Buhari, Give Tinubu The Special Ambode Treatment

THE ALTERNATIVE

By Reno Omokri

Let me make myself clear from the get-go. It is wrong for Buhari alone to single-handedly pick the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress. It is undemocratic.

However, his statement that he should be allowed to pick his successor is not just undemocratic, it is treasonable. Buhari works for Nigerians, not vice versa. Even if he can arm-twist his way into picking the APC candidate, Nigerians will pick his successor!

And if his threat is predicated on repeating the massive rigging he supervised in 2019, then my response to him is to repeat what he (Buhari) said on May 15, 2012:

“They either conduct a free and fair election or they go a very disgraceful way.”-Muhammadu Buhari.

What nonsense is that? A man of low mentality, who has reduced Nigeria from the third fastest-growing economy in the world on May 29, 2015, to the world headquarters for extreme poverty today, is now saying he will produce his successor as if the electorate doesn’t count?

Let him try it. But before he does, he should also remember what happened during #EndSARS. That was an unprecedented people movement sparked by government’s oppression of the governed. And if Buhari tries a repeat of the shameful rigging that happened in 2019, he should prepare for EndSARS part 2!

The reality is that Buhari is not even politically savvy enough to anoint his successor. Look at what happened in his own state. His nephews were defeated in the APC primaries. His in-law was roundly trounced in Kaduna. In Kano, his aides were defeated. And in 2023, his candidate will be defeated by Nigerians!

Without the APC Governors, Buhari is a toothless bulldog. He can bark, but he has no bite. The real power in the party belongs to the Governors. And even they are fed up with Buhari. Their allocations from the federation account have been the worst in history under the ineffectual so-called General!

But coming back to Bola Tinubu, why is he now subtly attacking Buhari and insisting that he must be the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress because he supported Buhari? Why is he sulking and agitating against Buhari’s stated intention to pick the APC’s candidate?

I really don’t get why Bola Tinubu’s people are complaining that Buhari can’t choose who the APC candidate will be. Who chooses who becomes the candidate of the APC in Lagos? Is it not solely Tinubu? Who stopped Ambode from being re-elected? Was it not solely Tinubu? Did Ambode not pay for an All Progressives Congress Gubernatorial form in 2019? Did the APC not collect his money and refuse to refund him after Tinubu rejected him?

Did he not go and gather his brother Governors to beg Tinubu on his behalf? Did Governor Bagudu of Kebbi, who is the chairman of the Progressives Governors’ Forum, not prostrate to Tinubu on Ambode’s behalf? Not that I support the imposition of candidates. However, what is good for Lagos APC is also good for national APC! Or should I say, what is good for Greece is also good for Uganda.

I am a student of history. I recall clearly that Samuel Doe relished slicing the flesh of his political opponents while they were still alive. However, when Prince Yormie Johnson arrested him on his way to seek safety with the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group, ECOMOG, Johnson gave Doe the special Doe treatment.

So, if Buhari decides to give Tinubu the special Ambode treatment, history justifies it! Tinubu cannot expect Buhari to treat him better than he, Tinubu, treated Ambode.

If Ambode was the Governor of Lagos on October 20, 2020, instead of Sanwo-olu, maybe the #LekkiMassacre of peaceful, unarmed #EndSARS protesters would not have happened. But Tinubu denied him the ticket. So, Buhari can deny Tinubu just as Tinubu denied Ambode. No one will cry foul!

Tinubu says he made Buhari President in 2015 and expects to be supported in 2023. That may or may not be true. But what is true is that Afenifere made Tinubu Governor in 1999, and he not only abandoned them, he also fought them. One bad turn deserves another!

The thing about Tinubu’s argument is that it is not about Nigeria, or its people. Watch his video in Ogun state while he was campaigning for delegates on Thursday, June 2, 2022. He said he made Buhari President and as such Buhari should support him. He played the same emotional blackmail against his host Governor, Dapo Abiodun, saying:

“Dapo that’s sitting down here, could he have become Governor without me? We were at the stadium, they tore all his posters. Even the party flag, they didn’t want to hand over it to him, I was the one who brought it.

If he wants to meet God at the right place, he must know that without God and me, he would not have become Governor.”

Nothing about what he would do for Nigerians. He is appealing to Buhari instead of Nigerians. So Nigerians should remain onlookers in his quarrel with Buhari. Let them fight and destroy their party the way they have destroyed Nigeria.

