Toxicity Of Tinubu’s Lagos Politics

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

As I reflect on the happenings in Lagos State since the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections, I cannot help but see the spectre of the 1994 Rwanda genocide unfolding before our very eyes. In the years leading up to the 1994 genocide, the Hutu-led government used all its propaganda machinery to spread bigotry and hatred against the Tutsi, painting them as a threat to Rwanda, exactly the same way a section of the Lagos community is inciting hatred against Ndigbo, portraying them as enemies of the Yoruba.

*Tinubu and Sanwo-Olu in Landon
“For genocide to occur,” Kennedy Ndahiro, Rwandan journalist wrote on March 13, 2014, “it must be preceded by the dehumanisation of a group … dehumanisation removes the individuality of a person. There is no difference between the group and the individuals. When done well, pity for the 'other' becomes impossible and extermination becomes the natural next step.”  In the last three weeks, Ndigbo have been grossly dehumanised in Lagos. They have been portrayed as ungrateful migrants – never mind that they are Nigerians – who want to appropriate Yoruba heritage. 

Gov Akeredolu Has A Duty To Arm Amotekun

 By Rotimi Fasan

In the recently concluded three-part series on the candidacy of the Labour Party presidential aspirant, Peter Obi, I highlighted the problem posed by our unitary form of government that is disguised as federalism, as the main obstacle that a Nigerian president in the post-Muhammadu Buhari era must surmount to be successful.

*Akeredolu

This form of federalism, warped, cumbersome and anti-progress, is bound to destroy the best effort of any potentially successful Nigerian leader, if it does not lead to the destruction of Nigeria as a state.  The truth of that observation is again manifest in the declaration of the Ondo State governor, Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu, to arm Amotekun, the regional security outfit of the South-West states that has had its most successful operation in Ondo State. 

Between Garba Shehu And Southern Governors (1)

 By Dan Amor

There are rumblings or discontents in Nigeria following an exchange of diatribes between Malam Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, and Chairman of the Southern Governors Forum and Governor of Ondo State, His Excellency Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN. Ever since the 17 Southern Governors met in Asaba, Delta State on Tuesday May 11, 2021, and took a collective position on the state of the nation, presidential aides, especially Garba Shehu and the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, have been fuming and hurling mud at Southern Governors with reckless abandon. 

*Gov Akeredolu of Ondo State 

First, Southern Governors stand for the unity of Nigeria. To reinforce that unity, they agreed that the country should be restructured. The governors also wanted Nigerians to come together to talk about their country and its future. They wanted President Buhari to drop his overwhelming nepotism and respect or address the overall essence of the Federal Character Commission in appointments into federal institutions including the national security architecture.

The “Oshiomhole Must Go” Coalition

By Reuben Abati

Chief John Odigie Oyegun, former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) must be having a good laugh wherever he is. If he is just finishing a meal, he can afford to pick his teeth and belch from the deepest part of his biological system, and even turn up his nose as he asks for a glass of water. He can also look around and thank Karma for being kind to him, as he gulps down the water and reflects on the circumstances of the APC since he was shunted aside and Adams Oshiomhole, former Governor of Edo State and former labour leader, supplanted him.

Oyegun’s waterloo was the election in Ondo State and the emergence of Rotimi Akeredolu as Governor, and before then, his power-tussle with some key stakeholders in the South West wing of the ruling party. Oyegun was accused of being disdainful of reconciliation within the party, and not willing to work with some prominent stakeholders. He was seen as an obstacle to party cohesion. He was sacrificed. His place was taken by Adams Oshiomhole.

Tinubu And The Paths Once Travelled

By Debo Adesina

As All Progressives Congress (APC) governments at all levels in many places, not all, strike a pitiable or pitiful sight, it is impossible not to be overwhelmed by emotions.

So much goodwill, so much hope, so much disappointment and, now, so much anger! All within two years!

*Bola Tinubu

But blame the people first.

