Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the perfect illustration for the notion of being a national zero and a regional hero. Diehard Tinubu supporters are ready to sacrifice their rational thinking about how Tinubu is running Lagos State like a sole proprietorship just to see a Yoruba man as the next President of Nigeria. They do not care if Tinubu will end up becoming the landlord of Nigeria just as he is today the landlord of Lagos. They do not care if he is allegedly one of the most corrupt but unconvicted politicians in Nigeria. They do not care if after he leaves office, he will seize power by proxy and continue to rule endlessly through stooges like Fashola, Ambode, and now Sanwo-Olu. No! They want a Yoruba president. And this primitive mindset has been our albatross since independence as a nation.
You will underrate the Jagaban at your peril. He combines the personality of an intellectual and the ruggedness of a National Union of Road Transport Worker tout. Even geniuses like Prof. Wole Soyinka were bamboozled by the Tinubu electioneering machinery. He succeeded in crafting a narrative that saw the majority of Yorubas suspend their educational thinking prowess for ethnic sentimentality that saw Goodluck Jonathan tagged as a drunk from the Niger Delta who can read but cannot lead. And whitewashed the dictator/Boko Haram sympathizer Muhammadu Buhari as the Fulani Herdsman who can take Nigeria to the promised land. The old, middle-aged, and young were willingly fooled. Even the most respected religious leaders in the land were not spared the foolery. They suspended their spiritual discernment for lucre or ethnic advancement.
Recently Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu was trending because of her response to the passionate appeal about the grave situation of insecurity in Nigeria by Senator Smart Adeyemi. Her response was perhaps the last filter that was preventing many Yorubas from seeing the Tinubus for who they are – cold-blooded imperialist. Their clan does not care about the thousands of innocent Nigerians who have been killed by Fulani herdsmen and bandits. And the women and girls who have been raped repeatedly in kidnapper’s den as a direct consequence of the incompetence of the extremist they helped to enthrone as commander in chief. This is inconsequential. Their main aim is to be enthroned as president and first lady in 2023. Nigeria is moving towards implosion, yet Mr. and Mrs. Tinubu are only concerned with adding other states in Nigeria into their fiefdom.
Ata Ukuta, Editor – www.towncryyers.com