Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, March 24, 2023)

“Yokolu, yokolu, ko ha tan bi? Tinubu gbe won sanle, won ti yoke!” is a Yoruba song of victory depicting the merciless manner Oduduwa incarnate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, smashed the spine of the enemy against Aso Rock.

Hehehehe! If you lift your eyes unto the East, and ask from where does your help come, please, discontinue reading this article because your help will never come! I don’t care whatever name you call me, I care the Almighty god of Lagos has taught the children of discord a lesson. I’m glad they won’t stop crying in eight years.

They are forever stubborn and stiff-necked like a fake KDK fan – these people who eat stones without drinking water, who wolf down yestern bread from the eastern parts without drinking tea, and yet demand freshly cooked gbegiri and amala in Lagos. If they are not stubborn, they should have heeded the advice of the lipless, wetin-you-carry Oba in Lagos, who saw tomorrow, and graciously advised them to jump into the lagoon.

I think drowning in the lagoon then is less painful than the prospect of being pushed down from Asso Rock now, one after the other, breaking necks, splitting spines and cracking limbs. Long may the Lagos monarch, Kabiyesi Real One, live for his foresight and fatherly advice.

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The Atlantic Ocean never rests. The enemies of Tinubu will never rest. They wailed when Bola only had marine powers, controlling the Atlantic, the lagoon and Odo Iya Alaro. Now that he’s set to control the air, land and sea, let’s see where they will run to.

Mungun, if you think the owner of the bronze mortar only controls the sea and air, where in your reckoning is his land army led by the bloody illiterate called MC Oluomo, whose eyes are set on the stool of Oshodi? Did you say that MC Oluomo is horrendous? That an agbero can never become king in Yoruba land? You’re a goat! A blind, deaf and dumb goat for that matter. Is a former recharge card seller, Tunde, (I’ll change my name soon), not calling the shots in Asso Rock today? Listen, and hear me clearly, please; anything the All Progressives Congress touches turns to rust. Go and ask the dying giant, Nigeria.

Hahahahaha! I laugh a sad laugh. Erin iyangi. I’m utterly sad and scandalised that MC Oluomo, a dropout agbero, is APC leader whom senators, House of Representatives members, House of Assembly members, local government chairmen etc bow before in Oshodi-Isolo area. Ha!!! Uncle Bola, aye ma n baje lo re e!

Why would the youth want to go to school or stay away from crime when they see the life Oluomo is living? Why won’t MC Oluomo’s sidekick, the moron called Koko Zaria (imagine the name), threaten to beat up some female artistes and even call former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief Ayo Opadokun, Chief Bode George, Dele Farotimi, Falz, Mr Macaroni etc unprintable names?

Political patronage shouldn’t be measured by the number of skulls acquired during conquests. Patronage should be on account of hard work, obedience to law and order, creativity, innovation, enterprise, nobility etc.

Hahahahaha. I laugh a sad laugh. The king that will fetter the elephant has yet to be enthroned. Who can stop Tinubu when his mind is made up? Tell me, who will stop Alameda from enthroning a serially accused murder suspect from becoming king in Yoruba land?

Did you not see how MC Oluomo, a hooligan, was swaying anticlockwise, like a lizard on hindlegs, on the streets, distributing garri to rowdy crowds in disguised vote buying when he could simply have told the impoverished crowds to queue up and benefit from his atrocity?

Musiliu Akinsanya doesn’t understand law and order. He understands brawl and Luger. Choose: Pig and filth or MC Oluomo and bloodiness – Omoluabi Yoruba will pick pig and filth. And it’s not about being picky, it’s about not descending into anarchy.

Osun descended into disorder when it enthroned a wife beater, hemp smoker, Yahoo-Yahoo, and Canadian convict as king, Lagos will surpass that record by installing as the king of Oshodi, a reputable man of immeasurable violence, MC Oluomo, who warned the Igbo not to come out and vote during the last general elections.

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Instead of the police investigating Oluomo for his inciting remark, the police became his lawyer, saying ‘let’s take it that he (Oluomo) was joking.’ Hahahaha! Oluomo n fi iku sere. The lifetime award for the ‘Most Useless Force’ in the world belongs to the Nigerian Police Force.

