Story by Razaq A. Jimoh, Toyo C. Ngem and Omotoyosi Hakeeb
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| Copy of the magazine's edition |
“No matter what anyone may say about me, it is unlikely that I can be accused of supporting incompetence or morally lightweight individuals for important political positions. My philosophy is to put the best forward; men and women of competence and integrity, who can stand up to us - the politicians - to challenge us and say no when necessary. Such people are not noisy or able to gain attention by being loud. I believe my role is to do all I can to project them” -- Bola Tinubu
THE contest for the office of National Chairman of
the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2014 was between Chief John Odigie
Oyegun and Chief Tom Ikimi. It was like a drama of the biblical script of the
bout of David with Goliath in metaphorical sense.
The
renowned Chief Ikimi had stamped his footprint in large mark on the canvass of
Nigerian politics at the time. His intimidating credentials included being the
National Chairman of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) of the
Third Republic botched by the regime of Military President Ibrahim Babangida.
He became the Foreign Affairs Minister in the Administration of General Sanni Abacha that continued the military rule after Babangida stepped aside from his self created political impasse.
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| Chief Tom Ikimi tackled Tinubu |
Chief
Oyegun, on the other hand, was a little known bureaucrat; a retired Permanent
Secretary from the Federal Civil Service. But he turned out to be a tiny needle
too dangerous for the fowl to swallow. Oyegun trounced Ikimi in the contest and
became the first elected National Chairman of the APC.
Consequent
upon this, Ikimi took a swipe on Tinubu, blaming him for his loss. The
disgruntled Ikimi claimed that it was Tinubu that decimated his aspiration by
“imposing a political novice” on the new party as National Chairman.
He
asserted that given his political popularity, he would have won a free and fair
electoral congress as the best candidate the party's top shots have recognized.
But he regretted that Tinubu's support for the winner undermined his
popularity.
Tinubu also decided to reply him on the strength of his rights to a choice and how he had exercised that right against the fluid of political chicaneries. In that reply, Tinubu claimed to have adopted the principle of war against the chicaneries that had regrettably distributed charlatans into the positions of authority in Nigeria. He thus revealed what had become his political philosophy as a mission to reverse the debauchery.
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| Chief Oyegun became APC Chairman |
My
philosophy is to put the best forward; men and women of competence and
integrity who can stand up to us (the politicians) to challenge us and say no
when necessary. Such people are not noisy or able to gain attention by being
loud. I believe my role is to do all I can to project them”.
However,
the journey to this stage should be an enthralling narrative readers should not be
denied here. In fact it is the clearing ground to understanding the effect of
this philosophy to the making of Buhari’s Presidency.
Indeed,
observers of the trending events of political history in Nigeria then were
quick to wonder from Ikimi's political profile, where the meeting point of
Ikimi's political ideology with Tinubu's lied to warrant Ikimi expecting
Tinubu's support in such a high politically sensitive election.
In
history, and from the observable idiosyncrasies of Asiwaju Tinubu, his politics
had always been diametrically opposed to chief Ikimi's.
Until
that time, Tinubu had always exhibited politics of principled convection with
his guard always alert to independent mind set for outlook on altruistic social
value of politics. But Ikimi had a track record of politics of convenience with
his guard always alert to the whims and interest of the establishment.
The
fact of this comparism is not farfetched from their respective roles in the
Nigerians' struggle to retire military from the country's politics. In line
with his loose mind for politics of convenience, Ikimi endeared himself to the
wishful tool of manipulation designed by the embattled military authority to
perpetrate itself in politics.
His
romance with the military governments of the era paid off for him; thus making
him a stout defender of the despotic killer regime of General Sanni Abacha
before the international communities as then Foreign Affairs Minister. For him,
it was indeed an onerous task of shielding the Abacha's killings of the
pro-democracy agitators from being condemned by the foreign communities.
