I do not like to delve into matters touching and concerning the All Progressives Congress, APC, because I am not a member.
However what is happening in the ruling
party today transcends partisan politics and should be a concern to us
all. At the very least we can learn some very hard lessons from it.
The truth is that the behaviour of Chief
John Odige-Oyegun towards the man that single-handedly made him the
national chairman of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is
reprehensible.
And neither does this matter begin or
end with the way and manner in which the Ondo state governorship
primaries were conducted or its final outcome.
It goes much deeper than that and the
Ondo affair is only symptomatic of a much deeper malaise and wider
conspiracy to humiliate the National Leader of the APC by forces within
his party that are even greater than him.
Those forces represent the hidden hand.
They are a small cabal of power-brokers who constitute the leadership of
the Buhari-led CPC. These people believe that they were born to rule
and that they own Nigeria.
They simply used Tinubu’s old ACN as a
compliant and ready piggy-back to catapult their way back to power and
once they achieved that they never looked back.
Some of us warned Tinubu at the time
about the dangers of riding the tiger and allowing himself to be used by
these very dark and sinister forces but he would not listen.
No true student of history could have
made such a cataclysmic and monumental error given the terrible
experiences of others from the south-west, and indeed the entire south,
who collaborated with such ultra-conservative, sectarian and arcane
forces with a clear and distinct ethnic and religious agenda in the
past.
Such forces can never be comfortable
with a well-connected, highly sophisticated, independent-minded, strong,
unpredictable, uncontrollable and experienced Yoruba leader and
southern gladiator with a June 12th pedigree, a NADECO background, a
massive war-chest and a widespread and formidable political base.
They may use him to achieve their
objective but they can never trust him or allow him to have control of
the party machinery or to wield any real power when it comes to running
the affairs of the nation.
Most importantly once they have finished
using him it becomes their duty and cardinal objective not just to cut
him down to size but also to castrate and render him impotent and
eventually destroy him.
That is their way. It is also a classic
and vintage Nicollo Machiavelli move. This great writer that has had
more influence on political thinking and strategies than perhaps any
other author in human history taught us a critical and crucial lesson in
his famous 14th century literary masterpiece and treatise on the power
game titled “The Prince”. He tells us that the first thing that a Prince
must do once he has achieved power is to destroy those that put him
there.
And that is precisely what those that
seek to do Tinubu in are doing. Worst still they are using his own
erstwhile discipiles as a first line of attack against him.
It is not just Odige-Oyegun that has
turned his back on him but also his former political protegees and
former ACN associates like Tunde Fashola, Ibikunle Amosu, Kayode Fayemi,
Biodun Ajimobi, Olorunimbe Mamora, Niyi Adebayo, Rotimi Akeredolu and
numerous others.
Pulling the strings from behind the
scenes and encouraging and funding the rebellion are hardline
Buhari-supporters like my good friend Governor Nasir El Rufai and a
number of others.
Their objective is to establish a new
political order in the south west which is beholden to them alone, to
replace Tinubu as the National Leader of the party and to utterly
demystify and crush him in order to prepare the ground for the emergence
of a new and more compliant Yoruba running mate for either Buhari
himself or El Rufai in 2019.
As a graphic illustration of this
interesting and unfolding agenda, the powers that be in the APC, led by
Buhari himself, fired six shots at Tinubu inmediately after they formed
government.
The first was the Senate Presidency
affair and the Bukola Saraki matter which saw the defeat and humiliation
of Tinubu’s prefered candidate for Senate President.
The second shot was the Speaker of the
House of Representatives affair and the Yakubu Dogara matter which,
again, saw the defeat and humiliation of Tinibu’s prefered candidate for
the position of Speaker of the House.
The third was the vital issue of
Ministerial appointments in which not one single Ministerial nominee of
Tinubu’s was accepted and appointed as a Minister by Buhari.
Every single person that he nominated
from the south west and elsewhere as Minister was rejected and instead
the slots were filled by his political adversaries and/or their
nominees.
