THE “REVOLUTION” IN TINUBU’S MIND AS GOD GIVES ANOTHER SIGN OF HIS VICTORY AT ABEOKUTA

Story by Razaq Adedeji Jimoh

ANOTHER Abeokuta outburst may be coming as signs of the “God’s Will, Allah’s Way” in the progressive march of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the Office of Nigerian Presidency. Once in a piece of this writer’s contribution to the controversy of the Muslim-Muslim Ticket (MMT), he argues that “God works with signs and wonders to manifest his presence in the life of man and on Earth among men… The MMT may have come as the central sign of Nigeria’s journey to the Promised Land (because) the correlation signs of Moses to Abiola and Joshua to Tinubu are replete in the recent history of the Nation’s Fourth Republic”. Curiously, the signs are yet ceaseless in their emergences.

In about 8months interval, history of an issue presaging vital elections in which the All Progressives Congress (APC)Presidential Candidate had been caught at the centre of its spiral helix would come to repeat itself. The issue is about the malicious misrepresentation of his obvious outburst, though factual speech, by his traducers. In both the original and repeat of the history set in Abeokuta, the Ogun State Capital, which came as a preset to cause disaffections between Tinubu and President Muhammodu Buhari, they yet have apiece the ingredients of God’s endorsement of Tinubu’s Presidential ambition.

In their respective different basis, the first speech to be deliberately misconstrued for malicious intent was to come as a new invention in the Nigeria’s political lexicon that would later make a shindig of election mantra as Emilokan. The second came just a few days back in the convention of a compelling change that always follow years of oppression by the capitalist cabals in the ruling elite. Tinubu simply called spade a spade when he submitted at the open rally that “this election is a revolution”.

However, the essential point to hold as a forward note here is that if the first could end in a landslide victory for him, the repeat of similar end for the second should not be in doubt! This by implication infers that for those blessed with the inner sight to see God’s hands at work, the conclusion to reach easily from the second event in observation of the consequences of the first is that God may have finally revealed to Nigerians the prospective winner of the coming Presidential Election.

To be sure of all this for fact; as Presidential Aspirant and on tour of the country while seeking to get his party’s ticket, Tinubu had cause to revisit the founding origin of his party, APC, at the Abeokuta corridor. The basis for this was clear: it followed an audacity of the Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, to jettison the conscience of gratitude for tribal sentiment. Against Tinubu, who literally facilitated his emergence as the governor against all odd created by then incumbent Governor Ibikunle Amosun, Abiodun had resolved to give his Ogun Delegates to his tribe’s man also in the presidential race, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

Speaking in Yoruba primarily to expose the hidden facts to the State’s Delegates with Abiodun in attendance, he cited instances of how he had deployed his political clout, will and influence to aid the electoral victory of many in power today. Referring the Dapo Abiodun’s as one, he merely recounted what was yet a public knowledge of how President Buhari had contested three times and lost before his (Tinubu’s) intervention in 2015. “If not for me that led the battle front, Buhari would not have become President…”, he said.

Conclusively therefrom, he exclaimed: “Emilokan!” – Meaning I am the next to be supported by all in my presidential ambition.

The next to follow this was the mischief makers going to town with their trade in stock. They accused Tinubu of playing the ethnic card to denigrate the Hausa/Fulani because the speech was made in Yoruba in the ancient town of the Yoruba civilization. They also posited that the speech was a disrespect to President Buhari. Of course, they succeeded in pushing him into frenzy of cause for the defences of his speech. The then new APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, obviously suspected to be one latent force behind the anti-zoning prospect of the party, was quoted to have threatened that Tinubu would “be punished” for his utterances.

But the rest is history that while his traducers had their momentary gains of turning the heat against him, the impact of their actions was inconsequential on the final outcome of the primary election that came just about six days later. Tinubu polled 1,271 votes out of a delegate list of 2,203 to beat his closest runner up, Rotimi Amechi, who polled 316.

Now again as the APC Presidential Candidate on tour of the country for his campaign to electorates to seek their votes, a similar history of malicious misrepresentation was to trail his berth again at Abeokuta corridor on January 25th, 2023, just exactly a month to the election. While the previous may have occurred in about a week to the concerned election, that this came four weeks to the election too may be a reflection of God’s cognizance of the weighty difference in the value size of the primary and general elections respectively, requiring the imperative of early notifications to His people of righteous means.

Speaking also in vernacular on impulse of the masses’ pains from a lingering fuel and energy crises that were to be compounded with shortage of the new currency at the approaching deadline date to phase out the old notes, Tinubu urged the electorates, particularly the youths class, to see this election as a desirable “revolution” to take power “from them”.

He said: “I came to appeal and solicit for your votes. This election is (the) revolution. We will use superior (arsenal of) revolution in PVCs to get power. They are using fuel scarcity to distract Nigerians. I assure you, it will be a thing of the past. They are hoarding fuel and now naira notes to frustrate Nigerians. They don’t want this election.