And the curious thing is that Buhari has not yet cheated Bola Tinubu, and Tinubu attacked him. Why did he not wait until after the primaries before attacking Buhari? Now, he has given Buhari an excuse not to support him. I thought Bola Tinubu knew how to play politics. I was wrong. Very wrong!

Look at his petty complaints? Buhari did not give me ministerial slots. Buhari did not give me contracts. Me, me, me! Like a spoilt child. Nothing about what Buhari has done to Nigeria, a country he met as the third fastest-growing economy in the world, and is leaving as the world’s headquarters for extreme poverty!

Tinubu was not even ashamed to say that Buhari did not want to contest, and had retired from politics until he went to Daura to beg him to contest in 2015. In other words, it is because of Tinubu we are suffering from the worst government in our history!

And hear him! I deserve to be President because I made Buhari President and it is my turn. Look at the egotistical entitlement! Nothing about what he did or would do for Nigeria or Nigerians. What kind of cult language is that? That he made Buhari President is precisely why Tinubu should not be President!

Tinubu is letting tantrums spoil what could have been a home run for him in the APC primaries. How can you call a Yoruba Governor ‘eleyi’ to his face? Yoruba that love respect? Vice President Yemi Osinbajo must be dancing with his RCCG political directorate!

Tinubu is just behaving like Tonto Dikeh and Nkechi Blessing. Like a woman who was promised marriage and jilted and is now exploding and exposing the jilter. Buhari don buy market. He either builds another ‘other room’ for Tinubu, or marry him as promised!

When he was doing Ambode, he did not have mercy. Now that Buhari is doing him, he is shouting ‘eleyi’ all over the place. First to do e no dey pain. Jagaban to to di jagajaga. It is just that he did not buy a form. If not, I would have said Buhari should give it to Ambode!

Dr. Goodluck Jonathan did not accuse Tinubu of betraying him. Akinwunmi Ambode did not accuse Tinubu of betraying him. Afenifere is not accusing Tinubu of betraying them. Yet, after a political lifetime of betrayal and backstabbing, Tinubu is surprised with the breakfast he got served?

Because of Buhari, Tinubu insulted former Presidents Obasanjo, and Jonathan. He insulted Yoruba obas. He insulted #EndSARS protesters. And after all he has done, Buhari wants to do him ‘I go chop your dollar’! Ah! Aiye! This life no balance ra ra!

Tinubu portrayed ignorance of elementary rudiments of power politics. If you want a reigning king to anoint you, do not remind him of what you have done for him. Kings hate to be indebted to their subjects. Instead, remind the king of what you can still do for him in future!

With what I watched in Ogun state, if the NDLEA performs drug tests on all Presidential aspirants, as recommended by its Chairman, Buba Marwa, I seriously doubt that Bola Tinubu will pass it. Nobody throws stones like that unless they are stoned!

Bola Tinubu fall my hand, as the young people say. How can he expect a former coup plotter, who overthrew a democratically elected President, to keep to agreements? Shagari was a Fulani Muslim like him, yet Buhari overthrew him. If Buhari could overthrow his own brother, who is Tinubu that he can’t betray?

And to further indicate his political naïveté, Tinubu proudly released a photo of him sitting in a chair in a mosque, to greet His Eminence, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, the Sultan of Sokoto.

But who is advising Tinubu? How can you follow Sarkin Musulumi to a mosque, and he will sit on the floor and you will sit in a chair? If you are too old to sit on the floor, like other Muslims, then you don’t attend with the Sultan. Or maybe you stay somewhere else until Jumat is over. Buhari also sometimes sits in a chair because of old age, but NEVER in the presence of Sarkin Musulumi!

The Queen of England is the official head of the Church of England. Her official title is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, AKA Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith). Even the Archbishop of Canterbury cannot sit in her presence, until she sits.

The Sultan is the spiritual leader of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. That photo, that Tinubu is proudly displaying, won’t go down well in the North! It is like Osinbajo sitting and Adeboye standing, while both of them are having a one-on-one conversation!

Anyway, let me conclude with somewhat of a parable. Elections are very expensive in Nigeria. It’s not every time we will be paying for advert. Sometimes, we just buy free advert by deliberately shaking some predictable tables so that we will get an echo and the biggest media will carry stories that they’d have otherwise asked us to pay for.

If you don’t use this ogbon, you will just spend ₦1 billion, that you don’t have, buying up full-page ads in papers and 60 second slots on TV. Instead of wasting money and energy, just create a wave and surf it until you get your message across.

#TableShaker