Let’s even imagine some ‘eru iku’ – merchants of death – in the National Union of Road Transport Workers rape a lady or kill someone, and the case was brought to Oba MC, (imagine the crazy name), in whose favour would the lout-turned-king rule? President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Yoruba do not deserve a real-life Itu Baba Ita of the late Gbenga Adebayo comic series.

It’s bad enough that some members of a murderous transport union rode on the back of your support to trample on the law and become terror that stalks round the clock. Making MC Oluomo king as a compensation for his violence would be a sin against humanity.

Oluomo boasted in one of his insulting videos that since he knew you in the 1990s, he had been highly favoured by you. Tinubu, omo Abibatu Mogaji, imagine, MC Oluomo and his gang have unfettered access to you – you, a first-class brain, whereas millions of graduates and hard-working Nigerians can’t live on $1 per day each. Please, do not aid the illiterate Oluomo in carrying his meal offering past the mosque. Please, let your umbilical cord with Oluomo remain on the owner-dog level. Please, don’t put the blue blood of Yoruba royalty at the risk of rabies from the attack dog.

Jagaban, now that you will be President, it’s time you made away with those unconventional soldiers led by Oluomo because you will now be the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Where would you keep these frankenstein monsters? You can keep them in your palace in Bourdillon, it’s big enough but they will go haywire if you put them in a Yoruba palace. ‘Omo ile ni won, bi e gbe won si ori beedi, won a ja bo’ – they’re ne’er-do-well, put them on the bed, they will still fall and sleep on the floor.

I’m a Christian, but the import of Muslims giving honour and adoration to the late Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), and also reciting for the dead and the living, the Kurisiyu prayer found in Suratul Baqara, just hit me. May the soul of Chief Obafemi Awolowo continue to find repose in the Lord. May the Lord keep the family he left behind. Will Awolowo install an MC Oluomo as king? Yes, there was a place for the Adelakuns and the Adedibus, but it was never in the palace.

If you intend development for Nigeria, Asiwaju, you shouldn’t put square pegs in round holes. Oluomo is not even a thread in any hole. He’s an abomination to royalty and decency. Yoruba obaship shouldn’t be suya and ‘paraga’ given to assuage bloody fools.

Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey, may the Lord bless him with many more years in good health. He once warned about the need to appoint good people into leadership positions, singing, “Ka to fi eyan j’oye laarin ilu, o ni lati je eni rere…” I’m sure you know the evergreen song, sir. Is MC Oluomo a good man? Can you allow him to marry your daughter, Oyinda?

Baba Seyi, choosing an oba should be a painstaking exercise – just like Nigerians took painstaking measures to elect their next president – but the Independent National Electoral Commission tossed a coin, which went up in the air and never came down, and while the people were still grumbling, INEC announced you as the winner.

Well, now that you’re president, Bobo Chicago, please, endeavour to write your name in gold through laudable policies, erasing the controversial memories of you in public mind. A good name, you will agree with me, is the passport needed for Aljanah fridaus, not stored up wealth. I wish you good speed, Your Excellency.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com
Facebook: @tunde odesola
Twitter: @tunde_odesola

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, March 17, 2023)

Cleveland, a city in Ohio, USA, was long regarded as the sufferhead among American cities. Bearing on its big head the weight of an unfortunate nickname – The mistake on the lake – Cleveland shares a few similarities with Nigeria. How did Cleveland get its nickname? This is how.

As recently as the late 1960s and 1970s, Cleveland was described as a city where ducks flew upside down because there was nothing worth dumping on. An unforgettable incident happened in June 1969 that made the appellation of a rundown city stick to Cleveland like a mask.

Just as Nigeria has River Niger, Cleveland has Cuyahoga River, where the city’s factories dumped their waste with reckless abandon. The Cuyahoga River, by the way, empties into Lake Erie, which is the 11th largest lake in the world.

On a fateful ‘Ọjọ́ burúkú, èsù gbo’mi mu’ day when the devil was horribly thirsty for evil, a spark from a moving train on a bridge above the river ignited the toxic chemicals floating on the river, resulting in an inferno five storeys high. The fire was quickly put out and nobody died from the incident.

