ASIWAJU TINUBU @68: The Narrative of His Praxis in Leadership Positioning and Succession Planning in 20years of Nigeria’s 4th Republic

Story by Razaq A. Jimoh, Toyo C. Ngem and Omotoyosi Hakeeb

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.

Chief Tom Ikimi tackled Tinubu

In this Fourth Republic, Chief Ikimi had also being a front line party leader in the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). In the transition from ACN to APC, he approached the purported first National Congress as Chairman of the Harmonization Committee of the new APC.

                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.          

Chief Oyegun became APC Chairman

Hence he said: “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”.

                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.

Atiku and Tinubu formed the Action Congress (AC)

However, in line with Ikimi’s politics of convenience as a philosophy, the tidal wave of Nigeria's political ripples threw up by the Obasanjo versus Atiku feud would later stray him to the progressives fold with Tinubu in the late 2006. That happened when Atiku Abubakar, then the Vice President, left the PDP along with Ikimi to join force with Tinubu to found a new political platform named 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.

Fielding question from The Punch reporter, Chief Akande explained: “Our investigation has revealed (that) the PDP is using a section of the media to cause rift within the AC. We have looked into the matter and have advised our leaders not to comment on their differences on the pages of newspapers (anymore)”.

                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.

Tinubu and Buhari going for the Alliance of the progressives

 

PERHAPS the greatest political marketing Tinuba had ever undertaken in leadership positioning was the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. This should be empirically so against the backdrop of a comment credited to the former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007 when Mallam Nuhu Ribadu and Nasir el-Rufai suggested Buhari to him for consideration as a successor. He was reported to have replied that Buhari was one political liability that could not be marketed as presidential candidate in the Southern part of Nigeria.

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

Obasanjo said Buhar was no

Related to this was Obasanjo's quest for a third term in office. El-Rufai has remained economical with the truth about his exact role in Obasanjo's doomed third terrm bid. But some of us are very much aware that Nasir El-Rufai and the so called technocratic reformers whole heartedly bought into the third term script, which was originally crafted by a number of State Governors and their allies in the private sector.

                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.

The Sins of Enilolobo that infuriated Tinubu to Renounce Affiliation with ‘Mandate’ Group

By Razaq Adedeji Jimoh and Toyo C. Ngem

Many have wondered in their raving minds: why would disbandment of Mandate Group (“MG”) come in curious coincidence with the emergence of Alhaji Abdullahi Enilolobo as group’s new Chairman. Some thus hold that it was a clear language of Tinubu’s resolve to finally renounce his affiliation with political group, which had to come with collateral damage to other similar groups. Interestingly, it has also been cleared from a segment of media that in their ascription of the disbandment a manifestation of festering cold war between Asiwaju Tinubu and Ogbeni Abdul-Rauf Aregbsola, Enilolobo has featured transiently.

Civics Journal herein presents the comprehensive facts from what should be rightly described as the hearts of reliable sources that include ears to the ground of ‘Freedom House’. Indeed this narrative given in its characteristic historical perspective affirms that this magazine saw it coming. It has also helped to clear the seemingly mischief that put the whole scenario to a festering Tinubu/Aregbe rift. These are the stories you are about to read thence  

At the countdown to the 68^th birthday of the National Leader of All progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Civics Journal received a three-man delegates of an Alimosho based socio-political organization The Custodians - at its virtual office. The mission was to submit two advert graphics for the coming Asiwaju’s birthday.

            Stating their bases for the proposed patronage, the team-lead that craved anonymity “for now” began: “We learnt authoritatively that your magazine is one of the favourite read of our leader, Bola Tinubu”, putting it imperatively as a poser in need of affirmation to open up a robust interaction that should ordinarily excite a business in receipt of a new client.

            “Besides”, the female member interjected at a point, “We noticed you are also doing a great job with your Page 4 that makes the bridge between communities and the Governor. It brings the community’s plight to the attention of government.