On
the other hand, it is an open knowledge to the Nigerian public that the
democratic credentials of Asiwaju Tinubu was buoyed at incipient with his stout
principle of anti-military rule campaign that ultimately earned him a life in
exile when that despotic regime of Abacha marked him down for extermination.
With
the advent of this Fourth Republic, Tinubu and Ikimi did not debut their
respective participation in politics on the same ideological platform. Ikimi
started with the conservatives' platform, widely acknowledged to be a political
relic of the exiting military politicians for successional stake in the new
democratic dispensation. That party, as the identity sustains to date, is the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Tinubu nevertheless pitched his tent with the progressives, also acknowledged to be the political clan of the anti-military rule agitators. The successor party identity was Alliance for Democracy (AD). He so remained and sustained his building of the progressives' platform towards the enviable national positioning that would later stand the competition for powers at the centre.
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| Atiku and Tinubu formed the Action Congress (AC) |
Based
on this development, political pundits were caused to divide into two schools
of thought on what should be the supposed ideology of the new party – AC.
One
school described it as an attempt to refine the ideological cleavage of
Nigeria's opposition democracy into its sharp clarity of the conservatives and
progressives. This argument was premised on the pedigree of Atiku Abubakar as
of the progressive membership in the botched Third Republic's Social Democratic
Party (SDP) to which Tinubu also belonged as a Senator of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria.
Atiku's
PDM caucus of the time was therefore believed to have been the progressive
caucus that diluted the concentration of the PDP conservative ideology in this
Fourth Republic. Thus to say the emigration of Atiku camp from the PDP to mix
with the Tinubu's faction of the AD to form the new AC was considered to be a
new a pure breed of the progressive camp.
But
the other school of thought considered the new AC as yet another marriage of
the incompatible Tinubu's pure progressive breed with the Atiku's crossed–bred
progressives. Of course, this description of Atiku's camp in AC as impure breed
of the progressives was informed by its composition of Chief Tom Ikimi. This is
because Ikimi's Third Republic NRC was indeed a strong part of the wholesomely
PDP’s conservative ideology. Thus to say this, along with other renowned
Ikimi’s pedigree of romance with the military, made the potential taint on
whatever integrity the new party - Ation Congress - could have to flaunt with
Tinubu's visage of principled politics of altruistic mission. Added to that was
also Atiku's baggage of thoroughly damaged integrity with which he exited the
PDP to settle in the AC. Therefore,
the coming of these two (Atiku and Ikimi) to align with Tinubu was held to be a
curious amalgam with the Tinubu's clear political profile that rose on
trajectory course from his thorough demystification of President Obasnajo's federal
powers with which Atiku yet acquired his burden of integrity taints.
The
latter school of thought was to be later vindicated, as hostility soon busted
out between Ikimi and Tinubu.
Shortly
after the 2007 general elections in which the AC fielded Atiku Abubakar as its
Presidential Candidate, Ikimi was believed to have raised the dust in a manner
that would fuel his suspect as a leopard that never changed its skin. A national daily had published a supposedly false
claim purported to have been made by Tinubu.
Purportedly
quoting Ikimi to have told its reporter, the newspaper wrote that Tinubu had
threatened to leave the Action Congress (AC) for the PDP if Atiku did not drop
his petition filed at the Presidential Election Court against the victory of President
Umar Yar'adua in the 2007 presidential election.
With
Tinubu reacting to the publication as malicious commentary from Ikimi, the
stage was set for hostility between the two front line politicians. And given
the historical events of then nascent 8years of opposition democracy in which
Tinubu had clearly cut the visage of a promising opposition leadership to the
ruling PDP, knowledge of the whole truth about the issue was a desirable
political benefit to Nigerians.
For
those who could discern the bloody nose PDP had suffered from Tinubu's
political sagacity, Ikimi's purported commentary had simply raised a curious
poser that agitated their discernible minds to a quest for the truth: that is
if indeed any thought of carpet crossing could have ever crossed Tinubu's mind,
much more a defection to the party he had serially defeated at electoral and
legal wars. And if this was never so thoughtfully mentioned as purportedly
offered to the press by Ikimi, it queried to what purpose he (Ikimi) would have
contrived such fallacious idea for media feeding?
