On Tuesday, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, wife of the erstwhile strongman of opposition politics, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, expressed her frustration at how her husband was “thrashed” by the President Muhammadu Buhari government he helped put in office. Even a minimally savvy observer of Nigerian politics would have figured out that a palace coup has consumed the so-called Jagaban of the game.
Senator Tinubu wants us to believe that her husband helped Buhari to power out of sheer love for the country and nothing else. Despite her husband being sidelined, he still loves Nigeria and is giving his best from the place where he has been consigned. If Tinubu’s motive was all patriotic, why complain about his not being at the centre of things? Why not simply chalk up all the humiliation to the larger sacrifice we are asked to make for the sake of Nigeria? Asiwaju Tinubu’s position in the All Progressives Congress is no longer what it used to be, and his profile as a master politician gifted with a deft understanding of Nigeria’s political roulette tanked long ago. He has denuded from a quick-thinking opposition figure to one of the many gadflies milling around Ask Rock. These days, his comments on political issues seem like a forced attempt to be relevant. One looks back at the time he was such a political force that could put his wife and children in offices without even a whimper from any of the voices that now complain about Buhari’s sin of nepotism and wonders how the mighty fell so hard. Was the man ever a brilliant political strategist or his success was as a result of the coincidence of historical events that neatly aligned in his favour?
Here is what Remi has perhaps not considered: Buhari sees her husband as duplicitous and has outplayed the old fox.
We can all remember all the politicking and insensitive shenanigans that took place during the 2011 elections between the old APC (then known as the Action Congress of Nigeria) and Buhari’s then party, the Congress for Political Change. Then, the calculation was that both parties would band together, field Buhari for President, and the ACN would supply the Vice President – Tinubu as the VP, nonetheless.
The idea did not fly for both parties because – it was insinuated – they were both Muslims and Nigerians were not going to be excited by a presidential team composed of two Muslims. Both parties went their separate ways with the ACN picking a former EFCC boss, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, as its own presidential candidate.
The elections came and went, and it was amazing to everyone how the ACN candidate was badly beaten in the South-West, the ACN stronghold. Apart from Osun State where he won, he lost everywhere else. It was strange that the party did not mobilise her teeming supporters to vote for its candidate. In my mind’s eyes, I still see poor Ribadu looking at the election results from the South-West the morning after the election and wondering what happened. He probably knew he did not stand a chance of winning the whole nation, but, at least, the South-West should have been a shoo-in.
Then, came the post-election analyses, speculation, and putting together of pieces of different puzzles to understand what happened. The story then was that Tinubu abandoned his own party candidate to support the incumbent, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, of the Peoples Democratic Party who thought if he lost the South-West to Ribadu, and was not guaranteed the North, it could result in an electoral run-off. To ward off that possibility, he allegedly “bought off” Tinubu to “deliver” his party and since the ACN wasn’t going to win anyway, Tinubu did the most practical thing: he deliberately lost his stronghold. When Ribadu, betrayed and humiliated, finally packed whatever was left of his dignity to join the PDP, he alleged that he was leaving because his party traded him during the 2011 elections.