“When I saw your publication of the collapsed portion of the Ikotun-Egbe Road in front of Alibert, I considered it another wasteful noise of the media on government’s deafness. But I was impressed when you published the feedback that showed the road as mended after all.

            “The same goes with information you published as the Governor Sanwo-Olu’s responsive update on the plight of Idimu people over the abandoned Gbeleyi Road project. We verified your report and found that work could resume anytime from the month of May”.   

             “So”, the team-lead resumed, “we thought one way we could support your organization to continue with these good jobs is patronages like this”.

            With the engagement snowballing into thrilling discusses of local and national politics, Civics Journal chose to clear its curiosity about the proposed advert.

            “Would you mind giving us the idea behind your placing these ads in proxy for these two Alimosho leaders?”

            “We see it coming that Alimosho All Progressives Congress (APC) will soon become one united family. Matters of party caucuses will soon disappear”, he said.

            “We are tracking that already; we know your Apex Leader, Alhaji Enilolobo, is on top of that”.

            “It goes beyond that! We are talking of State matter now…”

Just a few weeks after, the news of Alhaji Adullahi Enilolobo emerging as the new Chairman of the Mandate Group was celebrated through a media advert sponsored by his Alimosho protégé camp, Ibora Group. This was besides those that flew in the social media.

It turned out to be a time of double celebration for the proud Oranmiyan young turk because it coincided with his 51^st-year birthday anniversary, the age claim that turned controversial in the cave of Alimosho Progressives since he declared 50 years last year. This was not necessarily because any other fact was established in contrast to his declaration; but because ‘Eni’, as he’s fondly called by his admirers, played his politics of youth identity with tactful but contemptuous scorn for the hierarchy of age seniority.

He and ilk invented the title of ‘awon baba baba’ or ‘the babas’, not for the dignity of deserving respect the title inspires in the concept of its Omoluabi’s phonological value; but for a subtle enthralling embarrassment of the party elders he sought to confine to irrelevance at the emerging signs of his leadership succession to the Osun bound Oranmiyan Symbol – Abdul-Rauf Aregbesola.

So when he so declared 50 years, what the lots of party members had for poser song was: “so growing old could be fanciful for Enilolobo after all?” Some also wondered in other corners: that “so it’s not a curse to be an elder after all?” As some observers posited amidst all this, the murmuring was for him to appreciate aging as existentiality of life that keeps the cycle of nature in the perfect adage of the Yoruba that says Odo mode a dagbalagba, agbalagba a darugbo – the young shall attain adulthood as adult grows to aged.

The flag of Mandate Group now flies in Alimosho at Enilolobo  reidential axis

My observation about this is that Enilolobo has manifest humility that may have been overwhelmed by the power exuberances of his rallying aides and hangers on that rather helped to push this prank too far. Therefore, he is only taking responsibility for his failure to rein in their excesses.

By and large, Enilolobo is aging gracefully through the profession of politics he chose for a career, having risen to the apex leadership of Alimosho Progressives in the over two decades of this Fourth Republic. An objective evaluation of his leadership’s success or failure story is a matter of an imperative review of the electoral fortunes of Alimosho both in the general and local government elections since 2011 to be precise.

However, this cannot be wholesome without a comprehensive bar chart of the electoral results Alimosho have returned in values to the sustained reigns of the progressives in Lagos State from the beginning. This should take cognizance of Alimosho’s Monica as “Tinubu Country”, which originated from the precedence of its contributions of massive, quality and victory determinant votes from the outset that dates back to the era of Tinubu’s senatorial election victory in the time of Social Democratic Party (SDP) of the Third Republic. But all this is a narrative outside the scope of this thesis.