These
posers particularly took cognizance of Tinubu's successful trouncing of the
PDP's presidential might at the time. Back on ground in the like of stylish
easy pin fall of a wrestling bout – foot on chest, he held down the party's
leader, President Obasanjo, for a victorious pose after the 2007 general
election. This was despite that Obasanjo had earlier declared the election to
be a mother of all electoral wars with military code as “Operation Totality”.
Unfortunately, the National Chairman of AC, Chief Bisi Akande, denied Nigerians access to the truth. He deployed his characteristic diplomacy to clear the hostility off the media radar. He blamed the animosity on communication gap between the duo, which, according to him, was being mischievously filled by malicious media on pay roll of the ruling PDP.
The
conclusion of analysts was that this order perhaps killed the manifestation of
truth. In their view, this would have come out in the form of either Ikimi
denying being sources of the comments, given its weighty implications to his
integrity if indeed the media had only bandied lies in his name. Or he
maintained a grandstanding.
Both
Tinubu and Ikimi nevertheless remained members of a new progressives' party,
Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) which another political exigency caused to
evolve from a death of the AC.
The ACN, as observers noted, was an ingenious move by Tinubu to purify its progressives' base with the pure visage of his ideology and leadership integrity. It was this clear cut leadership that gave Tinubu the stride to cede the presidential candidacy of ACN to the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, in the 2011 general election.
This followed the first but botched attempted alliance of the Northern and Southern progressives' camps against the PDP that was already looming larger than life. The new ACN also gave Tinubu a greater fiefdom and open stride to lead the party in company of the party Chairman, Bisi Akande, into another process of alliance talk with the Buhari's Congress of the Progressives Change (CPC).
This
latter alliance talk resulted to a proposed formation of a unified progressives'
party by the name All Progressives Congress (APC). While Akande was to be the
protem Chairman to drive the process, Tom Ikimi was given the Chairman of
harmonization committee.
It
was the new party's arrangement that zoned the first National Party Chairman to
emerge from the Niger Delta geo-political zone that set the stage for the
electoral contest between Chief Ikimi and Chief Oyegun as discussed above.
The
import of this narrative is to establish the testimony of Chief Ikimi to
acknowledgment of the successful leadership positioning and succession praxis
of Asiwaju Tinubu.
In
other words, Ikimi gave the credit of Oyegun's emergence as the pioneer elected
National Chairman of APC to the hi-wire political savvy of Tinubu, but not with
accolade of his enthrallment with it as enviable appreciation. It was a spit of
boiling anger with effusing malice for the kingmaker. He openly acknowledged
that Tinubu decimated his aspiration by 'imposing political novice on the party
as National Chairman'.
To
enhancing his acknowledgment of Tinubu's superior sagacious gaming in political
intrigues, Ikimi added that he would have won as the best candidate the party's
top shots have known, but regretted that Tinubu's support for Oyegun undermined
his popularity.
Chief
Ikimi thereafter decamped from APC to PDP only to realize that his political
fortune had actually been fated to commence a slip into the abyss of perdition
when the APC eventually sacked his party of political refuge from the powers of
presidency and his home state, Edo, remained in the active governance of the
new APC six years after he denounced his membership of it.
However
with an oxymoron of bitter sweet tale of Oyegun's epoch of the APC
Chairmanship, observers have had cause to query if Oyegun could ever be
described as a success story in the praxis of Tinubu’s leadership positioning.
This came on the strength of the APC National Executive Committee (NEC) that
caused to deny Oyegun's bid for second term on the consensus that adjudged him
to have failed in providing the right leadership for the new party.
But a section of them tried to exonerate Tinubu from this on the excuse that Oyegun simply failed to purge himself of the culture of sly associated with the profession of bureaucrat he brought to bear in the management of political party. they argued that he failed to realise that political terrain is itself the natural community of deceits and cultural ambience of unremorseful treachery.
