OPINION
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| Femi Aribisala |
Instead of investing in the future of Nigeria, the only real
investment taking place now is towards the hegemonic control of the country by
a small segment of the population for the foreseeable future.
Let me re-introduce myself in case you have forgotten. I
have been an implacable critic of the politics of Bola Tinubu. Among
others, I have written articles against Tinubu entitled: “What Does Tinubu
Want?” “Time to Get Rid of Tinubu’s Cronies;” “Time to Disgrace the South-West
Godfather;” and “Don’t Cry for Bola Tinubu.” I stand by every one of
those articles even though the warnings I gave in them went largely ignored.
Although many Tinubu supporters don’t seem to realise this, my
opposition to Tinubu was not personal. My opposition was based on the
grounds that Tinubu’s politics was shortsighted. In that regard, my
position has been proved right. The strategic political objectives of
Tinubu were unattainable and have not been attained.
In the first place, Tinubu’s recent politics were designed to
make him a key player at the national level as he has been at the regional
level. He really wanted to become the vice-president of Nigeria.
This has proved unattainable, and we warned him about that. Most of his
so-called friends at the national level are fair-weather friends. They
never really liked him and were afraid of him. Under no circumstances
would they allow him to duplicate his stranglehold on South-West politics
outside the South-West.
The reality of Tinubu’s politics in Nigeria is that he can be a
king-maker but will not be allowed to be king. The best Tinubu has been
able to achieve has been to nominate a vice-president who, to all intents and
purposes, is not even a major power-broker in government. As
vice-president, Professor Yemi Osibajo has only succeeded in being a fall-guy;
for the collapse of the naira and for the failure to date of the 2016 budget.
In the second place, the strategic design of Tinubu’s politics
was to make him a power behind the throne at the national level. This
objective has also proved to be a pie-in-the-sky. Since becoming
president, Buhari has largely ignored Tinubu’s counsels. Not a single
Tinubu nominee became a minister in the president’s cabinet. Those who
made it from the South-West were deliberately the people he did not want.
Tinubu nominees failed to make the position of Senate president
or Speaker of the House of Representatives. The APC has also failed to
make Tinubu Chairman of its Board of Trustees. To date, Tinubu has no
statutory post in the party he midwifed. The party chairman, thought to
be a Tinubu man, has been bought over, so much so that Tinubu is now asking for
his resignation; but to no effect.
Having used Tinubu to win the election, he has been dumped like
a used rag. It was because we anticipated this reversal of fortunes, that
some of us were loud in warning Tinubu in the heady days of APC
coalition-building. It was in that context that I later wrote my article
saying: “Don’t Cry for Bola Tinubu” on the grounds that he deserved what
happened to him. We warned that this would happen but he refused to
listen.
But now times have changed. The bombastic change platform
on which APC fought and won the election has failed to materialize. The
change we are now facing is one far worse than anything hitherto
experienced. It is absolutely incredible that, in spite of the
grandiloquent promises made during the 2015 election campaign, the dollar is
now exchanging for the naira on the parallel market at virtually 500 to
1. Like the naira, the Nigerian economy is in free-fall, going from bad
to worse.
But another change has also taken place and this one is
political. It is finally apparent to Bola Tinubu that his friends in the
APC are really not his friends at all. That is why he has now complained
publicly and resigned as inconsequential “National Leader” of the party.
Having used him to achieve their ends at the polls, his fair-weather APC
friends have now indicated they are not merely interested in dumping him, their
plan is to decimate his ranks and render him powerless. They are now out
to use their new-found vantage point to attack him in his hearth of the
South-West and to split his coalition by sponsoring those in opposition to him
and, if necessary, by rigging them into power at his expense.
Given this development, this is not the time to tell Tinubu “we
told you so; we warned you but you did not listen.” This is not the time
to say: “Don’t Cry for Bola Tinubu.” This is the time to cry for
Tinubu. As a matter of fact, this is the time for all true progressives
to rally round Bola Tinubu. The reason for this is simple.
Now that Tinubu has hopefully learnt his lesson, he should be
more open to those of us who he thought were his enemies in the past but should
now realise have always had his back. Tinubu should now be more amenable
to wise counsel. Now that he has resigned from the honorific, but
irrelevant, title of leader of the APC, he should start making plans to
extricate himself from the APC altogether. At the very least, he should
leave no one in doubt that he would not be taken for granted by leaving the
door open for a realignment with a more agreeable coalition as the APC begins
inevitably to unravel.
The nullification or dilution of Bola Tinubu’s power in the
South-West, at this juncture of Nigeria’s economic hopelessness, renders
Nigeria at the mercy of Abuja incompetence for the foreseeable future.
