returned to Buhari. This time Nasir El-Rufai was injected into the team as a pacifier. Buhari, who they knew has never gone and may never go back to his vomit, had to be sedated with the breast milk from Bola’s political boobs. When he woke up from that sleep, Buhari quickly denounced his retirement, approved the mega-party merger and endorsed Bola as his vice president in the assembly of five men. The rest is our recent history. Let me defend my consideration of Buhari’s strong disposition to stand by his words and my alluding the denouncement of his retirement. An instance in Buhari’s life shows how he would rather choose to die that eat back his words. In 1981, Hussein Hibre, the the military ruler of Chad, annexed a part of Nigeria around the lake Chad basin for military operations. This happened during the Second Republic when Shehu Shagari was president and General Gibson Jalo was chief of defences staff. Both men had instructed the general officer commanding the 3rd armoured division of the Nigerian Army, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, to invade the Chad basin and push out the enemies. On the day of his inauguration as president, when he moved the military command centre to Maiduguri, Buhari did the same thing he had done in 1981. He moved his men from Jos to Maiduguri, with himself leading from the front. One of the things he did when he got to Maiduguri was to close down the border to prevent food and fuel from entering Chad. In Shagari’s opinion that was harsh on the civilian population of Chad and he directed General Jalo to instruct Buhari to reopen the border. In his response to this directive, Buhari clearly told Jalo to tell President Shagari that he would not lead his men out to defend Nigeria with their lives then turn to feed his enemies and fuel their tanks to attack his team. He refused, and nothing happened. He completed his assignment quickly, opened the borders and returned to Jos. Buhari pushed out both Shagari and Jalo and became head of government. This is the man Bola talked into eating back his words. Tinubu, Awolowo’s heir So why should the DAAR Communications PLC dare such a man? I was looking forward to their proving Bola’s corrupt tendencies in court, but I now know better. The letter Ray Aleogho Dokpesi approved for DAAR Communications PLC confirms everything I have deposed in this piece. I am now left will awaiting the case of Bukola Saraki at the Court of Conduct Tribunal. I pray the CCT will retract their charges against him and publish a retraction à la DAAR Communications PLC. I rest my submission on the bastion of the legacy of the late sage, Obafemi Awolowo. What Awolowo left behind, Bola Tinubu accomplished. Today, an Awolowo is acting president over Nigeria, like his patriarch. Bola has made Awolowo rest in peace, as it were. Share on FacebookShare on TwitterAuthor, Ini Akpan Morgan Ini A. Morgan is a Port Harcourt-based architect, writer and public affairs analyst. He is married with children.
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