Coming from the brief digression, it was unfortunate that his tenure as Chairman of the Mandate Group would be short lived with a mysterious life span of about one month. On Tuesday, June 9, 2020, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, embracing the advisory consensus of the Lagos State Governorship Advisory Council (GAC), was caused to renounce his appellation with the group. Suffice that this came as GAC disbanded the three major political caucuses of the Lagos Progressives – the old school Justice Forum (JF) the supposedly new millennium Mandate Group (MG) and the later day Ideal Group.

Issued as it’s communiqué from the meeting in which the Asiwaju was also in attendance, GAC resolved among others that: “All factions like JF and MG are inimical to unity and are hereby permanently disbanded and prohibited within the party.

“Party members should no longer make use of these factions or their names with regard to future party business and activities.

“To continue to hold meetings in the name of these groups or to continue to promote such associations will amount to a violation of this resolution.

“Any violation of this decision is subject to party discipline, including suspension and expulsion. The party remains supreme!”

The Council also went further to explain that the step became imperative in order to solidify the cohesive bonding of the party members at this time.

It said: “If we allow factionalisation, we not only weaken the party; soon, those who should see each other as brothers and sisters in the same party will view each other with increasing enmity as rivals instead of members of the same political family.

“Permanent party factions have often breached the spirit, letter and value history of the party because they only serve merely as vehicles to foster and advance ambitions at expense of party cohesion.

“The Council therefore resolved that while there is a tendency to form such groups in a party, such groups should not be allowed to become permanent identifications that could rival the primary identification as party member”.

Curiously, the coincidence of disbanding MG et al at incipient of Enilolobo’s leadership mandate has been raising posers and insinuations about the possible motive of GAC. A section of the media insinuated it to be the latent cold war between Tinubu and Rauf Aregbesola coming to the open. They therefore described it as Tinubu’s move to check the growing influence of Aregbesola which, to them, the formidable structure of MG symbolises today.

Reacting to these insinuations severally, the duo denied any rift or chess board game of politicking between them. They said it was a figment of their imaginations.

            Asiwaju Tinubu, through his Media Adviser, Tunde Rahman, said he remained ideological leader of the political family in which the former Osun State governor remained a strong and loyal member.

            Rahman said: “Asiwaju Tinubu remains Ogbeni Aregbesola’s leader. The former Governor of Osun State has been unswervingly and wholly committed to the progressive ideology of the Tinubu political family. There is no war, cold or hot, between them. There has never been and there will never be. Asiwaju believes in him and he believes in the APC leader.

            “Our political family remains strong and we are staying focused in our commitment to building and maintaining a cohesive political party”.

            On his part, Ogbeni Aregbesola said his loyalty to Tinubu remained total, claiming that he knew the source of the mischief.

            He said: “I remain committed to my mentor… They even said I have presidential ambition; (that is) false!”

But both Aljazeera News and The Guardian yet believed otherwise. They rather insisted that “analysts within and outside the party are still convinced there are more to the GAC’s decision that goes beyond the denials”.

Giving its reasons for the perceived rifts, The Guardian cited the 2016 governorship primary in the Ondo State Chapter as the origin. It published that “During the primary, Tinubu openly expressed his preference for Mr. Segun Abraham, while Aregbesola and some strong members of Mandate Group pitched their tents with a former legal Adviser of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olusola Oke, who had defected to APC. Tinubu was not really happy and comfortable (when his candidate lost and It) was painful to Tinubu to the extent of accusing the national chairman of corruption, which he put in a statement to the media”.

For another reason the newspaper could be deemed to seemingly present as Tinubu’s vengeance, it cited the Osun State 2018 governorship election that produced Gboyega Oyetola as the governor. It said Oyetola was not Aregbesola’s preferred candidate. ” But (he) not only bowed to Tinubu’s preference for Oyetola, he also worked for APC to retain control of the state without exposing his displeasure”.

The publication reads further, “the relationship between Aregbesola, Tinubu and Oyetola worsened… (particularly when) Governor Oyetola, with the support of Tinubu, nominated a candidate other than Aregbesola as the ministerial nominee from Osun.

