Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
(Jagabanm Borgu)
Bourdillon Road
Ikoyi, Lagos
Dear Asiwaju,
OPEN LETTER TO ASIWAJU BOLA AHMED TINUBU: SEIZE THIS
UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO LEAVE INDELIBLE FOOTPRINTS IN THE SANDS OF TIME
Thus far, your life has
been the stuff fables are made of. You have lived a life that can easily found
the script of a Holywood blockbuster for an inspirational meteoric rise from
grass to grace, from very humble origins to wining and dining with Presidents
and nobility; from a junior staff of a sectoral conglomerate to the de-facto
entity presiding over the affairs of multiple States in the Nigerian
Federation, States whose total economic strength rank them in the top five
bracket of economies in the African continent; from an activist involved in
mobilizing against totalitarian regimes to a behemoth who almost singlehandedly
enabled the emergence of Nigeria’s current ruler: General Muhammadu Buhari.
Indeed, the narrative of
Nigeria’s 3rd Republic thus far, will be very deficient if your
incisive and deft inputs were omitted. As a man who has put in so much in
political service, it is essential that conscious efforts are made to court a
positive perception by posterity whilst at the same time laying and building on
foundations for a sustainable, equitable and just society.
It is in the light of the
foregoing that it has become imperative and critical, that appropriate analysis
and assessment of your current aspiration with regards to the 2023 general
elections are made, so that whatsoever decisions your goodself ultimately
arrive at, would have been one arrived at in full consciousness of the
circumstances.
Used &
Neglected
Dear Asiwaju, your role in
repackaging an ethnoreligious extremist and ex-Military dictator, notorious for
extrajudicial atrocities, muzzling the media and total disregard for the rule
of law, as a ‘reformed democrat’, and against all odds, ensuring he attained
the constitutionally required geographical spread of electoral votes which
served as lifeline towards the ascendance into office of the incumbent
President of the Federal Republic, Muhammadu Buhari, is all too self-evident.
Despite your role in the
emergence of the incumbent President, your goodself was ignominiously sidelined
in the governance structure of the APC coalition which you were vital to its
emergence. With the Presidency actively engaged in efforts at whittling down
your authority within your sphere of influence and encouraging your nominees
into the Federal government to disparage your foundational role.
There is no doubt that
your goodself might have been motivated by altruistic and patriotic desires in
seeking to wrest power from the government of then President Goodluck Jonathan.
The reality, however, is that due to a most extreme clannishness and religious
bigotry unprecedented in the annals of Nigeria’s history, your goodself and
whatever impacts you might have intended under the regime you were crucial in
installing, were sidelined in a most reprobate manner.
Only for the same regime
to remember your existence as they struggled towards the 2019 general elections
– which you, once again, against expected indices, played yet another vital in
securing for the current regime of Gen. Buhari.
Pyrrhic
victory at primaries
I verily believe, dear
Asiwaju, that the means via which you emerged as your political party’s candidate
at the APC Presidential primaries in Abuja a few weeks ago would have given you
a clear insight as to the intendments of the characters for whom you had
sacrificed so much to get them into power.
After several months of
outright denial of a gentleman’s agreement your goodself asserted you had with
the incumbent President and his handlers for power shift, with the government
embarking on all-out schemes to compromise your worth, akin to the antics
deployed during General Buhari’s first term in office. The APC Northern
Governors went public with provocative comments that there had been no such agreement
for a power rotation or shift, and that all Nigerians were welcome to aspire to
be president under the APC platform. The APC Chairman, Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu,
had progressed on that ill-informed path, daring your tenacity of purpose and
convictions, by endorsing the candidature of the current sitting Senate
President, Ahmad Lawal, as the preferred presidential candidate of the APC for
the 2023 general elections.
Your goodself had to
resort to extreme measures, to wit: your public pronouncement at a political
rally in Abeokuta where you pointedly stated, ’emi lokán’ (Yoruba phrase which
means it’s my turn to rule) and later at same venue, reminding Buhari that he
had come to prostrate before you, pleading for your support before you
intervened to halt his serial electoral loses after three presidential polls. Your
particular words at that event, ‘ose kán, ose k’eji, ose k’eta, olule’, (he
(Buhari) tried once, twice and thrice, and failed flat on his face at each
try), has since become part of political folklore in southwest Nigeria.
If you recollect, dear
Asuiwaju, the APC Chairman, Adamu, had the temerity to publicly threaten you
with dire consequences for daring to voice out the truth about your role in
foisting Gen. Buhari on Nigeria as President. It was only after it dawned on
these political extremists that you were willing to reveal more sordid details
which would unsettle the Government, that a hasty volte-face was patched up,
and the same Governors, Party leaders who had threatened you a few days
earlier, suddenly reversed themselves and claim to support your candidature,
and thus your eventual emergence as APC Presidential candidate at the Abuja presidential
primaries.