If such an inferno occurred in our beloved Nigeria, your guess is as good as mine; fake pastors would’ve had a field day, the opposition would’ve accused government of arson, government would have said the fire was God’s wish, and Bubu wouldn’t visit the scene; Garba or Adesina would’ve issued a statement silent on casualties, calling on Christians and Muslims to watch and pray. The hopeless country would’ve moved on.

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Commerce, industry and life folded up in Cleveland as the former 5th largest city population in the US shrunk to become the 54th largest. The river of tears rolling down the cheeks of the Nigerian masses bearing the brunt of misgovernance such as naira scarcity and poverty is bigger than the fast-shrinking Lake Chad, slowly drying up rivers Niger and Benue, and the polluted rivers in the Niger Delta.

But Cleveland has rebounded and is holding its own as America’s third largest iron and steel producing city, arts and cultural hub, topnotch healthcare destination, champion of environmental protection and progenitor of Rock and Roll.

If Cleveland was a ‘Mistake on the Lake’, Nigeria must be a ‘Disaster on the Niger’. Or a ‘Blight on the Benue’. Nigeria’s socio-political history paints the picture of domination, suspicion, hate and jealousy among her various tribes.

The seed of tribal domination, suspicion and hatred was sown with the nation’s first coup d’etat when Igbo soldiers, Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu and Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, in the night of January 15, 1966, led other coup plotters, who were mainly of Igbo extraction, to carry out a pogrom on Nigeria’s political elite that included Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa, and more than 20 top politicians, senior army officers including their wives, and junior soldiers on duty, even as another Igbo soldier, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, seized the reins of power when the country was descending into anarchy.

Apart from Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna, other majors that were the masterminds of the first coup in Nigeria were Timothy Onwuatuegwu, Chris Anuforo, Dan Okafor, Adewale Ademoyega, and Humphrey Chukwuka.

A list of the casualties in the January 15, 1966 coup include Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Premier Ahmadu Bello, Premier Samuel Ladoke Akintola, Finance Minister Festus Okotie-Eboh, Ahmed Musa (Ahmadu Bello’s aide), Hafsatu Bello, Mrs Latifat Ademulegun, Zarumi Sardauna, Ahmed Pategi (Bello’s driver).

Others include Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun, Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari, Colonel Ralph Shodehinde, Colonel Kur Mohammed, Lt Colonel Abogo Largema, Lt Colonel James Pam, Lt Colonel Arthur Unegbe, Sergeant Daramola Oyegoke, Police Constable Yohana Garkawa, Lance Corporal Musa Nimzo, Police Constable Akpan Anduka, Police Constable Hagai Lai, and Philip Lewande. Unegbe was the only Igbo killed during the coup.

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Yoruba leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, luckily escaped being killed in the January 1966 coup plot because he had been sentenced to a 10-year jail term for alleged conspiracy to overthrow the Balewa government in 1963.

Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the President of the country, who was on a cruise to the Caribbean when the coup occurred, had transferred powers to the Senate President, Prince Nwafor Orizu.

Then came the counter-coup of July 1966 aka ‘July Rematch’ which was more senseless and sickening than the January coup as an undisclosed number of Igbo soldiers, including Ironsi, were murdered, setting Nigeria on the path of a civil war that started on July 6, 1967 and ended on January 15, 1970 – lasting exactly 2 years, 6 months, 1 week and 2 days.

It’s true to say that the spine of the fragile unity of Nigeria was broken by the January 1966 coup, it is truer to say that the Igbo have never recovered from the Biafra War. No tribe can ever recover from a war that killed an estimated three million people.

Aborigine Indians never recovered till date in the US, Tibetans, Taiwanese and Uyghurs never fully recovered in Chinese hands, natives never recovered in Canada – in wars wherein genocide, starvation and sterilization were potent weapons for forceful land takeover and imperialism.

War is always terrible and avoidable. It’s like the bullet, once shot, it hurries to wreak havoc. It’s sane to say that the January 1966 coup was a military action, whose consequence shouldn’t be visited on an entire tribe. But warmongers would say that everything is fair in war and that the Igbo got what they deserve. However, is it right to kill an ant with a sledgehammer? Is it right to kill a dog because it barks?