“If you like, change the ink of naira we are going to win and the PDP will (go) down. The city boy is here. I am the son of the soil. We will take the government from them, the bad people. They don’t want the election to take place. They want to stop the elections. Will you allow them?”

Speaking further, he said: “I will reduce the price of fuel. Be rest assured that I will solve the fuel crisis. Let them keep the fuel; keep hoarding the money, change the money. We shall defeat them. PDP will fall again, it dosen’t matter whatever they do. Great Nigerian youth, this is a revolution.”

Leaving the rally, however, he literally walked into the ambience of chirping birds of the gullible propagating the mischievous works his foes and surrounding fiends. But this time, it curiously transcended the partisan divides because not a few APC members bought into the malicious misrepresentation as anti-Buhari presumptions. The logic of his speech was aptly turned on its head.

Again, Tinubu was pushed into another frenzy of defences for his speech. In a tweet message of an opposition apologist to give weight to the anti-Buhari context of the speech, he said Tinubu was being “pinched” for caution while making the address. But after the dust settled, Buhari led Tinubu to Nasarrawa State for continuation of the campaign tour. And as a mere repeat of the history, not a few observers believe the speech had rather come as additional force to enhance the chances of Tinubu’s victory at the coming February 25, 2023 Presidential Election.

The Revolution in His Mind

To foster fairness, however, an evaluation of the speech may seem a dash to the right direction in swing to either side. Those who argue it as a jab at Buhari and the APC government could be deemed right to the extent that the naira redesign and the backlash of its shoddy implementation with the attendant dreadful threat to the potential victory of the ruling party at the fast approaching general elections is a policy invocation of this government.

They also rely on the premise of Buhari’s lukewarm dispositions to Tinubu’s emergence as the Presidential Candidate. But while many have counted this against Buhari, discernible minds have rather seen it as additional impetus to credibility of the primary process, which went miles in adding substance of the merit of Tinubu’s presidential ticket that was devoid of any untoward favourable interferences of extraneous presidential power bloc as a ruling party. The APC presidential primary had gone to be a perfect simile of the American’s in the history of Nigeria.

But to the opposition school of thought holding that the speech was against the ubiquitous cabals in the corridors of power and their oligarchs’ counterpart in the private sector, the former’s premises of argument is defective in that they failed to address this poser appropriately: to what advantage would it be for Buhari to deliberately work against the victory of Tinubu in spite of the vigorous commitment of his wife – the First Lady – to it. Accordingly, those who think beyond the acclaimed ‘ambiguous’ Buhari’s body language argue that the open and positive disposition of Aisha Buhari’s everlasting show of gratitude cannot be weaned off the Buhari’s. They also see Buhari in the light of his denial of the APC National Chairman, Abubakar Adamu, who dropped the latter’s name in attempt to foist the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, on the party as the Presidential Candidate.

Rightly in their discernible minds, therefore, the revolution inferred by Tinubu could not have made pretense to any other meaning than a reawakening of the public consciousness to the existence of group of entities working against the altruistic policies of the Buhari government. He also made no pretense to impress it that this group of saboteurs also exists in this APC government too – within the bureaucrat and political class – in continuum from the origin of this Fourth Republic.

For years in the life of this APC he co-founded with Buhari, Tinubu has being a victim of the cabals in the presidency, which worked assiduously to annihilate his relevance in the party’s government since 2015. That APC failed to constitute any Board of Trustee to date is one testimony to the power play of this cabal.

Down the line, the many acts of the political cabals, within and without, to undermine then suspected presidential ambition of Tinubu was an open read. Such was the unceremonious but illegal removal of Adams Oshiomhole as APC National Chairman in 2020. Tinubu described the intrigues leading to this as “Covid-2023 virus”.

While it may not be out of place for Tinubu or any right thinking bloke to connect the dilemma of scarcity of new notes with a plot to undermine the chances of APC victory in the coming election, the culprit could only be located within the economic leg of these cabals as the private sector oligarchs. Of course, Tinubu did not mince words in identifying them as vestigial PDP power base from the first sixteen year-rule in this Fourth Republic, of which Adamu, his party’s National Chairman, would hardly pass muster for exoneration from recent experience.

It was not known what the President Obasanjo’s pioneering administration saw to be the altruistic economic value in pushing a deliberate policy aimed at building a niche of oligarchs. He vigorously pursued this and made it to underscore the primacy of his privatisation of the Federal Government’s enterprises under the direct supervision of his Vice President Atiku Abubakar, now the Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It should be recalled that the failed bid to sell the NNPC refineries to Dangote and Otedola was a product of this intent.