Many erroneously believe that Mr. Lai
Mohammed, who is from Kwara state, was Tinubu’s choice and nominee for
Minister of Information but this was not the case.
The person that he nominated for
Minister of Information was not Lai Mohammed but Mr. Dele Alake, his
former Commissioner of Information in Lagos state.
Again he nominated Mr. Wale Edun, his
former Commissioner of Finance in Lagos state, for the position of
Minister of Finance but this was rejected and Governor Ibikunle Amosu’s
candidate, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, got the job instead.
This went on across the board for every
single person that Tinubu nominated and presented for the position of
Minister last year and it was a terrible humiliation for him. It was a
dirty slap in his face.
The fourth shot was the James Faleke
matter in Kogi state where it was agreed by the real landlords of the
APC in the core north that Tinubu must not be allowed to gain a foothold
in the north central zone by getting his own Yoruba kinsman and
candidate to be elected as governor of that state.
Hence Faleke was ruthlessly dropped and
shabbily treated and another person was selected to be the gubernatorial
candidate of that state. It worked, Faleke went to court and sadly he
lost. That was the end of the story.
The fifth shot is the thorough and
systematic, though subtle and covert, humiliation and relegation of Vice
President Yemi Osinbajo, a close associate and political protegee of
Tinubu and a spiritual son of the reverred Pastor Enoch Adeboye of The
Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), to not just a spare tyre as
Vice President but also to a very flat one.
Rather than being allowed to participate
in the crucial decision-making processes on vital and critical issues
of state and governance as any Vice President should, Osinbajo has been
kept in the dark about virtually everything and he has little or no
power to effect anything.
When such decions are to be debated,
discussed and made the Vice President is never invited into the room and
neither is he even aware that there is such a meeting going on.
Worse still he is constantly being
directed to represent the President at official functions all over the
country as if he were more his Personal Assistant, Special Advisor or
Minister rather than the Vice President of the country. Osinbajo’s crime
is simply that he is loyal to Tinubu and he has refused to dump or
betray him.
The sixth and perhaps most devastating
shot is the fact that the party machinery has not only been taken away
from Tinubu with the effective highjacking of Odige-Oyegun but that it
has also opted to do the bidding of his mortal enemies and to fight him.
An eloquent testimony to this disturbing
fact is the outcome of the Ondo state gubernatorial primaries where
Tinubu’s candidate was edged out and cheated of the nomination by the
party leadership.
This was the last straw that broke the
camels back and predictably Tinubu has reacted in a very loud,
aggressive and profound manner by publicly calling for the removal of
the National Chairman of the party.
Yet calling for the removal of
Odigie-Oyegun is not enough. The whole situation calls for critical
thiking, sober reflection and deep retrospection.
The point that needs to be clearly
understood when considering these six shots and the unfolding
anti-Tinubu agenda within the APC is the fact that, contrary to all
pretensions, President Muhammadu Buhari is part and parcel of it and he
is in fact the moving spirit behind the whole conspiracy.
Nasir El Rufai and a number of others
are simply the strategists and enforcers. Buhari, Mamman Daura and Abba
Kyari are the masterminds.
Given all this one thing is clear: these
people want Tinubu dead. If he does not realign quickly and fight hard
to save his dwindling political fortunes and empire his APC friends and
allies will destroy him in a slow, clinical, sadistic and systematic
manner. And they will do it with a big, beautiful and friendly smile on
their faces.
The fact of the matter is that, right from the outset, Tinubu failed to accept the fact that he was in bed with demons.
He refused to appreciate the fact that
he was sleeping with beasts that are hell bent on eating his flesh,
driniking his blood and ruthlessly implementing an ancient ethnic and
religious agenda.
He gave them his all, caused them to win
an election and trusted them to honor their word and treat him with
respect and decorum.
He failed to appreciate the fact that you cannot make a deal with snakes and expect them to honor their word.