The climate in which the party thrived ahead of the 2015 elections was only genuinely ripe for deceit and empty promises by any candidate who could successfully inflame emotions, escape rigorous scrutiny even as he basked in ignorance of or poor preparation for the enormity of the task ahead.

Having been short-changed by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for 16 years and particularly the Goodluck Jonathan-led brigandage, the people had every cause to abandon reason and hold on to emotions, such fertile breeding ground for gullibility.

Houses for all who had no shelter. Money for those who were out of jobs, for widows and the disadvantaged. Abundant life for the weak and vulnerable, the APC promised it all.

But what could compel disbelief more than the promises the party made then? What should have set the alarm ringing that Nigeria was in for a fantasy ride into fallacy than the promise of millions of jobs in a year? Should the promissory note on which the idea of social security-like payments to the poor was written not have been trashed by a discerning people? What could be less convincing than the avowal of true federalism in the manifesto of a party whose leading lights shunned the finest attempts yet at beginning the journey as represented by the 2014 National Conference?

Under normal circumstances, such promises as APC made would have been subjected to the most rigorous interrogation by the media and the people. But such was the incompetence of the then government and the odium of its ways that the more unbelievable the alternative was, the greater its appeal.

More importantly, that alternative had a political master gladiator as its leading salesman.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu had long established himself as a smart political tactician and grand strategist long before he teamed up with Muhammadu Buhari for the 2015 presidential election. He ran a good shop in Lagos, laid a good foundation for its development and entrenched a succession scheme that has worked very well so far. He perfected the art of surrounding himself with the best and the brightest and had constantly expanded the pool of talents from which he has always picked the most suitable for any assignment.

Why Bola Tinubu Must Be Rescued

By Ochereome Nnanna

It is obvious now that, for the first time in his illustrious political career, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, the much touted National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has fallen into a political ditch. He needs a helping hand to get out fast. If the APC manipulates itself to victory in Ondo State (by using the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the Judiciary to ensure that a fake candidate, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim, stands for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP), it might signal the end of the Tinubu political saga in the South West. 

*Tinubu and Buhari 

Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, masquerading as the APC that won the general elections last year will have two states in the zone (Ondo and Ogun) in its kitty. Being the party in power, and with the Tinubu loyalist governors in Oyo and Osun not eligible to run again, Buhari can use the same INEC, Judiciary, Directorate of State Services, DSS, and the “may-my-loyalty-never-be-tested” former Tinubu boys like Babatunde Fashola to make a grab for the rest of the South West come 2019. If that happens, the pro-Caliphate, Kaduna Mafia Arewa North led by Buhari would start calling the shots in the politics of the South West on their terms, and no longer in alliance with a “homegrown” political leader of the zone. 

That will bode very ill, not only for our democracy that thrives better on inter-regional alliances (which was what brought Buhari into power) but will entrench Buharist Northern domination; a recipe for national instability and eventual disintegration. Buharist Arewaism (coded into his 97%/5% parasitic formula for the distribution of the Nigerian commonwealth) has been on open display since he assumed power on May 29, 2015. It has shown itself in the manner in which the Federal Government was formed, the deployment of the security agencies, the repositioning of the top echelon of the Federal Bureaucracy, the denial of the South the right to produce the substantive Head of the Federal Judiciary (the Chief Justice of Nigeria) and in the way the INEC has been robbed of its Jonathan-era independence. 

It is also manifesting in the Islamisation of Non-Muslim communities in the Middle Belt and South by armed Muslim militias masquerading as herdsmen, the frequent abductions of under-aged Christian girls by emirs and Islamic clerics who promptly marry them off to themselves or other Muslims without the consent of their parents, the manner in which “blasphemy” murder suspects are being set free when the law enforcement agencies bother to get them arrested and tried; and the way the Federal Character principle in the constitution is contemptuously ignored while a brash reign of nepotism is plunked down the throats of Nigerians. Who knows in what other forms we will be seeing it in the years to come?