Asiwaju Tinubu |
Nothing strengthens deceit more than
silence. And on an occasion like this, one often wonders why some people
twist events and history in order to legitimise a mission. While
ruminating over why this should be, it is not impossible to embark on
introspection by thinking out so many possibilities that politics is
replete with. This line of thought is informed by laughable events of
the last few days.
The news media have become agog with
false story as to how Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo came to be. During
the launch of a book, “Muhammadu Buhari: The Challenges of leadership in
Nigeria,” a biography on President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Monday,
October 3, 2016, Nigerians were fed with half-truths by the author,
Prof. John Paden, on how Osinbajo became the Vice-President of the
country. I don’t know how the author came about his story, but he
totally got it wrong because what he wrote basically is based on
falsehood that reeks of deliberate misinformation and mischief.
I know how Asiwaju Bola Tinubu picked
Osinbajo because I was part of the process that midwifed his nomination.
In mid-December 2014, it was a Saturday morning after President
Muhammadu Buhari had been picked by the All Progressives Congress, at
the party’s presidential primaries at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in
Surulere, Lagos. I received a phone call from Asiwaju to see him that
morning. On my way to his house, I discovered that a car at a reasonable
distance was that of a former Lagos State Commissioner for Information
and Strategy, Dele Alake, who was, ostensibly, heading towards Asiwaju’s
house in Ikoyi. Asiwaju must have called him too for that task that
could be explained underneath.
As soon as we arrived, Asiwaju quickly
asked us to join him in his car as we headed for a Guest House. At the
Guest House, the former APC Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, Osinbajo and
one renowned Pastor joined us.
At the meeting, Asiwaju related to us
the urgent need to pick a vice-presidential candidate for the APC. He
advised that we immediately discard the idea of his being nominated for
the vice-presidential slot as it was no longer possible to pick a
Muslim-Muslim ticket. This he reasoned made sense if indeed we were to
be realistic in our bid to defeat President Goodluck Jonathan in the
2015 election. He reasoned that what was important and imperative at
that time was to look for a good Christian nominee to complement Buhari.
I remember Baba Akande responded to his
aversions that he would still have preferred that Asiwaju should be the
running mate since it had been done before. Baba Akande was obviously
referring to the MKO Abiola/Babagana Kingibe nomination in 1993. Asiwaju
responded by distinguishing the political equation then from what was
before us at that point in time. He foreclosed that scenario as no
longer possible. We all voiced our opinions, and at the end of the day,
it was resolved that we had to get a Christian candidate.
It was at this point that Asiwaju
reminded us to be fast in coming up with an option because he felt other
geographical zones were also jostling for the same position reiterating
the need for the South-West to get it as a must. Asiwaju audaciously
told us that left for him, and if he were to pick anyone, he would
suggest Osinbajo. That Osinbajo, apart from being a brilliant legal
luminary, is also a committed progressive, and democrat. And having been
married to the late Obafemi Awolowo’s grand-daughter, it would not be a
problem selling him to the old political establishment of the
South-West for acceptance. He asserted that Alake and myself having
served in his cabinet could attest to the great works he did as the
Attorney General during his administration as Governor of Lagos State.
He also reasoned that the second major factor in favour of Osinbajo was
the fact that he was a strong Christian and one that he was already a
Pastor at the Redeemed Christian Church of God.
In the long run, Osinbajo’s nomination
was well-received by all of us at that meeting and Osinbajo was asked to
start detailing with us, further strategy sessions to which he brought
out his laptop and we all commenced a brainstorming session. The rest of
the discussion was to strategise on how to contain other likely
opponents from the South-West zone before proceeding to Abuja to battle
other zones in the coming nomination.
The meeting did not finish until about
9.00pm when we returned to Asiwaju’s residence in Bourdillon. By the
time we returned to his house, there were about six serving governors
already waiting to see him from different parts of Nigeria.
What is particularly sad now is that the
book launch of the President was deployed to create a make-believe
story that puts the society at a disadvantage of history. One would have
thought that now that the progressives, through an uncommon alliance in
2015, created an upset by defeating, for the first time in the
country’s history, the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party, it might be
taken as given that the role of all active participants in the exercise
would be correctly recorded. But surprisingly painful, such an avenue
was used to create an historical distortion of facts, more so, coming
from an unexpected quarters at this early stage of progressive politics.
If a political adversary had done that, one would not have been disturbed.
It becomes more of a matter of concern
when a renowned intellectual writes a book and begins to redefine events
in his own way by abashedly evading facts that are bellowing in the
public space in order to recreate a world of make-believe for his
audience. Sincerely, such an act understandably becomes a matter to
ponder seriously.
Let us stop here. It is not all clothes that can be dried in the sun.
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PLEASE BE POLITE