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| Tinubu and Buhari going for the Alliance of the progressives |
The significance of this corridor is to see what
scientists describe as a control measure of an experiment meant to establish
the theoretical fact of a seemingly hypothetical praxis of the Tinubu's
leadership positioning and succession planning.
What is to be discernible from this nexus of Buhari's
serial contest for the office of the President is the veritable measurable
outcome expected to see if, indeed, Tinubu had any scientific formula for
applying the right mix of essential variables required to achieve his serial
successes in his leadership positioning praxis.
The side of President Obasanjo's consideration for Buhari in 2017 was given by Dr. Ali M'ahmoud when he responded to el-Rufai's Harvard Term Paper written on President Yar'Adua in 2009. He wrote thus:
The
truth is that two key events paved the way for the emergence of Umaru Yar'Adua
as the President of Nigeria in May, 2007. The first is the total political
decimation of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar by his former boss,
President Obasanjo. The rubbishing of Atiku Abubakar was schemed out, funded
and executed by mainly the duo of El Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu. And please it must
be noted that Nasir and Nuhu moved against Atiku Abubakar in order to please
Obasanjo. Atiku Abubakar almost single handedly brought both El Rufai and
Ribadu to lime light during the Obasanjo years. But because of political
exigencies, they sacrificed their mentor.
In the war against the former Vice-President, the ‘team of technocratic reformers’ saw a window of opportunity to impose one of their own a member of the team on Nigerians as a possible successor to Obasanjo. Being himself foxy and crafty, President Obasanjo sensed the ambition and direction of these Turks in his government. The old fox gleefully nudged them on. It was convenient for him to keep them blindly loyal in the very important bid to halt Atiku Abubakar's bid for Presidenc
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| Obasanjo said Buhar was no |
The
colossal failure of the third term bid and the apparent elimination of Abubakar
from the succession ladder created a sudden vacuum. It suddenly dawned on
Obasanjo that he had not given the issue of a successor a thorough thought.
Worse still, the very crafty Obasanjo, whose original plan was to have a southerner succeed him knew that any attempt in that direction would back fire, given that the North would then perceive the persecution of Atiku Abubakar as just a ploy to push a seemingly qualified northerner off to pave a way for another southern President.
In
frustration, Obasanjo was known to have confided in a few people that he had
not met any one yet that was qualified to succeed him! He equally confided that
Nuhu Ribadu suggested General Muhammadu Buhari, the Presidential Candidate of
the opposition All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). While conceding that Ribadu's
suggestion was not bad, Obasanjo, as gathered, lamented that Buhari may not
want to cross to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and also complained
that Buhari may be difficult to market in the southern parts of the country.
As further learnt, Nuhu Ribadu co-opted El-Rufai in the quest to have Obsanjo back Buhari for the Presidency. Of course this did not work out.
But
eight years after, the Buhari Obasanjo claimed to be an unmarketable political
product was to become Tinubu's practical challenge in his commitment to the
mission of positioning good leadership. Nevertheless, there was no doubt that
he saw it as a dangerous political risk he was willing for an adventure.
And
why was it such a high risk? The AC by its replacement with ACN had made a
success story of growth from the 2007 and 2011 general elections when six
states of the Southwest geo-political territory had fallen back to their
progressive governance. Thus in counts at the time talks on the formation of
APC would begin, ACN had Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ekiti and Edo in its kitty of
governance.
With the proposed alliance, Tinubu knew he was moving to sacrifice his established winning party for the unknown. It was on that belief that he invented the code of “Slaughter Slab” as the creed the Buhari's Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) and Onu's All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) would have to hold by rote for their commitment to creating their newly national progressives' platform in prospect.
He explained this on clarity of note that going for the new party by their proposed merger implied the permanent death of their respective component political parties that subsisted as their respective holding political strength in the national stake. They were bound to forfeit their parties’ certificate of registration to the INEC. But happily for them all afterwards, APC turned out a success story.