The whole concept of Nigeria’s amalgamation is insane, unnatural and pretentious because after the Biafra War, ‘No victor, no vanquished’ became the new song on every lip, whereas suspicion, mistrust and contempt sit in the belly of each tribe.

With the 2023 general elections, the chickens have, again, come home to roost. The elections have, once again, widened the national fissures of ethnicity, religion and hypocrisy accentuated by the headless regime of retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari – a beneficiary of coups. Buhari divided Nigeria so much that when people are killed anywhere in the country nowadays, the first question that comes to mind is, “I hope my tribe isn’t involved’.

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Sadly, ethnicity, religion and hypocrisy have been critical factors determining the swing of electoral victory in the 2023 elections, just like past elections. Sadly, this is what the political elite designed for the masses, and it’s bearing bountiful harvests.

If not hypocrisy, what would you call Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who, as the day of election reckoning nears, has gained rapid demotion from being Lagos State foreman to being Lagos State groundsman ready to hug the homeless, lick the vulcaniser arse and stand at church entrance like a stranded sexton.

If not for ethnicity and hypocrisy, why haven’t the Igbo ever been this concerted, assertive and vehement in condemning bad governance in Igbo land especially, and across Nigeria generally, as they’ve now been rooting in Lagos?

Inasmuch as I’m an advocate of giving the job to the best hands, notwithstanding religious consideration, I’ll be remiss and insincere if I claim that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim was altruistic. That political act was in disregard of Christian religion, and could embolden an encore by the political class in future elections. Its unforeseen fallout is what’s making Sanwo-Olu’s heart beat 1,000 times per minute at the mention of Elluu Pee.

For one thousand and one reasons, the All Progressives Congress should’ve been punished at the polls but it exploited the nation’s faultlines, like other parties also did, to garner votes nationwide in confirmation of the weaponization of poverty.

No doubt, the memory of Biafra wracks the Igbo till date, the same way the loss of Ilorin, a Yoruba land, to the Fulani, rankles the Yoruba still. This is why ‘Lagos is no man’s land’ mantra provokes instant disgust in the Yoruba.

If the Labour Party loses Lagos governorship election on Saturday, the Igbo will come to great political pain, and return to the old song, “We want Biafra.” I join in the song; if the Igbo cannot aspire to be what they want in Nigeria, let them go.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com
Facebook: @tunde odesola
Twitter: @tunde_odesola

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, March 10, 2023)

Bitter, sweet and curious creature, the honeybee. When the honeybee stings, its abdomen tears up, its mouth opens and closes, hitting the ground in a final kiss of death. That is the fate of the honeybee and its stinger – a weapon it uses for protection and the harbinger of its ultimate death.

Hey, the next time you see a dead bee on the ground, you probably need to stoop, if you can’t pick it up, to see if it ‘bled’ to death in the abdomen.

Science has shown that when the honeybee sinks its stinger in flesh, for example, the stinger gets hooked. In an attempt to force the stinger out, the longer part of the stinger embedded inside the bee tears up the end of the abdomen, and the bee opens its mouth ‘in shock’, then closes it, and drops to kiss the ground in death.

Arguably America’s foremost Extension Apiculturist – Eric Mussen – lecturer at the University of California at Davis, devoted most of his 78-year life to research on bees and beekeeping before passing in June, last year. “When a honeybee stings, it dies a gruesome death…It is only the female honeybees, also known as the worker bees, that sting. Each hive contains some 60,000 workers..,” Mussen told the Public Broadcasting Service.

The honeybee, and the Malaysian Exploding Ant, which I referred to in the first part of this article, thus, suffer the same ghastly fate when defending their castes.

Like the honeybee and the Malaysian Exploding Ant, the APC and the PDP suffered self-amputation during the presidential and federal legislature elections held on February 25, 2023, bursting their abdomens, exposing their entrails – necessitating the ambulance rushing to the ER.

In Lagos, the headcount taken after the passover of February 25 shows that the days of political prisoners singing the slavish panegyric, “On Your Mandate We Shall Stand,” are numbered. Even the Architect of Modern Lagos, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who wears a shackled cap instead of a helmet, was force-fed the humble pie before falling ‘yakata’ from construction scaffolding into the sinking sand on the Atlantic beach, and washed off into the Osun River!