“(And) having realised how he was being rendered politically defenseless and irrelevant in Osun by his successor, Aregbesola was said to have chosen to return to his Lagos base and the Mandate Group for the 2023 battle ahead. (In other words), as part of his effort to re-launch himself, Aregebsola recently revamped the Mandate Group, a core support group that helped Tinubu secure a second term in 2003. He appointed one of his boys, Abdullahi Enilolobo, as the new chairman of MG, while he elevated Cardinal James Odumbaku to the position of apex leader” - Parenthesis mine.

Some political pundits in the know however observed that The Guardian and the like appeared to use their piecemeal knowledge of curious coincidences to build a wholesome fallacy of virtual fact for the manipulation of public mind into buying imaginary fact for wholesome reality of life.

And in complementarily observatory fact, granted that this essayist acknowledges the purported split of interests in the Osun 2019 governorship election without being deemed buying into it; what should make this angle interesting and rationally conclusive is that The Guardian writer also acknowledges that Aregbesola rather submitted to the wish of his leader. This should bespeak his (Argbe’s) Omoluab’s instinct of evergreen gratefulness to what the Yoruba would metaphorically describe as Orisun – the source – which remains the strong distinguishing peculiarity of the political character of mainstream progressives’ lineage of the Yoruba nation among her peers in the contemporary Nigerian democracy.

            The Ondo angle was more of a spectacle of the forces of Abuja cabal’s untoward drive for a brash change of Southwest’s political leadership through a deliberate plot to annihilate Tinubu’s political relevance.

That game revolved around the tripod structure of the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation now standing trial for ‘grass-cutter’ corruption case, Lawal Babachir, and the late Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, for the plotters in the presidency; and the former APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun, as the hatchet man in the party structure.

            To bring Aregbe into this mix as incendiary for the spark of the imaginary cold war in discourse is to literally hold him in absolute treacherous force against Tinubu.

Indeed, it should be helpful for The Guardian author’s enlightenment that the ‘Ilori’ factor in the Oke’s support group in that election may have informed the misguided belief of Aregbesola’s support because Bola Ilori is the Ondo-based Aregbesola’s protégé that had been part of Alimosho’s political value exports to other states of the federation. Suffice that there were more to the Ondo election than meet the eye and that should be clear from the enduring crisis rocking the State’s APC since the Abuja Force, through Oyegun, wrought that incompatible parties to form the Akeredolu government.

Thus the Enilolobo Nexus

All this notwithstanding, connecting the banning of party caucuses in Lagos APC to the insinuated Tinubu/Aregbe feuds could as well make sense of fact to those that may have the privileged knowledge of two materials that connect to the person of Aregbesola in the matters of Lagos politics. The first is the status of Enilolobo as Aregbesola’s highly favoured political protégé. The second is that this rift may have being seemingly foretold as festering to those who may have encountered the related allegations Hon Adelabu Onibiyo fired against Aregbesola in the third quarter of 2018.

Starting from the rear, Onibiyo then accused Aregbesola of plotting to hijack political leadership from Tinubu. The media reported him to have said: “Aregbe manipulated his way to become who he is today and still have ambition to supplant and surpass Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Chief Obafemi Awolowo through his manipulations. (He also) quipped that he was sure Asiwaju (now) has his own lamentation of Aregbesola because of his nature of trusting people, but he (Tinubu) may not say it out as an elderly leader”.

Of course, Aregbesola ignored Onibiyo’s insinuations as the ranting of an ant. He specifically directed his aide’s never to dignify Onibiyo’s claims with any reply. And from the third eyes of independent observers as captured by this writer, it was gathered that those who knew the political pedigree of Onibiyo could understand Aregbesola in this regard.