Some
analysts have argued that for one to appreciate Tinubu's success story in the
Buhari project, he should first exercise his intellectual prowess in
comparative reflection on the purported Obasanjo's failure at governance and
succession trials to Tinubu’s success story in leadership positioning on the
trot since 2003. The evident appeared laid out already.
Similarly, in evaluation of the
totality of his leadership succession records in the governance of Lagos State
after his governorship tenure, analysts are wont to conclude on the purported
responding commentary to Ikimi that Tinubu had just made public his philosophy
of leadership building not just in politics but in all fields of human
endeavours. The glaring manifestation of this reasoning took its course from
2007 when one Mr Raji Babatunde Fashola was to emerge as the governorship
candidate of the Action Congress – a political party that sprout from the
relics of the Lagos Chapter of Alliance for Democracy (AD).
But it did not begin without Asiwaju Tinubu making a clear enunciation of the cause as a political mission from his visionary political sagacity.
Twice
at two different fora, Tinubu was categorical about his conviction on the need
for paradigm shift in our course of the emplacement of leadership of the state.
The first was at Ojodu Millennium School where he addressed the prospective
facilitators and enumerators for the 2006 National Census exercise of which
this writer was one in audience.
The second was at the swearing in ceremony for some new Lagos State Cabinet commissioners that included an Igbo indigene, Chief Ben Akabueze, for Budget and planning portfolio. It should worth mentioning that Akabueze has since become a count in the success story of this Tinubu's praxis of projecting people into positions of authority – people of “integrity and competence” but not noisy enough to be noticed as common to politicians. He is now the Director General of the Budget Office at the Federal level, making him another entity in President Buhari's substantial attestation to the purported qualities with which Tinubu discovered him when he got an extension of tenure as Director General, Budget Office in the presidency.
Thus
to say at that swearing in, Tinubu stated that “the act of administering a
megacity like Lagos is a challenging one that must be in the hands of
technocrats and able team”.
In a
curious coincidence, however, opinions from the private sector began to shape
the facts of this Asiwaju's observation for consideration as a new political
imperative for the nation. Then, the Nigerian political sphere had offered
fears, forlorn and tension than valuable dividends of democracy anticipated
from the rules of the two general elections (1999 and 2003) that failed to
throw up good leadership.
Some
pundits however believed the concurrent opinions emanating from private
quarters were signs of Tinubu's private consultations with elders and leaders
of thought over the marketing of his idea of leadership succession planning for
Lagos State.
For
instance, just few days after Tinubu made his own statement, Dr Doyin Abiola,
an icon of journalism and former MD/CEO of the defunct National Concord
newspaper, made similar comments.
Writing
in one of her socio-political counseling column in Sunday Punch, she said:
“Years of global bad leadership of abuse of office and oppression of human
rights have shown the need to expand the scope beyond politics (and look beyond
politicians) in search of leadership” – Parenthesis is writer’s.
All
this was to become a sign post of an unambiguous mission of a gifted change
agent roused to a cause of intention when reconciled with the latter sterling
performances of the Raji Fashola, Akinwunmi Ambode and the present Babajide
Sanwo-Olu at governance of Lagos State in that succession order.
But
it was not a tea party for Tinubu to succeed in initiating that cause of state
leadership shift from the politicians' cave to the technocrat sphere the
Fashola appreciably represented.
However,
Asiwaju Tinubu, holding up to his conviction, would rather display the astute
strength of a democrat to win their interests in his vision in AC and support
for his governorship candidate – now popular as BRF. Intrigues of HI wire
politicking resulting in mutual concessions and propitiation carried the day.
Such was the shifting of the Lagos West Senatorial District from Ikeja as
occupied by Tokunbo Afikuyomi to Mushin LGA where Ganiyu Solomon (aka GOS) got
it for placation to his political stronghold.
The
Election came and gone. And today, the Fashola has become one success story of
Tinubu's capacity to discern leadership potentials.
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