With the loss the PDP suffered in its home states of the South-East, South-South and parts of the North during the election, former vice president and serial loser, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, should, by now, have come to the painful realisation that the PDP salt has lost its taste, the lion has lost its mane. In the just concluded presidential election, the ‘largest party in Africa’ was torn into shreds in Lagos, and in its former strongholds of Abuja, Rivers, Edo, Delta, Anambra, Enugu, Imo etc.

Now, the coffin is ready for the expiring patient, who is ready for the grave, already dug by undertakers, who are teary but ready to bury. So, in flames goes the wish of a party whose dream of ruling for 60 years terminated in 16 years.

By the results of the February presidential and federal legislature elections, it’s crystal clear that ignoble age-long political practices such as godfatherism, money politics, ethnicity and religious divisiveness would be a thing of the past if the majority of the 93,522,272 Nigerian voter population participate in elections and vote their conscience. Sadly, only 23,377,466 Nigerians voted during the elections, which represent 24.9% of total voters.

Bemused, I watch as Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has been running on hot coals since February 25 when the APC lost Lagos to Labour Party, knocking on residents’ doors, begging for votes and personally taking selfies with ordinary Lagosians, who ordinarily, could never get close to him if he wasn’t driven by the fear of impending electoral loss.

I can see the voter laugh, close his eyes, mount his horse and wish election comes every year to humble the vagabonds in power. Times are changing. The ground is dizzy. The voter was a beggar; he had a wish and a horse, but wasn’t allowed to ride. Now, he has whip of PVC and has mounted his horse en route to his dream, woe betide the voice of retrogression wailing in the wilderness, appealing to ethnic or religious sentiments.

I wish the Labour Party wins Lagos for democracy and the opposition to thrive. For eight years, Tinubu was a pain in the neck of President Olusegun Obasanjo who allegedly sought to perpetuate himself in government through a third term agenda. Let Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour put a needle to Tinubu’s neck too – now that he will be president.

In 2006, I forced my way into the heavily guarded Osun State House of Assembly legislative chamber – venue of the South-West public hearing on constitution amendment which had the governors of the region in attendance.

Noble lawyer and courageous activist, Bamidele Aturu; may his gentle soul rest in peace, popular activist, Moshood Erubami; and many other activists across the South-West stormed the venue of the hearing, which many believed was orchestrated by Obasanjo to earn a third term.

The police and the DSS who mounted guard at the doors leading into the chambers barred activists from entering, precipitating a shouting and shoving match before the activists and many members of the public forced their way into the chamber.

An enraged Governor Ayodele Fayose climbed the table and ordered the police to flush out the ‘intruders’. Years later, Fayose accused Obasanjo of masterminding a third term agenda.

I learnt then on good authority that Tinubu as Lagos governor was in support of some of the activists that stormed the venue to stop the purported third term agenda. Does this good deed qualify Tinubu as a democrat? NO! In eight years, Tinubu had three deputy governors – Kofoworola Akerele-Bucknor, Femi Pedro and Sarah Sosan.

So, whenever Tinubu is tempted to go imperial, as is his wont, there should be a political force to repel him as he repelled the Ebora Owu who has the sole ownership of a university, controversial library and farm in Ota. The sauce distilled as pepper soup for the goose is simmering on the boil for the gander. After 24 unbroken years of APC administration, Lagos deserves another ‘last man’ standing.

I don’t like the way Rhodes-Vivour speaks Yoruba like a faulty pepper grinding machine but to say he’s unqualified to contest Lagos governorship on account of his mother being Igbo is a symptom of afternoon madness.

Remi, the beautiful wife of Tinubu, is Itshekiri. Is it then right to say that the daughters bore Tinubu by Remi aren’t Yoruba and Lagosians? Is it right to say the children bore Seyi, Tinubu’s son, by his Igbo wife, aren’t Yoruba and Lagosians? Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, was born by an Igbo woman, today he’s the executive governor of Osun. Ondo State Governor, Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu ,married an Igbo. Does that stop their children from contesting elections in Ondo? The list goes on and on.

