By Steve Nwosu
The working title of this article was ‘Tinubu: This House Is Falling’. But, not wanting to sound alarmist, I had to settle for a more subtle headline.
Irrespective of whatever title one runs with, the truth remains that all is not well in the political household of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Call it BATCO, Mandate Group or whatever, there appear to be a few loose nuts and bolts, here and there, which seem to be making the superstructure a bit shaky at the moment.
A few previously unheard-of occurrences are taking place. Increasingly, the tail is attempting to wag the dog, and without consequences too.
I wouldn’t know if it’s just me trying to read meaning into meaningless happenstances, but as our Yoruba elders say, the birds are no longer chirping as birds ought to.
Yes, I know we might be in the minority, but I’m one of those who feel that the long knives that were recently unsheathed in the Lagos House of Assembly have very little to do with Hon. Mudashiru Obasa.
Yes, he may have lost his comfy seat as Speaker, but Obasa was at best, an accidental victim, or even a bait for the entrapment of a bigger game. That bigger game is far away in Abuja.
But, make no mistake about it, there are always more than enough reasons to impeach (or ‘remove’ as Obasa insists is his case) any Speaker in Nigeria. It’s just that members of the respective houses – both federal and state houses, always choose to look the other way.
However, it is still curious that members of the Lagos House, who had indulged Obasa over even more grievous ‘excesses’ these past 10 years, decided to wield the big stick as a result of what many of us, the non-initiates, thought was, at worst, a misdemeanour.
Of course, the initial suspicion was that the Ogun State-born Speaker of the Lagos House of Assembly had finally got his cup of sins, before Tinubu, to overflow. And it was not just about the seeming lack of emotional intelligence around his alleged governorship ambition. There were also talks about disregarding Asiwaju’s gentle advice that he reconsider some house committee appointments among other things. But those now seem like aeons ago.
But subsequent developments suggest the President may have had nothing to do with the fall of The Speaking Speaker. In fact, Obasa’s impeachment may actually be a shadow-boxing on the President.
Further rubbing insult into injury was the gusto with which the lawmakers prevailed on the new Speaker, Mojisola Meranda, to tear up her own resignation letter, which she had brought to the House with her, and was hoping to read at plenary. That letter, itself, was said to be the outcome of a long telephone conversation she was said to have had with a monarch, who had conveyed the directive of Abuja that she step down to pave the way for Obasa’s reinstatement.
Now don’t ask me who or what ‘Abuja’ connotes. But the Alausa lawmakers are carrying on like that proverbial kid that suddenly begins to dance in the middle of the road. Surely, there must be a drummer hiding behind the nearby bushes.
As a long-time admirer of the strategic politics of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I’m particularly pained at the way things are unravelling in his Lagos backyard.
If Tinubu could lose the presidential election in Lagos, with a strong and united APC, and the party having to resort to underhand tactics to wrest the governorship re-election (even for a Sanwo-Olu who was generally adjudged to have performed well in his first term), it is unthinkable what would happen in 2027, with a divided party. Especially, given that it is not only in Lagos that things are not at ease for both Tinubu and the ruling party. The signals coming from North, East and even West do not look too encouraging.
In the East, despite all the “good work” the likes of Dave Umahi, Hope Uzodimma, and my boss for life, Orji Uzor Kalu, would want us to believe Tinubu’s administration is doing for the South-east, Asiwaju is still not one of the most loved persons in the zone. And the situation has not been served any better by the continued detention and trial of IPOB’s Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, as well as the seeming refusal of the Tinubu government to explore a political solution to the matter.
Of course, that is not to mention the South-south, where, despite Edo and Cross River swinging to the APC, and the party now having all three senators of Delta State, the PDP remains the party to beat.
In the North, which has continued to tell whoever cares to listen that it accounted for over 60% of Tinubu’s vote, there’s now increasing disaffection against the government, with allegations that the region has been deliberately edged out of the commanding heights of public service and being replaced with persons of South-west extraction. Now, I wouldn’t want to go into the debate of how Buhari used his eight years as president to, brazenly, rig the system to give undue advantage to the North, or whether the proper solution to Buhari’s pro-North lopsidedness is Tinubu’s pro-South-West lopsidedness. But one thing is certain: irrespective of how excited Abdullahi Gabduje might be, the North is not happy with Tinubu. And it has threatened to do something about it come 2027. It does not matter whether SGF George Akume screams from now till 2027 that he too, and his family, are also from the North, and are still with Tinubu.
Even in the South-west, the tragic drama playing out in Osun over the recent local government election is not likely to endear Tinubu more to the people of his original state.
Yes, the President may have taken full control of the institutions that matter, at least as it relates to the before, during and after processes of the 2027 presidential election, but he cannot afford to treat the potential foot soldiers (which is what majority of the Lagos lawmakers are) with levity. It is like a war. And, like in all wars, it’s not the Generals and the GOCs alone that matter. We cannot forget the RSMs, the platoon leaders and the Rank and File who will do the actual shooting.
Several years ago I had a stint at a media house where the company’s managers had a faceoff with the locals who dwelled in shanties that doted every space outside the company’s perimeter fence – with some of them boldly spilling towards the front gate of the publishing house. The company finally engaged a joint military and police task force to eject the pesky squatters. But in the milieu, one faceless old man dropped an enduring hint:
“Tell…(he called the full name of the publisher) that he will look for us when he wants to bury cow next year”.
That comment gave fuel to a rumour that the publisher had an annual ritual of secretly burying a live cow on the premises and that some of those nondescript individuals in the shanties helped perform the rites. As outlandish as that allegation was, it continued to gain traction, a development that was not helped by the fact that the shanty dwellers ended up never being ejected.
As untrue as the allegation was, there’s still a moral lesson: it’s not always advisable to take those on the lower rungs of the ladder for granted. Everyone is important.
Even in our traditional setup, the Kabiyesi, the royal household, the Oloyes and the chief priest know that a sacrifice is not complete until a certain, usually inconsequential, Arubo who would carry the sacrifice to the intersection of three roads arrives.
So, while we ‘secure and cancel’ perceived rivals ahead of the 2027 permutations, let us keep in mind that not one of those behind the crisis rocking the Lagos Assembly today can (or even has a child who can) run through the streets of Lagos with a machete, chasing down political opponents, tearing down their posters and billboards, or even grabbing a ballot box, snatching it, and running away with it, when, as K.O. Mbadiwe would say, “the come comes to become.” The solution, if you ask me, is for the President, or whoever is hiding behind the President’s name, to discard their ego. Bring down their shoulder, as we say in street lingo, cut their losses and move on, to fight another day – when the odds are more favourably stacked.
