It is permanent interests, my frenemy

It was a hot mic situation. As the supporters of Rotimi Akeredolu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, milled round him, on September 4, in celebration of his emergence as the flagbearer of the All Progressives Congress for the Ondo State governorship election (later held on Saturday, 26 November), one of his co-contestants, Tayo Alasoadura, was heard, while giving him a congratulatory hug, saying ‘a bo, a bo lowo Tinubu: we are free, we are free from (the stranglehold?) of Tinubu’.

Alasoadura, who represents Ondo Central in the Nigerian Senate, and a defector from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), is said to have been a beneficiary of Tinubu’s favours (cash and kind) en route to the Senate. So, why did he make such a statement?

Dayo Williams, a correspondent of an online magazine, Politico, in a political commentary published online, posits: “For those who don’t know, Tinubu and Alasoadura parted ways so to say after the 2012 election when the duo could not agree on the balance sheet of the (Rotimi Akeredolu) campaign organisation (when he first contested the governorship election with full backing from Tinubu).” Alasoadura was the director-general of the organisation.

If that is so, why then did Tinubu back Alasoadura to get into the Senate? Oh well….

Some others contend that Tinubu had become aggrieved when, at the Senate, Alasoadura became one of the ardent loyalists of Senate President Bukola Saraki, who is on the other side of the divide with Tinubu. For this reason, it is said that Tinubu had “barred” Alasoadura from the party’s caucus meetings in the South West geo-political zone. Alleges one commentator: “The senator was sent out of a political meeting by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu…in Abuja and he also warned those present to avoid the senator like a plague.”

Clearly, there is some disgruntlement and disenchantment between one and the other.

But, guess what? On October 3, at a press conference where he and some other APC leaders rooted for Akeredolu to be elected governor, Alasoadura attempted to take back his words. A newspaper sympathetic to Tinubu reported Alasoadura as saying that “the quality of Tinubu was what earned him his leadership position in APC as well as Asiwaju of Yoruba nation” (inverted commas ours).

These words were credited to him: “Reflecting deeply on happenings within our party, we will see glaringly the extent to which we have embarrassed ourselves and equally brought our national leaders into ridicule as a result of our actions and utterances in pursuance of personal ambitions.”

If nothing else, the Ondo State governorship election exposed growing distrust, disunity and fierce struggle for supremacy among APC stalwarts. The party appears to be divided between those loyal to President Muhammadu Buhari and those loyal to Tinubu.

Since Tinubu’s purported favourite candidate for the governorship election, Olusegun Abraham, lost out in the primary, the knives had been out. To the extent that Tinubu reportedly called out APC Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun for “political treachery and malfeasance of the basest order”.

There were other accusations and counter-accusations, and, of course, denials and refutations by supposed loyalists of Buhari and Tinubu. Or, to put it in the words of Power, Works and Housing Minister Babatunde Raji Fashola, loyalties were tested, left, right and centre.

So, political watchers were taken aback when one of the earliest congratulatory statements after Akeredolu was declared governor-elect was that of Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Was he, who wears the badge of “National Leader”, playing to the gallery when, in that statement, he referred to President Buhari as “the national leader of the party, whose stature and dignity helped guide the APC to another victory that should advance the progressive aims of the party and the people”?

But wait a minute; was it not the issue of who should rightly be addressed as APC national leader that had generated so much fuss among loyalists of Buhari and Tinubu? Does it mean that somebody is suddenly realising that in Nigeria, an elected president automatically assumes position of his party as national leader? Things are just happening very fast.

Political watchers would be waiting to see how Tinubu would make manifest his appeal to “all party members including those who have been disaffected from the primary until today to come together for the good of our party and its progressive ideals”.

The wounds appear deep and festering. But if in the much advanced democracy of the United States of America, a Mitt Romney who, during the electioneering campaign, called the country’s incoming president, Donald Trump, all sorts of deplorable names, including “a phony, lying, dishonest fraud”, now sees him as “the very man who can lead (America) to that better future” as

Trump has been mulling making him the US secretary of state, just accept that politicians’ enmity is more often than not ended by real or perceived interests.

Place that against the backdrop of the statement credited to President Buhari by one of his spokespersons, Garba Shehu, that “the President is proud of the Jagaban (Tinubu) and his pivotal role in the party and the movement”.
No victor, no vanquished?

Don’t even mind Rotimi Akeredolu’s grudge. The other day, he left out Jagaban’s name on the list during his “vote of thanks”. Can you imagine that? It appears the man has not really gotten over the shock of Asiwaju’s desertion of him when it mattered most. Recall that the man was at the Villa to pay homage to President Buhari and there singled out the president and Odigie-Oyegun for mentioning, and never remembered the Jagaban, the lion of Bourdillon, not even in passing. But he has since explained that doing so would have made the list longer. Hmm.

The chickens are gradually coming home to roost.

Never mind; Tacitus (Rome’s greatest historian) captures it so well: “He that fights and runs away, May turn and fight another day; But he that is in battle slain, Will never rise to fight again.”
Interesting times are ahead. Pray to be alive.

Lolu Lusi