In his book on the political history of Alimosho, R.A Jimoh describes Onibiyo as “a political corpse resurrected by Aregbe”. He goes further thus: “But going by a Yoruba adage that says efin ni’ wa – that character is like smoke; the character of Onibiyo’s flamboyant arrogance of empty pride would yet return him to his previous political ghost status, interring him six feet deeper beneath the earth crust of the progressives’ landscape to confine him to political oblivion. This happened so when Aregbe exasperatedly had enough of his behavioural incongruity with the members and leaders of the Alimosho Progressives Cave”.

Besides, some observers that claimed to have subjected the Onibiyo’s allegations to conscientious evaluation posited that some of the claims lacked common sense of political facts. They noted that Aregbesola was a cut above his (Onibiyo’s) bandied treachery and mundane reasoning of the insinuated naivety. But dwelling into details here will be tangential to the focus of this story.

That takes us to the connection of Enilolobo to the Tinubu’s resolve to renounce affiliation with MG, but being purported to mean the manifestation of Aregbe/Tinubu’s cold feud. Interestingly, this nexus may yet appear as an oxymoron of factual falsehood. And when this is fully dissected, it may also reveal as much an ignorance-induced parody of the factual part.

Alhaji Balogun (akak Baba Eleran) bullied and blackmailed with economic sanztion to join MG

It is a fact that Enilobo owes a lot to Aregbesola for his political fortune in which the relationship traverses the origin and evolution of MG. But he could not have been a dreadful factor of Aregbe’s arsenal to jolt Asiwaju, to wit, the body of GAC in the manner purportedly so insinuated by the media. Since Aregbesola cuts his political edge in Lagos in the bosom of Tinubu’s leadership, he understands the State’s political terrain as far more complicated than the media’s straight jacket readings. This thus ratifies the falsehood leg of the oxymoron to be the insinuation that Enilolobo became the MG’s Chairman in order to reposition the group for Aregbesola’s move against Tinubu.

The factual leg however is that Tinubu could have decided to put end to the political reap off that is long standing in his name in Lagos State. And no caucus among the three is guilty of this than solely the MG. It has grown in leap and bound, sustaining its strength on coercion of party members with deceptive rote that any affiliation with any other political group outside MG is an established treachery against Tinubu.

If this were not to be so everywhere across the State, politicians across all party lines believed it is the tool of oppression with which Enilolobo’s leadership administers the Alimosho Progressives Cave. Ironically, it may surprise many to know from this piece that this style is a sharp contrast to the all-inclusive policy with which Aregbe built the Alimosho-One-House with the formation of ‘G18’ after harmonization of the 23 political caucuses in the Local Government to three groups – Maiyegun, Millennium and The Ambassador.

Maiyegun, the largest caucus, would later momentarily transform into Alimosho Democrats in transition to becoming the Alimosho Chapter of the Mandate Group.

With open heart, extreme tolerance and justice of equity, ‘The Young’, as Aregbesola was fondly called, managed the G18 built on this structural tripod. But no sooner Aregbe bequitted the leadership to Enilolobo, as some party members posited, things began to fall apart in simile of accession of a slave to the throne of the community of his enslavement. As some put it, “he simply had his eyes on the ball of whatever material value he makes of his leadership era today”. Thus so, as they claimed, every dissenting voice to his ambition being pursued on an obvious autocratic order would, in his own judgment, become a stand against Tinubu and anti-Aregbe tendency.

As a matter of fact that could make this a creed of the progressives’ cave, the ‘MG’s anthem became the sole political sound bite of the party just to be quite intimidating enough for the purpose:

On your mandate we shall stand (x2) Bola! On your mandate (x2)

On your mandate we shall stand.

Some observers of political events believed it was on account of this and others that Her Excellency, Hon Joke Orelope-Adefulire as the visage of Justice Forum in Alimosho decided to severe relationship with the apex body – G18.

