News Analysis: Let’s Take a Tour of Tinubu’s Mind

News Analysis: Let’s Take a Tour of Tinubu’s Mind

Saturday, September 22, 2018 1:06 am


 

Tinubu

 

By Olaleye Olawale

Amid the ruckus occasioned by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s re-election fix, the least any politically savvy can do right now is not to envy Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the numero uno leader of the state. He is unenviably on a knife-edge. And either way, this current political imbroglio in the state may not end very pleasantly for him.

First off, it does appear he is heading out to this critical battle with his weakest team ever. Forget the crowd of people you see behind the anointed candidate, the amiable Babajide Sanwo-Olu, they are majorly not genuine, save for a few with name-recognition.

Look closely and you’d see through the pall. Some are only putting up faces, just for the optics and the record, because an order has been issued from somewhere. A majority of them might actually turn their backs when they are mostly needed to sign the loyalty undertaking.

Asiwaju, without any scintilla of doubt, is at the point, where loyalty must be put to absolute test, because it is the only weapon he is taking with him to this all-important battle. How to identify the genuinely loyal soldiers is where the real task lies. He would do more than the usual roll-call of his tired legs and be sure there are no ‘spies’ amongst both the old and new recruit soldiers.

For a majority of those crying wolf, this is about survival – political and economic – and right now, who can actually afford the highest pay? Your guess is as good as mine. Remember some people collected Governor Ayodele Fayose’s money during the recent July 14 governorship election in Ekiti State and were heard whispering to one another in very hushed tones: Fayemi, Fayemi. It was not a sealed deal. These things can be fleeting.

In any fiefdom, kingdom or empire in human history, the rule is standard: the moment you challenge the king, you must dethrone him, else, you would be consumed in the battle that would ensue, because the king would go all out once he survives.

As a result, once you challenge the king and lose, be prepared to lose your peace too that moment onward. Shall we travel some distance to relate with this familiar trajectory of the human society?

Major-General Mamman Vasta challenged King IBB in his 1985 coup but because he failed in his plot to dethrone the king, he paid with his life, despite appeals from diverse quarters for justice to be tempered with mercy.

Some Chinese guys, who challenged the late Singaporean leader, Lee Kuan Yew, were banished for mopping up such guts and they wasted away in penury while in exile.

Unfortunately for them, when Singapore began to assume the colours and shape of their dream, they were unable to visit. They must have been ‘killed by frustration and heartbreak’.

What about former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar? He pulled a trigger against a general but failed to shoot. He is still paying for being unable to man up at that critical time.

Go all around the globe and over history and you’d be regaled with even more interesting stories of the consequences of standing up to a king and unable to dethrone him. There, certainly, will be consequences – grave ones.

Stricto sensu, Asiwaju has stood up to King Ambode and ahead of him are grave consequences, even for his followers in the event that this king survives his onslaught, which is not impossible, because it is a game of ‘numbers and war chest’. That is one leg to this tour.

Here is another and it is equally very important. Assuming it is concluded that Ambode would not return for the many reasons piled up against him and the kingmaker chooses to dethrone him, the one question is: can oga deliver Lagos with his obviously weak team and the growing resentment against his enslavement of the state?

If you thought he might be unable to pull this off and could cast your mind back to Ambode’s narrow victory in 2015, which former governor Babatunde Fashola did everything humanly possible to make possible, then, you are reading the equation with an open-mind. The implication, therefore, is that the APC might have opened its doors to some good chances for PDP’s Jimi Agbaje.

Here, we could say and understandably so that Agbaje is not financially buoyant and might be unable to muster the kind of money needed to prosecute the election. That could be true. However, you must invariably concede to him what must have been lost in the APC and that is huge public sympathy, which could travel as fast as money and even more effective.

Don’t also forget that if Agbaje was able to secure some staggering public sympathy that could boost the confidence of some ‘political investors’, then, you have given the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki a reason to wade in on his behalf and if that happens, forget it, it might be game-over for the APC, because Saraki knows this game inside-out.

Remember, nothing would excite Saraki as much as showing and proving to Asiwaju that he is equally a master of the game. Besides, he has been through a lot of humiliation, all of which he had always identified Asiwaju’s hands. Thus, teaming up with the right group in the Lagos PDP to take him out would be the easiest and most exciting undertaking for him.

Can you now see that no one should envy Asiwaju? For once, he is about to take one of the most difficult political decisions of his life – it is a make or mar choice, but not a win-win. He might have fought and won many battles, this very one is defining for him, going forward.

But don’t get this twisted. You may like Ambode and share some sentiments in his favour. You can’t afford to be politically naïve either. If you thought he’d come back and not revenge this ongoing humiliation, then, you need to read and learn more about leadership, power and art of war. The signs are there and Asiwaju knows better.

No doubt, Asiwaju, like I always say, understands the science of the politics of Lagos pretty much. But this one battle is difficult and even if he survives it, things may never be the same again for his leadership. He’s been rattled.

Retirement beckons, methinks and the earlier he embraces this reality, the better for him!


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