I think it’s ripe enough time to ask about the maternity of Seyi Tinubu, and that of Tinubu’s prominent daughter, Folashade Tinubu-Ojo, who is the Iyaloja General of Nigeria. Full disclosures on the mothers of all Tinubu’s children would put Nigerians in good perspective as to who should refund Lagos State billions of naira in contracts, perks and freebies raked under the Tinubu family name.

The letter ‘T’ is synonymous with Tinubu and Tortoise. When the insensitive Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele, came up with his watercolour design of the naira, Tinubu and his disciples like Nasir el-Rufai, Abdullahi Ganduje and Adams Oshiomhole cried like malevolent spirits.

But since the APC won the presidential election, the once disconsolate defenders of the masses have withdrawn into their posh shells and abandoned suffering Nigerian masses to queue in the sun daily at banks, waiting to buy naira with naira. There is no human face to their shame and insensitivity.

A monk beds a prostitute at night and mounts the pulpit in the morning to condemn harlotry. I know the monk and his followers. Do you? Of course, you do. Then, vote your conscience on March 18, 2023.

tundeodes2003@yahoo.com
tunde
Tinubu, Atiku and political obituary (2)

Tunde Odesola

Bitter, sweet and curious creature, the honeybee. When the honeybee stings, its abdomen tears up, its mouth opens and closes, hitting the ground in a final kiss of death. That is the fate of the honeybee and its stinger – a weapon it uses for protection and the harbinger of its ultimate death.

Hey, the next time you see a dead bee on the ground, you probably need to stoop, if you can’t pick it up, to see if it ‘bled’ to death in the abdomen.

Science has shown that when the honeybee sinks its stinger in flesh, for example, the stinger gets hooked. In an attempt to force the stinger out, the longer part of the stinger embedded inside the bee tears up the end of the abdomen, and the bee opens its mouth ‘in shock’, then closes it, and drops to kiss the ground in death.

Arguably America’s foremost Extension Apiculturist – Eric Mussen – lecturer at the University of California at Davis, devoted most of his 78-year life to research on bees and beekeeping before passing in June, last year. “When a honeybee stings, it dies a gruesome death…It is only the female honeybees, also known as the worker bees, that sting. Each hive contains some 60,000 workers..,” Mussen told the Public Broadcasting Service.

The honeybee, and the Malaysian Exploding Ant, which I referred to in the first part of this article, thus, suffer the same ghastly fate when defending their castes.

Like the honeybee and the Malaysian Exploding Ant, the APC and the PDP suffered self-amputation during the presidential and federal legislature elections held on February 25, 2023, bursting their abdomens, exposing their entrails – necessitating the ambulance rushing to the ER.

In Lagos, the headcount taken after the passover of February 25 shows that the days of political prisoners singing the slavish panegyric, “On Your Mandate We Shall Stand,” are numbered. Even the Architect of Modern Lagos, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who wears a shackled cap instead of a helmet, was force-fed the humble pie before falling ‘yakata’ from construction scaffolding into the sinking sand on the Atlantic beach, and washed off into the Osun River!

With the loss the PDP suffered in its home states of the South-East, South-South and parts of the North during the election, former vice president and serial loser, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, should, by now, have come to the painful realisation that the PDP salt has lost its taste, the lion has lost its mane. In the just concluded presidential election, the ‘largest party in Africa’ was torn into shreds in Lagos, and in its former strongholds of Abuja, Rivers, Edo, Delta, Anambra, Enugu, Imo etc.

Now, the coffin is ready for the expiring patient, who is ready for the grave, already dug by undertakers, who are teary but ready to bury. So, in flames goes the wish of a party whose dream of ruling for 60 years terminated in 16 years.

By the results of the February presidential and federal legislature elections, it’s crystal clear that ignoble age-long political practices such as godfatherism, money politics, ethnicity and religious divisiveness would be a thing of the past if the majority of the 93,522,272 Nigerian voter population participate in elections and vote their conscience. Sadly, only 23,377,466 Nigerians voted during the elections, which represent 24.9% of total voters.

