By Steve Nwosu
If we must be honest with ourselves, the rumour of a strain in the relationship between the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and his man-Friday, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has been making the rounds since last year.
But it was always discussed in hushed tones, especially as we live in times when mischievously creative imaginations regularly spin incredulous tales out of virtually nothing.
One of the talebearers swore by the clay feet of Sigidi that the Minister of the Interior was eyeing the same 2023 presidential ticket of the APC, believed to be top on the wish-list of his leader and mentor, Tinubu and that this had put the two men on a collision path. He said the North was better disposed to an Aregbe presidency than a Tinubu’s and had given him the go-ahead to begin groundwork.
The tale went from the incredulous to the ludicrous, when another tale bearer told of how the former governor of the state of Osun, encouraged by his friends from the North, opened talks with Dancing Senator Ademola Adeleke, whose dream of governing Osun, after the 2018 guber election, was only aborted by dizzying Supreme Court judgement.
READ ALSO: https://www.thexpressng.com/2020/06/10/ekiti-has-no-problem-naming-centre-after-fayemi-apc/
This, the talebearer said, is to ensure that PDP takes over Osun and further shrink Asiwaju’s area of influence, adding Osun to Ondo, Ekiti and Oyo, where Tinubu’s influence is believed to be waning. The talebearer did not, however, connect all the dots, to show how this would enhance Aregbe’s choice of clinching the presidential ticket of the APC.
Another redhead also spun a tale of how Aregbe is wrongly perceived as one of Asiwaju’s men in the federal cabinet when, indeed, the former Osun governor, and even Minister of Youths and Sports Development Sunday Dare (who used to be a media aide of Asiwaju’s) were never nominated into the cabinet by Tinubu.
According to the tale, the Buhari camp decided to compensate Aregbe based on his personal credibility. The story is that in the 2011 presidential election, when Tinubu’s Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) fielded Nuhu Ribadu but reached a secret deal with Jonathan to vote PDP,
Aregbe was the only South-west governor who insisted on giving his state to Ribadu. Buhari and the North took notice, marking him out as principled and able to stand his ground against Tinubu whenever the need arises.
Soon enough, murmurings of Aregbe’s alleged double-dealing got to Tinubu, with a handful of opportunists fueling the allegation, in the hope of benefitting from the minister’s falling out of favour with the leader.
But Asiwaju soon took the wind off their sail. The Jagaban allegedly told all the associates gathered there that, of all the members of the family, Aregbe is the only one who could give him something and he would eat, without looking at it. That says a lot about the level of trust Aregbesola still enjoys with Tinubu.
Even in the running of the political family, Tinubu literally delegates everything to Aregbe. A former commissioner and a diehard Tinubu man once told of what transpired during one of the local government elections during the Babatunde Raji Fashola administration.
According to him, after Asiwaju sent his list of candidates, and Fashola, who stuck to his position of leaving politicking to Tinubu, flatly refused to put forward any candidate (insisting that he would work with whomever the political family threw up as local government chairmen), it was left to Aregbe to single-handedly pick the council chairmen of Lagos State, although he eventually conceded a few slots to some other notable members of the family. That was why, even as Governor of Osun State, many Lagos Council bosses went over Fashola (and later, Ambode) to report to Aregbe.
The same situation was also true whenever they desired Asiwaju’s approval on any issue – or simply wanted to get an insight into the workings of Jagaban’s mind. In fact, many believe that one of the cardinal sins of Governor Akinwumi Ambode, which ultimately cost him a return ticket, was his covert moves to whittle down Aregbe’s influence in Lagos during the last council elections in the state.
That also explains why, on completion of his tenure in Osun, it was the Lagos West Senatorial seat that Aregbe was said to be eyeing – until the Tinubu family felt that the sitting Senator Solomon Adeola ‘Yayi’, deserved to return, as compensation for the enormous losses he had suffered in Ogun State, where he had been used to fatally distract the Ibikunle Amosun political group, and contribute to its ultimate loss of the Ogun governorship to a Segun Osoba/Tinubu-backed Dapo Abiodun.
However, having read what Asiwaju, through his spokesman Tunde Rahman, said about the rumoured feud between him and Aregbe, and having situated it against the backdrop of the reaction of the former governor of the State of Osun to the same issue,
I can almost rest assured that all is well. While both men denied any such rift, Asiwaju restated that he remains Aregbesola’s leader, and Aregbe reaffirmed that for him, Tinubu is his lord and master, second only to God Almighty.
However, the cynical journalist in me is still tempted that there might indeed exist a cause for concern. Native wisdom tells us that there is no smoke without fire – and that there might indeed be a fire stoked somewhere.
Unfortunately, we might lose the opportunity to identify this fire early enough (and put it out before it becomes a conflagration) if we, like the proverbial ostrich, bury our head in the sand and continue, instead, to snap our mandibles at everyone who suggests that there’s a little fire dangerously simmering in the underbelly of the formidable Tinubu political war machine.
Indeed, there is a fire. But the fire was not ignited by anyone within the family. Rather, it might be a strategic effort by political adversaries to penetrate the impregnable walls of the Asiwaju political family, through the divide-and-rule tactics.
It is simple: create disaffection where there is none, or capitalize on any noticeable crack in the wall (no matter how insignificant), and keep nurturing such a crack until it becomes a ditch, a gorge, and finally, a gulf. The enemy then moves in for final decimation, annihilation, and capture. It is a time-tested stratagem.