And swiftly too, they noted further, Enilolobo equally moved to declare her a persona non grata in the Alimosho politics. Thus so, as majority of party faithful so claimed, “it became forbidden for any ‘true’ party member to associate with her. As such, majority of party members could not tap into the leadership values of Orelope as a Commissioner and latter Deputy Governorship member of the State Cabinet that Tinubu wisely and generously gave Alimosho in the administration of Governor Raji Fashola to compensate for its large demography and electoral values in the 2003 and 2007 general elections”.

However, as this author gathered from the Freedom House, Tinubu was unoblivious of all these happenings in his local government of pride. He simply refused to make any undue interference to avoid a breach of honour accorded Aregbesola in right of control over Alimosho, “even though he knew many of Eni’s deeds were not to the consent of Aregbesola”, as the source put it.It went further: “The only time Asiwaju decided to intervene directly was when one local council chairman in one of the LCDAs in Alimosho cried to him that the so called Enilolobo wanted to deny him his due right of second term in office. And I think they were two like that because there was also a similar case from Agege side at the time”.

On matters of the dwindling electoral fortune of Alimosho, the source said if one understood politics as an exercise with anticipated objective results in terms of what you deliver at the time of election, it could not have been difficult for Asiwaju to evaluate and verify the complaint of politics of exclusiveness in Alimosho that had been rife against Enilolobo.

He said: “what you can expect to see if such complaints were true is to look if you could see any backlash of that manifesting as serial decline of the electoral values of Alimosho.

“This is what seems to be the case since the presidential election 2011. And you know, this can never escape the interest of Asiwaju. His scope of political sphere may have become national, he will tell you all politics is local and it is the election that tells your strength in your local sphere. So he keeps tabs of what goes on in all local governments across the State. He uses election results to gauge the political mood of each of them.”

According to him, all this is not to say the party caucuses were disbanded because Enilolobo became the Chairman of MG and neither does it say it’s not a pre-emptive move to check mediocre from straying into such state’s structural leadership and give room for chicanery to permeate the structures of Lagos progressives at the state level.

Explaining this, he noted that at due time, caucuses are meant to be reconciled at a round table for power sharing. It is nevertheless hard to reconcile one to the fact that Tinubu would sit to preside over such meeting where Enilolobo would seat in leadership of such a state’s caucus.

The source added: “To understand my point clearly as free from any malicious motive or having anything personal against the person in question, after all I do not belong to Alimosho; it could have been a different ball game altogether if Enilolobo were to be a former State Cabinet member not below the rank of a commissioner or a Senator of the Federal Republic. This would have given his profile an established testimonial of befitting credentials for participating in such ambience of inner meeting where the person of Asiwaju presides”.

The source advised Alimosho to “use the new development close rank and brace up for the task ahead in the face of emerging signs of the Ancient time Afonja’s treacherous experience making a repeat of history.

WHAT TINUBU, AKANDE TOLD APC NATIONAL CARETAKER COMMITTEE BEHIND THE DOOR

Committee Chairman vindicates them with Ondo case 

By Toyo C. Ngem

MORE facts have emerged about the Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s reception of the newly constituted National Caretaker Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on the night of Thursday, July 2, 2020. There were indications that Tinubu, as National Leader of the Party, was down to heart and frank in telling truth to the face of the committee members.

            He was reported to have expressed his disappointment that the “APC was never conceived as a tumbledown” it is now swerving to. He urged the Governor Buni-led Committee to take it upon itself as an emergency duty, the mission to reverse the drift to the abyss by ensuring that party supremacy remains sacrosanct.

            Chief Bisi Akande also told the Committee that it was time the party separated grains from the shafts in its membership in order to purify itself.

            Outside his residence while addressing the press after the meeting, Tinubu said the meeting was not about settlements of quarrels. He described it as needful “consultations” desired for sustainability of the party’s progressive ideals.

            He said: “The Caretaker Committee is on consultation. We have never been divided. In politics, there can be disagreement. There are instances where you disagree but it doesn’t mean that you cannot discuss it and be a good example in leadership and politics”.

