In the last few days, two important politicians in Nigeria have made headline news in a manner that called for attention. Rotimi Amaechi recently assumed a sainthood disposition to tread on a holy ground he was not qualified to. And Nigerians have continued to scream: sacrilege! A few days ago, the media was awash with the story of the suspension or expulsion of Rauf Aregbesola from the All Progressives Congress (APC). Well, that’s how the cookie crumbles!
“At every opportunity, he tells whoever cares to listen how the government and the Tinubu administration have become demonic and unfeeling to the plight of Nigerians.”
Political gospel according to ‘saint’ Amaechi
Aristophanes, a Greek playwright, said, “You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.”
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), an American writer, scripted: “Politics is a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”
The two quotations above captured the brand of politicians in Nigeria.
The All Progressive Congress (APC), before the presidential primaries, was a divided party. While some party chieftains, particularly the ministers that had the ears of the then President Muhammadu Buhari, thought they were the rightful APC people and could determine who succeeds Buhari, some others sympathetic to Bola Tinubu (who founded the party and gave Buhari the platform and structure to become president) stuck with Tinubu, the Jagaban.
The “kurukere” moves by Buhari and some of his acolytes ahead of the party primaries, which indicated that he had something up his sleeves, were responsible for the “Emilokan” declaration in Abeokuta, Ogun State, South West Nigeria, by Tinubu.
The touted closeness to Buhari gave Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi the false hope that he was unarguably the alter ego. Amaechi was said to have heavily funded Buhari’s first and second terms’ electioneering campaigns, for which he was handsomely rewarded with a lucrative appointment as Minister of Transportation, which he held for eight years.
As a result of the touted closeness to Buhari, Amaechi was almost very sure and could swear on the grave of his forefathers that he was going to succeed the man from Daura, Katsina State.
Although Buhari, indeed, was throwing his weight behind someone else, Amaechi was still under the illusion that he was the man to get into the saddle after the Daura-born president.
Read also: Amaechi rallies Nigerian youths on politics, says Tinubu won’t give them power easily
Since he left office and since his presidential ambition crashed before the 2023 general election, the former Minister of Transportation has been carrying on as a wounded lion and as an opponent within his party.
At every opportunity, he tells whoever cares to listen how the government and the Tinubu administration have become demonic and unfeeling to the plight of Nigerians.
Amaechi’s defeat at the APC presidential primaries on June 9, 2022, seems to have done something in his psyche that he sees the winner of that contest with the same eye Esau saw Jacob, who he believed stole his birthright.
The intrigues that attended the primaries and the outcome bruised Amaechi’s ego.
To show how hurt he feels about the defeat, he went underground all through the campaign period and the election proper; he neither campaigned for his party nor for the candidate of the broom association.
Since the inauguration of the current administration, Amaechi has put on the toga of a chief opposition. Whatever policy the government embarks on, he sneers.
Today, he is so obsessed with the campaign of calumny that he tells Nigerians that politicians are evil.
At a recent event, he said that like the thief, the “Nigerian politicians are here to steal, maim, and kill to remain in power; you’re wasting your time if you think Tinubu will give up power.”
But many Nigerians strongly believe that the former governor of Rivers State does not have the moral high ground to lecture Nigerians on the character of the political class.
In fact, observers say that anybody that served in the Buhari administration has no moral fibre to criticise any government, no matter how draconian.
The Nigerian brand of politicians is a terrible one. While in office, they feign deafness while the masses scream at bad governance, but as soon as they are out of power, the scales fall off their eyes, and they begin to see clearly. What manner of hypocrisy!
Here’s a man who served in the administration that left Nigerians brutalised in all ramifications. The Buhari administration, under which Amaechi served for eight straight years, was everything but good to Nigerians. Even the current administration, which is of the same political party, points fingers at Buhari and those who served in that dispensation as enemies of Nigeria by virtue of the high level of economic rape and social disharmony that featured and the governance carcass they left behind.
