“Politicians and diapers
must be changed often, and for the same reason.”—Mark Twain.
In the last one
month, the eyes of the nation was fixated on Lagos
 |
| *Jide Sanwo-Olu, Bola Tinubu and Gov Akinwunmi Ambode |
With this in the know, coupled with the financial
wherewithal of Lagos which could make even the least skillful occupant of the
throne claim some glory from the people, Ambode, in a hubristic fashion wore
the cloak of invincibility, deluding himself that should worst come to worse,
the party would fear the backlash a move that could deny him a second term
would generate.
But the event
of last Tuesday showed otherwise. Rolling in delusive grandeur, Ambode
overrated himself. Followers of
Armed with
this, Ambode thought he could overcome the tide as did his predecessor,
forgetting that even as corrupt as we’ve come to see Fashola’s administration,
his performance in almost four years mirrors to the people as a decline from
what they witnessed during the Fashola years. Fashola took over from a man
whose only reason for becoming governor was, perhaps, to eat beyond fill and expand his
sphere of influence at the expense of the masses. Fashola had the audacity to
put up a mild rebellion while he held sway because he measured and knew the
pulse of his subjects. They observed him in the dark, behind a motorcycle
inspecting a road project; they witnessed his modest strides in healthcare;
they saw him take charge when a deluge almost capsized the entire state. The
man was so ubiquitous that workers feared he held strange abilities that could
make him appear and disappear at will.
But Ambode is
none of these. He possesses a first class degree but not a first class brain.
This is why even in the midst of plenty, he has shown a lack of grasp of the
most fundamental problems the state confront, from education through healthcare
to the security of lives and property. Every neighbourhood in Lagos still has a
private vigilance team lest they lose sleep; quackery is on all time high with
helpless Lagosians finding solace in local herbs to cure themselves; classes
are overcrowded, with schools not only grappling with understaffed, over-worked
and underpaid teachers, but lack of infrastructure; the state continues to be
run under the umbra of the people’s consciousness against the pronouncements of
the appeal court which ordered that its finances especially in education be
made open.
In the over
three years he has been on board, Ambode has demonstrated an incapacitation at
elevating governance in significant ways. Instead, he creates more problems for
the state, chief amongst them, the making of the state into a vast refuse bin.
In defiance of Robert Greene’s law, he stepped into a great man’s shoe, hoping
to come out in praise. Having lost the heart of his gluttonous party members
whose delinquencies are ever exemplified by an appreciation of self at the
expense of the collective, he thought his plight could resonate amongst the
people whom by all indications have become poorer and more desolate via the
lethal combo of his and Buhari’s incompetence. Armed with this knowledge,
Tinubu knew his ousting was a walkover.
Ambode deserves
no pity. Like the playboy who returned to heaven from whence he came, he is
supposed to be bade farewell, for his travails presented the millions of
oppressed people of Lagos Lagos
Since the
beginning of the year up until the first week of September, one cannot but
succumb to the sight of acclaimed members of the APC preaching the Ambode
gospel, informing us how he was the best thing after ice cream. They shared his
supposed achievements on social media; an online friend posted a flyer on his
timeline aimed at organizing a Walk for Ambode alongside his preferred local
politician. Not a few fought tooth and nail to become heads of the re-election
committee of the Ondo-born Lagos
Should these
subservience of independent thought processes be retained till election day,
culminating in the triumph of Sanwo-Olu, the people should not look upon God to
come to their rescue when the newbie finds it impossible to give what he does
not have; for in the final analysis, we shall all realise the folly in
deploying our mental faculties to creating strong men at the expense of strong
institutions. Bola Tinubu did not become this monstrous all by himself. The
people made him. The same can be said of Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim
Babangida, Goodluck Jonathan, Olusegun Obasanjo, Bukola Saraki, David Mark
and other analogue men who are responsible for the sorry situation the country
finds itself.
This lackey who
was brought from nowhere is a disaster waiting to happen. Since he came into
prominence, he has come to be seen as a colourless character whose résumé
hardly convinces one that he fits into the office the people unthinkingly
advances him for. His public appearances present him as fake. His speeches are
bland. The APC fancies him as a harbinger of the future because theirs is a
tomorrow of a different course from ours. The future the APC hopes Sanwo-Olu
will make bright will only make ours worse. This is a naked fact which the APC
shamelessly acknowledged itself. Its leader, Bola Tinubu, told us he withdrew
his support for Ambode based on his deviation from the master plan he birthed.
In his characteristic self-conceitedness, he marginalized the future of a state
to his questionable worldview. As we’ve come to know, Tinubu’s master plan is a
feeding-bottle arrangement that keeps the state vault open for himself and
cronies. Joe Igbokwe was more revealing of the intents and contents of this
master plan, alluding the governor’s defeat at the primaries to his
non-committal to making elections carnival-like.
Hear him:
“Anytime we would have elections in my ward or polling unit, they would have a
carnival and we would cook for them. We celebrated like we were all poor; we
would sit under the canopy and drink. We would vote and dance. These things are
not happening any longer.
“Sometimes,
people would run to you and say, ‘I need money to pay my children’s school
fees.’ These are things we were doing before; we can’t do that anymore because
you can’t get anything from the system. I tell you that it’s difficult for me
as the publicity secretary of the APC in this party. I was poorer in the past
three years than what it used to be in the last 16 years. I am not saying I
should be given all that we were given in the past, but at least, we played the
politics. We listened to the people. We shared ideas and we gave people
attention so they could talk to us. People feel happy when you relate to them,
pay attention to details.
“When you find
yourself in power, you look to those downtrodden people. These are the people
that matter; they are the people who vote. Big men don’t vote. Big men don’t go
to polling booths. It is ordinary people that vote, especially women. With Gala
and a bottle of Coke, they will vote for you and they will be happy. These
things are nothing. That is somebody that will come out and stand in line for
hours. Majority of the people that vote don’t have anything. If you empower
somebody, who is a relation of somebody, a whole family has been empowered. All
these things are just about playing the real politics. Politics is all about
people, especially the downtrodden. You can’t dismiss that with a wave of the
hand.”
Ambode could
not have lost his bid for re-election for underperforming for it would have
extended a similar fate to President Muhammadu Buhari and others like Yahaya
Bello of Kogi who are epitomes of mediocrities. He lost not because he was not
beholden enough to vested interests but because his transducers saw a whiff of
soul in him—a trait godfathers have come to see as being responsible for their
declining control over their subjects.
Lagosians must
tell Tinubu that his master plan is personal to him and his family by embarking
on a process that would guarantee the birth of theirs. While we await that,
every slave master that is responsible for planning backwardness in our country
must be sent into political oblivion. A master plan that sees the likes of
Tinubu send his children to school overseas is not ours; a master plan that
makes Tinubu convert state properties to his is not deserving of our adoption;
a master plan that bequeaths six new cars to Tinubu every three years, a house
worth N500m/N700m in Lagos/Abuja, a blank cheque at our expense for his
healthcare and those of his household all because he “served” Lagos for eight
years does us no favour. Lagosians should ask Bola Tinubu why he brags about a
master plan that made Lagos
The people must
repudiate any slave that seeks to advance this silly plan of his master should
they hope to exit what the pragmatic philosopher, Frantz Fanon in The Wretched
of the Earth called “a world of underdevelopment, a world of poverty and
inhumanity”. Sanwo-Olu should be the first victim of this mass-based
repudiation to pave way for the young, vibrant and sophisticated souls that
have summoned courage to take their country back.
*Modiu can be
reached on dprophetpride@gmail.com
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