            Also speaking along this line, the Chairman of the Committee, Mai Mala Buni, said the visit was like a compass the members needed for direction in the task of strengthening the party.

He said: “The task before us is daunting and we need guidance, experience and prayers from our leaders”.

            Civics Journal however gathered from a source close to the meeting that what happened inside “could be likened to what the Yoruba would describe as a frank talk between two siblings of same mother that locked up themselves in a room to mutually tell truth to each other”.

According to the source, Tinubu told the Committee in clear terms that the party leadership now harboured ‘a sangh of desperate ambitionists’ pushing their course with morbid obsession that is inimical to the party’s survival.

            The source referred this writer to Tinubu’s observation earlier raised in March this year when he said the crisis rocking the National Working Committee (NWC) was a symptom of a political disease called ‘ambition-virus 2023’ that had infected the party.

            Titled 2023: A different form of ailment, as this this magazine would recall, Tinubu then observed thus: “There is a new sickness that seems rampant… (Identified as) old ambition-virus 2023, (it) afflicts the political class along with their allies in the media… The primary symptoms of their malady is the driving tendency… geared toward obsessive jockeying for position to control and manipulate a race still three years away (the 2023 election).

            “In doing so, they recklessly undermine the very party which they claim to serve and weaken the administration of President Buhari to which they claim to be loyal… As such, their actions border on pathological.

            “True, ambition is inherent in human endeavor. Without it, nothing great is achieved. However, strong ambition applied in the wrong way has never done anything positive… at best, it results in something worse” – parentheses are this writer’s.

Connecting this to what transpired behind the closed door, the source said Tinubu told the Committee that the party would hardly be stable if the threat of desperate ambition of a clique of members was not eliminated.

The source said: “This is to say that Asiwaju only ceased the opportunity to reiterate and clarify on this observation in order to make his own contribution as to what direction he feels the Committee should look to in its bid to reposition the party.

             “Even though Asiwaju acknowledged that political party exists in part for individuals to aspire to any level of electoral office, he expressed regret that the antics of the ‘ambitionists’ clique had included clever decoy that hid their interest behind the falsehoods of imaginary ambitions they phantom for others in order to disdain victims of their sly power game as a cruel way to achieve their goal”.

The source also added that the APC stalwart did not fail to restate his position on the rumour of his presidential ambition, which “many people have mischievously” linked to the dissolved NWC crisis.

The source went further: “I want to believe that you already know what is Asiwaju’s stand on the rumour of his presidential ambition. He touched this in his official response to the dissolution of Oshiomhole-led NWC not long ago. He yet re-emphasized on this to his visitors. He described it to be far more a malicious propaganda being blindly bandied by the media and individuals fronting for his traducers for whatever reasons best known to them”.

In the said official statement referred to as this magazine would recall, Tinubu said he could only pity those behind the mischief.

He said: “To those who have been actively bleating how the President’s action and the NEC meeting have ended my purported 2023 ambitions, I seek your pity… I have made no decision regarding 2023 for the concerns of these hours are momentous enough”.

The source thus concluded that “Perhaps it was on account of this that he (Tinubu) also advised the Committee to be wary of information they would work with because they were bound to encounter truths that are stranger than fiction, which could mislead it wrongly”.

            Civics Journal also gathered that Chief Bisi Akande, the pioneer National Chairman of the party, also identified desperation of those seeking to use APC platform to realize their political ambition as the problem bedeviling the party. This was his position when the Committee visited him earlier in the day at his country home in Osun State from where members proceeded to Lagos.

            Reporting him verbatim, the Director of Press to the Committee Chairman said: “Chief Akande urged the Committee to differentiate true party men from platform seekers for the party to grow. I have great hope in what I have seen in the Committee. The party will certainly bounce back stronger…”

            Meanwhile, the Caretaker Committee appeared to have vindicated the duo in their assertions that the party harbours desperate election seekers, whose selfish interest portend dangerous threat to stability of APC. The Committee Chairman, Mai Mala Buni, revealed this later when he so described the defection of the Ondo State Deputy Governor, Agboola Ajayi, to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as one example.

