Femi Fami-Kayode & Bola Tinubu
I do not like to delve into matters touching and concerning the 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.
About the Author:
Femi Fani-Kayode was the former Minister of Aviation and spokesman for the Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation.
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