Since coming to power, President Buhari has been unapologetic about the
Northernisation of the Nigerian government. He has completely jettisoned
any pretensions to the principles of federal character but has placed
Northerners in every strategic sector of the government. This is part of
the rationale behind the resurgence of pro-Biafra agitators, as well as the
emergence of the Niger-Delta Avengers. In the process of consolidating
the North, the agenda is now to decimate the South-West. This should not
be allowed to happen.
At the moment, Nigerian democracy has no opposition; which is
why nobody is complaining about the disastrous collapse of the naira and the
adverse economic climate. The government is even floating the idea of
further increases in the price of petrol, and nobody is up in arms. The
PDP is at war with itself, and the cynical anti-corruption campaign of the
government has been used effectively to silence it. That is why the
burgeoning attack on Bola Tinubu deserves a rallying response.
Progressive Nigerians should not allow anyone in these climes to
make a fool of Bola Tinubu. We must help him to consolidate and even
enhance his position. At strength, Buhari can only be a one-term
president without Bola Tinubu. All Tinubu needs to do is to start making
plans to form another alliance that links truly progressive Northerners with
those of the South-West, South-East and South-South. The possibility of
that happening should give him a new fillip. At the very least, it would
put him back into reckoning, ensuring he can only be ignored at great cost.
Without Tinubu, Buhari would not be the president of Nigeria
today. Buhari’s wife, Aisha, acknowledged as much after the 2015
election. Without Tinubu, Buhari would not have secured the presidential
ticket of the APC. Without Tinubu, Buhari would not have had the
semblance of widespread national acceptability. Without Tinubu, Buhari
would not have had the funds to mount a national campaign. Without
Tinubu, Buhari only obtained 370,000 votes from the entire Southern Nigeria in
the 2011 election. Without Tinubu, Buhari has no political future; unless
the unproductive hegemonists currently ranged against Tinubu succeed in turning
him into a toothless bulldog.
Therefore, I insist, this must not be allowed to happen.
This is the time for all truly progressive people, North and South; East and
West to rally to Tinubu’s support. Let us forget the past; even the
immediate past. In politics, there are no permanent enemies and no
permanent friends. Let us be united in one purpose; the unity of Nigeria
is paramount. Nigeria should not be conceded to hegemonists. It is
now abundantly clear that those that have clamoured for power for long and have
now attained it have no clue what to do with it; other than to put their
kinsmen and family members in key positions, while the nation’s economy has
gone to the dogs.
We must not be in any doubt as to what is going on now.
Instead of investing in the future of Nigeria, the only real investment taking
place now is towards the hegemonic control of the country by a small segment of
the population for the foreseeable future. This is not only
anti-democratic; it is anti-Nigeria. It must be resisted politically with
wisdom and clear-sightedness. It must be resisted adroitly by the
formation of a new, truly national non-sectarian coalition that stretches
across the Niger. In this design, Bola Tinubu would be invaluable once
again as one of its principal architects.
Equally important, the South-West must learn from the past when
Akintola was used to divide it from Awolowo. That kind of history must
not be allowed to repeat itself. From my point of view, the bottom line
is as follows. My democratic instincts have always made me opposed to
Tinubu’s status as the godfather of South-West politics. But under the
present circumstances, I would rather have Tinubu as the godfather of
South-West politics, than have Buhari as the godfather of South-West
politics. To the extent that a Tinubu can never be the godfather of
North-West politics, then Buhari must never be the godfather of South-West
politics.
THE NAIRA HAS GONE BANANAS
I walked into Dream Plaza, a supermarket in Victoria Island,
Lagos recently and a Lebanese man handling the pharmacy beckoned to me.
He wanted to know what is going on in Nigeria. I was puzzled because the
man lives in Nigeria. Why is he asking me? What do I know that he
does not?
He went further. “Do you know,” he asked, “that this
morning the naira exchange-rate for the dollar is now 492?” I did not
know and was shocked to hear this. “What are you going to do about it?”
he asked. What can I do? I thought. He went on: “Why are Nigerians
not saying anything?” “Why is there no reaction?” “Why is everybody
keeping quiet?”
I did not know what to tell him. Neither did I know what
to do. But I knew the situation is already untenable. How low, in
fact, is the naira going to fall? Are we just going to keep watching
until Nigeria becomes another Zimbabwe or another Venezuela? This
situation has gone far beyond partisan politics. It is abundantly clear that
those currently charged with the handling of the Nigerian economy are currently
out of their depths.
Now is the time for all good men to stand up in defense of
Nigeria. This is the time for a government of national unity. We
cannot just keep silent and allow Nigeria to go to the dogs.
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