            In his speech for the for inauguration of the Ondo State APC Governorship Primary Screening Committee and its Appeal level’s on Tuesday, July 7; Buni said: “In the last few months, our party has been rocked by crises in several states, including Ondo State, where the ‘former’ Deputy Governor defected to another party to bid for the governorship ticket.

            “We should all be aware that personal ambition could often lead people to act unreasonably and in a manner skewed towards personal, rather than collective, interest as in this case”

FG OPENS CLASSROOMS ONLINE AS COVID-19 PALLIATIVES FOR NIGERIAN STUDENTS

  By M. O. Shutti-Jimoh

THE Federal Ministry of Education has has engaged two existing e-learning platforms to roll out the online classroom promised by the Federal Government in the wake of COVID-19 Lockdown.
      It is a data free access to the teaching of school subjects works to primary and secondary school students via their internet enabled device such as hand phone, tablet, iPad or computer.
     It would be recalled that at one of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) regular update briefing on COVID-19 pandemic response actions a few weeks back, the Minister of State for Education appeared as a guest to state the Federal Government’s plans to sustain exposure of school age children to continuous learning while school remain closed for the period of this pandemic challenge.
      In recent information received from the Ministry by Civics Journal, it was revealed that primary and secondary school pupils are now free to resume online classes when they login to websites at www.schoolgate.ng for primary schools and www.mobileclassroom.com.ng for Secondary schools.
     The Senior Special Adviser to the President on Education, Obafela Bank-Olemo also gave additional insight to the scheme. He said even though primary and secondary education is prioritized for the online classroom, other levels such as vocational education also made part of the contents.
      He said: “Due to the nation-wide closure of schools to curb the spread of COVID-19 Pandemic, the Federal Government has opened e-learning portals for learning to continue unaffected. These portals offer free subscription to students in Primary and Secondary levels during the period.
     “There are also content for other education levels, including vocational education, on the portal; but primary and secondary is (SIC) prioritized for free access for now.
       “Understanding that apart from free subscription to the portals students will also need data subscription for internet service to browse; so we engage Telecos to provide data free access to the sites”.
     “So far, Airtel Nigeria has given their subscribers free access while other networks, including MTN, Glo and 9mobile; should roll out theirs this week.
      “All that is required to access the portals is an internet enabled device, that is: phone, tablet, iPad or computer. However, users must keep their mobile data enabled on the device”.
      Civics Journal also established that the e-learning program adopted a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) to roll out. The purported e-learning sites are existing private-owned educational platforms which the Federal Government decided to key into for the mobile classrooms.
      The portal for the secondary school level, mobileclassroom.com.ng, is managed by Mr. Salami Akeem. He said the Federal Ministry of Education extended hands of fellowship to his IT Firm and the partnership resulted to the data-free access to its e-learning platform.
      He also added that his firm had earlier decided to use the platform to provide its own style of COVID-19 palliative in the area of education before FME lashed onto it.
      He explained thus: “At the beginning of the lockdown, we declared the platform free. Since the Federal Government was seeking a way to provide e-learning free to students, they collaborated with us; seeing that we had already declared our contents free. To make it a zero cost to students, they initiated discussions with the network providers to provide free data access”.
       He also explained that it was an initiative with mutual benefits to his firm and the government. According to him, it had expanded traffic to his website within a short term and that was sure to expose his e-learning platform to a wider scale in the nearest future.
      He said: “In less than one month that we declared our content free, we recorded almost 100,000 views on our videos. So we are expecting more with this collaboration. We will provide the free content while the pandemic lasts, but we are hoping the Federal Government will be willing to extend this collaboration beyond this time”.