He forgot that you cannot wine and dine
with cancerous lepers and hungry tigers without ending up being served
as the final dish in a long, blood-curdling and Byzantian satanic feast.
Yet if the truth is to be told, no matter what mistakes he may have made, Tinubu does not deserve to be treated in this way.
Up until the Presidential elections were
conducted last year he led and held together the south-western wing of
the APC with an iron fist and he was the undisputed leader of the APC in
that zone.
All four APC governors from the south
west and virtually every single party leader waited on his every word
and he called all the shots.
Sadly today, just over one year later,
he is a caricature of his former self. Today Tinubu can only boast of
having the ear and the full support of only two of those govermors,
namely Rauf Aregbesola of Osun state, who will NEVER betray him no
matter what, and Akinwumi Ambode of Lagos state who will also stand
firmly behind him until the very end.
The truth is that Tinubu has lost much
ground and political mileage in recent times and, as more daggers are
pulled out over the next few months and years it is bound to get worse
for him.
Yet that does not mean that he is
finished. I say this because he is a tried and tested fighter and a
formidable adversary who is quite capable of pulling the whole APC house
down.
It would be a fatal error for any of his
adversaries, including President Buhari, Vice President Atiku Abubakar
or Senate President Bukola Saraki, to underestimate him or dismiss his
ability to fight back.
In July 2016, just after my release from
detention and during the course of an interview with Channels
Television (which can still be viewed on Youtube) Mr. Seun Okinbaloye
asked me whether I could ever contemplate going back to the APC and how I
thought the ruling party would fare into the future.
I told him that I would NEVER go back to
the APC under ANY circumstances. I also told him that in any case by
2019 there would not be an APC, as it is presently constituted, left
because the party would have spilt up into three separate and distinct
political entities.
I told him that the Tinubu group
comprising of men like Baba Bisi Akande, Rauf Aregbesola, Akinwummi
Ambode and others would establish one party, the Atiku Abubakar group
comprising of men like Bukola Saraki, Rabiu Kwakwanso and many of the
former PDP leaders and governors that had left for the APC when
President Goodluck Jonathan was in power would establish another and
that the Buhari group comprising of men like Nasir El Rufai, Bello
Masari, Aminu Tambuwal, Rotimi Amaechi, Rochas Okorocha, Chris Ngige,
Ogbonaya Onu, Adams Oshiomole and virtually the entire structure of the
old CPC leadership in the core north would constitute yet another. I
stand by this prediction.
These three strong and equally forceful factions can be likened to the proverbial three blind yet ravenous wolves.
They cannot stay in the same cage or remain on the same platform for long without tearing each other to pieces.
Eventually they will all go their
separate ways and, hopefully, contend with a newly-branded and
reinvigotated PDP in the field of battle in 2019.
What we are witnessing today in the
ranks of the APC is the beginning of that bitter separation and messy
divorce and it is going to get far worse.
It will be loud, bitter, acrimonious and
rancorous and many political empires, careers, and aspirations will be
destroyed as a consequence of it.
My hope and prayer is that the PDP,
which is also going through its own rigorous process of redefinition and
reinvigoration, can get its act together before then, take advantage of
the situation, pick up the pieces and win the presidential election in
2019. I am sure that we will.
Meanwhile my advise to Asiwaju Bola
Tinubu is to watch his back, consolidate his base, fight his enemies,
reach out to new friends, accept the fact that he is at war and sleep
with one eye wide open. The truth is that it will get far worse before
it gets any better.
Femi
Fani-Kayode is a lawyer, a Nigerian politician, an evangelical
christian, an essayist, a poet and he was the Special Assistant (Public
Affairs) to President Olusegun Obasanjo from July 2003 until June 2006.
He was the minister of culture and tourism of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria from June 22nd to Nov 7th 2006 and as the minister of Aviation
from Nov 7th 2006 to May 29th 2007. He tweets from@realFFK.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
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