Bemused, I watch as Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has been running on hot coals since February 25 when the APC lost Lagos to Labour Party, knocking on residents’ doors, begging for votes and personally taking selfies with ordinary Lagosians, who ordinarily, could never get close to him if he wasn’t driven by the fear of impending electoral loss.

I can see the voter laugh, close his eyes, mount his horse and wish election comes every year to humble the vagabonds in power. Times are changing. The ground is dizzy. The voter was a beggar; he had a wish and a horse, but wasn’t allowed to ride. Now, he has whip of PVC and has mounted his horse en route to his dream, woe betide the voice of retrogression wailing in the wilderness, appealing to ethnic or religious sentiments.

I wish the Labour Party wins Lagos for democracy and the opposition to thrive. For eight years, Tinubu was a pain in the neck of President Olusegun Obasanjo who allegedly sought to perpetuate himself in government through a third term agenda. Let Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour put a needle to Tinubu’s neck too – now that he will be president.

In 2006, I forced my way into the heavily guarded Osun State House of Assembly legislative chamber – venue of the South-West public hearing on constitution amendment which had the governors of the region in attendance.

Noble lawyer and courageous activist, Bamidele Aturu; may his gentle soul rest in peace, popular activist, Moshood Erubami; and many other activists across the South-West stormed the venue of the hearing, which many believed was orchestrated by Obasanjo to earn a third term.

The police and the DSS who mounted guard at the doors leading into the chambers barred activists from entering, precipitating a shouting and shoving match before the activists and many members of the public forced their way into the chamber.

An enraged Governor Ayodele Fayose climbed the table and ordered the police to flush out the ‘intruders’. Years later, Fayose accused Obasanjo of masterminding a third term agenda.

I learnt then on good authority that Tinubu as Lagos governor was in support of some of the activists that stormed the venue to stop the purported third term agenda. Does this good deed qualify Tinubu as a democrat? NO! In eight years, Tinubu had three deputy governors – Kofoworola Akerele-Bucknor, Femi Pedro and Sarah Sosan.

So, whenever Tinubu is tempted to go imperial, as is his wont, there should be a political force to repel him as he repelled the Ebora Owu who has the sole ownership of a university, controversial library and farm in Ota. The sauce distilled as pepper soup for the goose is simmering on the boil for the gander. After 24 unbroken years of APC administration, Lagos deserves another ‘last man’ standing.

I don’t like the way Rhodes-Vivour speaks Yoruba like a faulty pepper grinding machine but to say he’s unqualified to contest Lagos governorship on account of his mother being Igbo is a symptom of afternoon madness.

Remi, the beautiful wife of Tinubu, is Itshekiri. Is it then right to say that the daughters bore Tinubu by Remi aren’t Yoruba and Lagosians? Is it right to say the children bore Seyi, Tinubu’s son, by his Igbo wife, aren’t Yoruba and Lagosians? Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, was born by an Igbo woman, today he’s the executive governor of Osun. Ondo State Governor, Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu ,married an Igbo. Does that stop their children from contesting elections in Ondo? The list goes on and on.

I think it’s ripe enough time to ask about the maternity of Seyi Tinubu, and that of Tinubu’s prominent daughter, Folashade Tinubu-Ojo, who is the Iyaloja General of Nigeria. Full disclosures on the mothers of all Tinubu’s children would put Nigerians in good perspective as to who should refund Lagos State billions of naira in contracts, perks and freebies raked under the Tinubu family name.

The letter ‘T’ is synonymous with Tinubu and Tortoise. When the insensitive Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele, came up with his watercolour design of the naira, Tinubu and his disciples like Nasir el-Rufai, Abdullahi Ganduje and Adams Oshiomhole cried like malevolent spirits.

But since the APC won the presidential election, the once disconsolate defenders of the masses have withdrawn into their posh shells and abandoned suffering Nigerian masses to queue in the sun daily at banks, waiting to buy naira with naira. There is no human face to their shame and insensitivity.

A monk beds a prostitute at night and mounts the pulpit in the morning to condemn harlotry. I know the monk and his followers. Do you? Of course, you do. Then, vote your conscience on March 18, 2023.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com
Facebook: @tunde odesola
Twitter: @tunde_odesola

* Concluded.