The refineries became moribund because licenses for fuel importation were given to cronies and partisan faithful to feed from the largesse of fuel subsidy. With about 24years of their existence as a product of this democracy, the beneficiaries have become established as a cancer in our body polity. At every December through the years of Buhari administration, fuel scarcity has become a perennial problem. The economic cabal has successfully held it as a tool of blackmail against this government in speculation of any moves against fuel subsidy. It always disappeared after the National Appropriation Bill is signed into law and affirmatively assures that fuel subsidy was retained.

This is what is yet at play this time except that it has lingered on than necessary to cause the Tinubu’s outburst. Till this January ending of 2023, the cause of fuel scarcity is yet inexplicable. The NNPCL remained firm in asserting that it has enough fuel to last Nigerians’ consumption for the next three months. But this fails to conform with the queue being witnessed at fuel stations to date. Thus that if NNPCL was right by its claims, the problems must have to be located within the fuel vendors/marketers, who may either be hoarding to create artificial scarcity for their capitalist consciousness.

But then, the NNPCL is not worth believing for absolute truth either for the reason of same ubiquitous spread of the cabals. Except that if fuel importation supply were to be the problem, the media energy correspondents would have had their job cut out for them at the sea ports. It therefore goes to show that supply may not be the cause. And if supply source seems not to be the problem, where then is the issue in value chain of distribution?

The currency issue could hardly be disconnected from the saboteurs within the financial sector being at work. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would not have cause to play any blame game when she cried out that the commercial banks were not forthcoming at picking the new notes a few weeks back. No money deposit banks (MDB) had ever come out to fault this or deny the allegation. To this extent, the CBN slammed a daily fine of N1million on the defaulting banks.

Those that may be close to customers of Jaiz Bank would likely attest to the ease with which the bank makes access to the new notes seamlessly for its customers even before this past January 31st expiration date. This may give empirical evidence to the CBN claims. For the controlled experiment side of this observation, a report of a N20million fine the CBN purportedly slammed on a second generation bank over disbursement of the new notes through the hoarder syndicate channel should make a sensible conclusion on the possibility of saboteurs truly working against the redesigned naira policy rightly meant to demonetize our electoral system. In order words, while Jaiz may have acted out of religious persuasion, it helps to give clarity to the capitalist consciousness of its colleague MDBs in the majority.

For further clarifications, it may also be recalled that many of these banks sprung up in the hey days of the PDP rules, particularly those that evolved out of the Sanusi’s banking sector reform operations, when bank began to swallow banks and CEOs finding themselves behind bars.

Some of the banks also evolved earlier through the purported privatisation policy of Obasanjo administration. Thence, it should no longer be news from the plethora of Pandora box opened on the privatisation exercise that it was purely a share of the national assets to cronies and the ruling party bigwigs. Those who must have read Olusegun Adeniyi’s book – Power, Politics and Death – would attest to the powers of the banking oligarchs the Sanusi’s CBN presidency struggled against to make the reform surgery a success.

It is not a ruse that the banks that emerged post-Sanusi’s reforms in 2007 have grown into a behemoth that sees comfort in holding the CBN’s regulatory authority in contempt even to the extreme disdain. How many times had the CBN come to warn the banks against illicit and illegal charges being imposed on customers? How many times had the CBN warned banks against insider abuse?

For years to date, crisp notes meant to recycle the lifespan of naira in circulation are never disbursed over the counter as should rightly be. They enter circulation through the ubiquitous ceremonial events, where they go on sales in a valueless and unproductive measure of commerce. Against this, however, the CBN continues its enlightenment that this is a lawless abuse of the naira; but nobody is getting punished for it.

There could be no doubt, therefore, that the sabotaging pranks of the oil and gas and the banking sector oligarchs through their enduring acts of lawlessness and impunity that are yet playing out to warrant the general economic chaos were the target of Tinubu’s outburst. It was only great that he used to remind the electorates that this election should be the “revolution” Nigerians may have been agitating for in some quarters.

It should indeed be so if only the people would evaluate appropriately the weight of their Permanent Voters Card (PVC) as a weapon greater than the barrel gun. The resolve of President Buhari to restore the powers of PVC must have been borne out of his experience from the over 7years rule thus far. He must have seen the saboteurs being at work against his good policies for the people. Tinubu’s visionary prowess and good knowledge of insider politics and governance could not have been blind to this either.

Hence his cause to prepare the minds of the public that it was high time they used their democratic powers inherent in the PVC to demobilise the cabals and their oligarchs’ counterpart. He surely implies that the electorates should avail themselves of the opportunity the Buhari administration is giving them, through a commitment to free and fair elections, to usher in a new government that will help to annihilate the economic saboteurs.

NB: ALL ADVERTS APPEARING IN THIS PIECE IS SPONSORED BY CHIEF SUNDAY B. ABOYADE, VICE CHAIRMAN, APC LAGOS WEST AND DEPUTY DG, LAGOS CAMPAIGN COUNCIL, WEST 1