Does Amaechi have an idea of how many Nigerians were killed during the Buhari administration? Does he know how many Nigerians were maimed, brutalised, and driven to madness by the mindless policies of the Buhari administration? Does the former minister know how many Nigerians fled the country as a result of inclement political and economic weather in Nigeria when he was busy praising Buhari?
Amaechi has enjoyed everything that politics can offer anybody in the country. He has been everything any politician can dream of becoming. His only grouse is that he is not the president after he, in cahoots with his principal, messed up the country. What was the quality of thinking that went into the projects that his ministry carried out under his watch?
When he said politicians come to steal, maim, and kill, he cannot exonerate himself because, according to him, he has been in politics since he left the university in 1987.
When the history of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is written eventually, his role as a ringleader in birthing the challenges that consumed that party will be remembered. Mtchew!
People must stop grandstanding and stop pulling the wool over our eyes. Integrity still remains a virtue; Amaechi has a need for it in large measures!
Aregbesola, persona non grata in APC?
Politics, many people say, is a dangerous game. The degree of danger in it varies from one country to another. In Nigeria, it is a “dog-eat-dog” game. In most cases, it puts a dagger among best friends and associates. Cases abound of political novices, who were brought into the limelight, but when their “eyes opened,” they began to play god.
The Nigerian political corridors are strewn with dozens of politicians who have severed relationships with those who picked them up from nothing to something.
Across the states in Nigeria, there are many cases of politicians who were the best of friends some years ago, but politics has put them apart.
Read also: APC suspends ex-Osun governor, Aregbesola
For instance, were it not for the benevolence of Orji Uzor Kalu, who was a former governor of Abia State, Theodore Orji would not have had the opportunity to become governor in that state. But they were to become mortal enemies at a point.
Peter Odili used to be next to God for former Governor Nyesom Wike, but things no longer seem to be the same. The current governor of Rivers State, Sim Fubara, got the opportunity to succeed Wike as a result of the robust relationship that existed between the duo.
The former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, stuck out his neck to ensure that the current governor, Uba Sani, succeeded him. Today, that brotherly love seems to have developed a “K-leg” (apologies to former president Olusegun Obasanjo).
The case of Rauf Aregbesola, two-term governor of Osun State and former minister of the Interior in the Muhammadu Buhari administration, seems to be more pathetic.
Ordinarily, Aregbe, as he is fondly called by close pals and political associates, ought to be “rocking things” in Abuja by now given his vantage position in the political family of Bola Tinubu, president of Nigeria.
Aregbesola served in various capacities in Lagos State when Tinubu was governor. He made a name for himself and was literally worshipped in the Alimosho area of the state. At one point, the fear of Aregbe in that large local government area was the beginning of wisdom.
Before 2010, when he began to govern Osun State, he never contemplated in his wildest imagination that such could be possible. It was not only possible; he served the longest in that state—eight straight years (2010-2018)—courtesy of his political godfather, Tinubu.
The relationship was also tight as Adegboyega Oyetola succeeded him. Aregbesola campaigned for Oyetola with his heart and energy. But those are now history.
The enemy has since sown a terrible seed in that political family, so much so that today, the once all-powerful Aregbe has become a fugitive and a persona non grata in the APC family. Chai!
The announcement of his suspension cum expulsion followed a series of reports alleging his anti-party activities with his tiny Omoluabi Progressives camp.
Many believe that his real travail began when he considered himself “arrived” enough to look the Jagaban eyeball-to-eyeball.
But whatever made him so audacious remains a research topic for doctoral students in political science.
Does he brood over his current political state? One thing about him is that he is a very brilliant politician and must have counted the cost of his actions, knowing full well that “politics is almost as exciting as war and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times” (Winston Churchill, British statesman). Tomorrow is pregnant, indeed. What it will deliver is better left to the imagination.
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