Post-primaries
permutations
The smirking face
exhibited by the President and the APC Chairman as they helped your goodself
hold-up your shaky hands to uphold the APC flag at the end of the presidential
primaries, and the smugness that characterizes their mien whensoever these
associates of yours present you as the APC Presidential candidate, whilst fully
aware of your health and physical frailties, is self-evident and suggestive of
a ploy to use your goodwill for the sole purpose of ascending into office, and
thereafter do their will.
A cursory inquiry into the
180⁰ turn around and pretentious support of your candidature by the government
and leaders of the APC, and their imposing on your goodself as your Vice
Presidential candidate, Alhaji. Kashim Shettima, a suspected sympathizer of
extremist Islamist ideology grossly implicated in the infamous Chibok ‘abductions’,
who has, without the presidential elections even taking place, already arrogated
to himself the role of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces (in clear
violations of the provisions of the Nigerian constitution), is suggestive that
there is intent to take advantage of your advancing age to steer the ship of
state in a direction antithetical to the secular and federal ethos of the
Constitution. Clearly, if your presidential ticket continues as is, Nigeria and
its peoples will be enmeshed in a far deeper quagmire than the current regime
has punished the peoples of Nigeria with.
In keeping with projections made by experts and practitioners versed in the antics of the leadership of your political party who merely allowed your goodself to assume the role of the APC presidential candidate for the 2023 elections, and in line with what transpired during the 2015 presidential elections when high ranking members of the ruling PDP publicly worked against their parties presidential candidate, the same APC Governors and leaders who at the last minute adopted your goodself as their preferred candidate, have begun to declare allegiance to one of the opposing parties, in a move that is intended to expose you to public odium and in payback for your objective stance in revealing the role you played in the enthronement of the current regime.
I believe you are very
conversant with the facts enumerated above. You might presently be under the misconception
that despite all these, it will still be possible to control the situation in
the unlikely event that the elections proceed. When the reality that those
behind the schemes described above are the same persons who threatened to
overflow the polity with ‘the blood of baboons and monkeys’ in the event of
their electoral loss, and who have confessed to having gone outside the shores
of Nigeria to recruit mercenaries to thwart the electoral process, it becomes
clear that it is in the best interest of all for the vile machinations planned,
to be aborted long before it has any opportunity to manifest.
A call to
rise above self
Dear Asiwaju, it is my
candid advice, and that of those who hold you in esteem, that you use the
opportunity of your nomination as the presidential candidate for the APC in the
2023 election to undertake a path and role that will forever enshrine your
goodself as a man who: when it mattered most, sacrificed personal interest for
national interest; who was willing to let go a ticket that will perpetuate
divides amongst people in favor of an act that will cement bridges; a man who
lived above treachery and ethnic schisms, whilst setting high bars for good
governance and national cohesion. It is that sacrifice and willingness that you
are now being, most respectfully, invited and urged to make.
When your goodselve
examines the other contenders for the Office of President at forthcoming
presidential elections, you will readily arrive at a conclusion that the Labor
Party presidential and vice presidential candidates, Peter Obi and Datti
Baba-Ahmed respectively, are imbued with those qualities and attributes that is
suitable for the leadership Nigeria requires to overcome decades of bad
governance; represents the requisite equity and balance that will portray
Nigeria as just; and has exhibited the candor and attainments that makes them
ideal to preside over the affairs of Nigeria and ready her for future accomplishments.
I do hereby humbly call on
your goodself, to withdraw forthwith from the presidential race (thus denying
those who seek to rubbish your image for parochial and skewed reasons, an
opportunity to so do), and wholly endorse, support and work towards the success
of the candidature of Mr. Peter Obi and his Vice, Datti Baba-Ahmed, as
presidential and vice presidential candidates respectively of the Labor Party
in the presidential elections slated for February 2023.
If you hearken to the
request above, your goodself would in addition to having elevated the bars of
altruism and patriotism in service of Nigeria to a whole new level, cemented
the proverbial and palpable ‘bridge across the Niger’ (and even beyond the
Benue), announced yourself as a champion of equity and justice, invested in the
prosperity and progress of Nigeria, and above all, carved an indelible pivotal
position for yourself in posterity as a man who damned retrogression and infamy
in favor of progress and glory of his country. Posterity will forever remember
you and your name will join the ranks of the Nkrumah’s, Jomo Kenyatta’s, Azikiwe’s,
MKO’s amongst other great Africans who rose up to be counted when it mattered
most.
Remain blessed, dear
Asiwaju.
Yours
Eze Eluchie, Esq.
Picture: Bola Ahmed Tinubu
(APC presidential aspirant)
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