Now, ever since Asiwaju mobilised his group, in a decisive, game-changing move of 2015, to finally deliver the Buhari presidency (a project that had failed on the three previous outings when Tinubu was not involved), a clique around the president has not made any pretences about its mortal fear of the Lion of Bourdillon, and his perceived ambition to eventually claim the ultimate prize for himself. A legitimate ambition, if you asked me!
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: https://www.thexpressng.com/2020/06/10/i-am-aregbesolas-leader-no-cold-or-hot-war-between-us-says-bola-tinubu/
This same group, even before the 2015 presidential election votes were counted, had hatched a plot to neutralize the man whom they were convinced, they’d have problems with in the future.
That plan was already in full throttle until it suddenly dawned on the musketeers that dumping Tinubu just yet could jeopardize Buhari’s re-election. So, they called a ceasefire, renegotiated, cut a few deals, made generous concessions, compromised on a few other things, and the political romance was back on course – albeit temporarily. That has remained the summary of our power-mongering in Nigeria.
But then, while some people are focused on grabbing power for the purpose of developing society, others are more interested in grabbing power for the purpose of retaining power and remaining in power. The Tinubu of today, however, poses a great threat to that latter tendency.
Even as the Buhari/Northern bloc of the APC has never openly opposed Tinubu, that is if we discountenance the utterances of Kaduna State Governor Malam Nasir el-Rufai, not too many people are in doubt that there might be a parallel plot to cut Asiwaju to size and ensure that he never gets anywhere near the presidency, which seat he is alleged to be eyeing – even as the Jagaban is legitimately entitled to so aspire, if he so wishes.
The tactics might change from time to time, depending on the hawks driving the project, and the situation on ground. The foot soldiers might change, depending on who is available or who has the biggest grudge or the most inordinate ambition, but one thing that seems to have remained as constant as the Northern Star is the unchanging resolve to stop Tinubu.
To demystify the Asiwaju. To render him politically irrelevant. To ensure that he can no longer call up, and harness, decisive block support from the South-west. To fatally diminish his sphere of influence.
The most obvious strategy of the Tinubu adversaries remains to create other power blocs in the zone to rival him. You may want to call them Political Warrant Chiefs. They are certificated in Abuja and deployed to their respective states, with enormous financial backing, to go foment trouble for Tinubu.
This list of such warrant chiefs includes former and serving Ministers, Governors, lawmakers, board appointees and sundry party chieftains. Incidentally, many of these suddenly-Susan leaders are erstwhile Asiwaju loyalists, many of whom were made by him.
In certain states, the Tinubu adversaries have even looked beyond the APC to co-opt known PDP people, who are empowered (in undisguised anti-party moves) to muddy things up for APC in their respective states, if it would ultimately take a chink off Asiwaju’s armour.
Funnily enough, after what we know in pidgin lingo as ‘initial gra-gra’, the warrant chiefs soon come to realize they’re up against an unbeatable Asiwaju. They lose steam. To make matters worse, they are soon abandoned by their sponsors.
More often than not, they, with tails stuck between their legs, clandestinely go to prostrate at Bourdillon, ‘Nicodemusly’ return to the Asiwaju fold and gladly rejoin the queue. Yet, many of their ilks would never learn from the mistake.
At the wave of another poisoned carrot from outside, they jump out again, only to be disappointed yet again, like those before them.
Ironically, even when the prodigals stubbornly hang on to the other side of the political divide, the Asiwaju always knows what strings to pull, and what deals to cut, in order to bring them back, if, and whenever, he so desires.
Of course, one must concede that the mere thought of contemplating to pull Aregbe away from Tinubu is a most audacious one. Those who even flew the kite in the first place deserve some plaudits.
For nobody is in doubt that Aregbe is basically Tinubu’s alter ego. However, as critical as Aregbe is to the Tinubu political system, it is not in doubt that, out of that system, Aregbe would be nobody. That fact does not change, even if Aregbe is given five ministries to supervise simultaneously.
Or if the key to the Central Bank vault is handed over to him. Tinubu knows it. Aregbe knows it. And he knows that he knows it.
Of course, that is not to say that it’s all rosy in the Tinubu political family, or that the political association is a catholic marriage, which makes no provision for divorce. Far from it!
In fact, with the benefit of hindsight, and a little maturity, one may no longer be overawed by Tinubu’s politics, but the fact remains that it is the nearest thing to sanity and progressivism that we have in the country today. It is the nearest thing to an alternative, or counterforce that we can boast of.
We could make allegations about mindless systemic and systematic looting of our patrimony against the Tinubu gang, but we can’t deny that they have not taken their eyes off the development ball. We cannot deny that, unlike the in-your-face looting in most of the other states (and even at the centre), those ‘chopping’ in Lagos have done so with some table manners. They have displayed some etiquette and decorum, by not allowing the sharing of the loot to degenerate into fisticuffs and a free-for-all.
We cannot also deny that Lagos has remained the poster state of our democracy and the possibilities, especially in the area of public infrastructure and urban renewal.
We cannot deny that the ripple effects of the positive vibes emanating from Lagos are beginning to rub off favourably on other states of the South West – and even as far as Edo State, in the South-south zone.
