Tinubu and the Price of Assertion 

Chucks Nnamdi

As Nigeria’s 2023 presidential candidates begin to oil their campaign machinery by engaging the populace at various platforms across the country, one political traction that will remain indelible in the minds of Nigerian voters is the unbridled gaffes of the candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who on Wednesday, January 25 alleged that there was a plan to sabotage his campaign.

Tinubu, the APC standard bearer and self-acclaimed national leader of the party, who was speaking during the APC presidential campaign held at the MKO Abiola stadium, Abeokuta, Ogun State cited the lingering fuel crisis and naira redesign by the Central Bank of Nigeria as part of the plot to scuttle his expected victory.

However, the major opposition, Peoples Democratic Party and oil marketers faulted, and berated, the ex-Lagos state governor’s allegations. The PDP argued that Tinubu was simply exposing the failures of the APC regime, insisting that his defeat in the election was imminent.

Speaking in Yoruba language, Tinubu stated, “They don’t want this election to hold. They want to scuttle it. Will you allow them?” He equally used the opportunity to encourage Nigerians to defy the fuel scarcity and exercise their franchise, stating that the poll would be a superior revolution (whatever that means).

However, one person among other well-meaning Nigerians who will not allow these ugly and confusing developments lie, is one astute broadcaster with Arise Television and former Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Reuben Abati, who swiftly criticised Tinubu, for saying that the 2023 election is going to be a revolution and also for attacking President Muhammadu Buhari and his party.

Tinubu said on Wednesday: “This is a revolution. This election is a revolution. We shall take over from them. They don’t want election to take place, but we won’t accept. They want to hide under fuel scarcity to cause the crisis so that there won’t be an election,”

Reacting, Abati wondered how Tinubu would be talking about a ‘revolution’ in respect of the 2023 election when he already made that promise in 2015.

“Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu says the next election is going to be a major revolution. ‘Vote them out, take power from them’. He is saying they should take power from his own party. I mean, that is contradictory” Abati said on The Morning Show recently.

“He (Tinubu) said he will do a revolution in Nigeria. He told his people [that] what is coming is a massive revolution in Nigeria. The same massive revolution that he promised in 2015? He led the campaign. He said he put President Muhammadu Buhari there, and they promised all kinds of revolution. One Naira to one dollar, we have not seen that revolution. So, what is the guarantee that the revolution that he promised in Abeokuta will happen?

“He was telling his audience, ‘if they don’t give us fuel, we will trek’. Who is going to trek?”, Abati further asked.

Tinubu also received another knock from Farooq Kperogi, an academic and serial columnist, who wrote in his widely circulated opinion published on both social and traditional media that: “It was always obvious to keen, disinterested observers that Bola Tinubu’s gamble in helping Buhari to ascend to power won’t pay off in the end; that his opportunistic political love affair with Buhari won’t be requited; and that the brittle, delicately thin thread that held their relational dynamic would snap sooner or later. I wrote countless columns on this.

“Tinubu won the nomination of the APC not because of Buhari and the cabal of provincial power brokers that prop him but in spite of them. Tinubu was compelled to ventilate his famously impassioned “emi lo kan” outburst in Abeokuta (in the Yoruba language, no less) when it became nakedly apparent that Buhari and his cabal had perfected plans to edge him out of the APC presidential primary contest.

“When the cabal was plotting to exclude Tinubu from the APC presidential contest, I had an informal chit-chat with a higher-up who had some associational affinities with the cabal. I told him that based on what I’d learned about Tinubu’s childhood and teenage years (some of which I can’t disclose publicly) and which seem to have endured into his adulthood, he would rather be dead than give up the APC nomination.

After the “emi lo kan” blow-up, which shook Buhari and his inner circle to their roots, my older acquaintance called to tell me I was right. The speech—and, of course, the support of APC’s northern governors, and his deep pockets— caused him to win the battle, but he is now in danger of losing the war, if he hasn’t already lost it. Here’s why.

Tinubu’s fervent, arrogant, and vaguely vituperative speech in Abeokuta at once unnerved, humiliated, and alienated Buhari and his inner circle in ways they had never been since 2015. But, Buhari never forgives. He is also diffident, hates direct confrontation, and evades taking responsibility. That’s why he is such an ineffective but dangerous leader.

“All indications clearly point to the fact that Buhari is still nursing the hurt of his well-justified humiliation by Tinubu. His inner loop of advisers is also waiting in the wings to exert revenge against Tinubu, which is frankly inexplicably self-indulgent, even hypocritical, because they would not have supported Tinubu even if he didn’t humiliate them on national television, even if he praised them to high heaven from now till kingdom come. Well, they seem to be now out for Tinubu in full force…”

Kperogi was simply spot on! Arrogance is an extreme confidence in one’s own abilities and knowledge with the thinking that everyone else is less capable. There is no accompanying humility, and an arrogant person’s perception of themselves is often inaccurate and instead covers for feelings of insecurity. Sadly, it may be too late for Tinubu to retrace his steps as the horse seems to have bolted.

Nnamdi sent this piece from Enugu