Like millions of Nigerians, yours truly was completely taken aback when the current interior minister and Tinubu’s most trusted right-hand man, Rauf Aregbesola, hurled very cruel and bitter criticisms at his erstwhile benefactor and political mentor in the public square. Majority of us have watched his next-levels’ rags-to-riches stories with wishful thinking, as first, he was enabled to become the chairman of Alimosho LGA, then commissioner of works, then governor of Osun State before becoming a federal minister.
The script of Aregbesola’s tapestried rise from glory-to-glory is guaranteed to make any movie producer/director of Cinderella-themed flicks squeal with pure delight. But he would be fooling no one but himself if he thinks Nigerians would swallow all that crap about being a self-made man. Like we say in the Niger Delta: “We weren’t born yesterday.” The destiny helper openly used by God to marvellously help him at every promotional phase is unquestionably Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Aregbesola not only diminishes himself in the public eye for odiously denying the obvious, but further underscores his treacherous attribute by biting the finger that so sumptuously fed him.
Apart from insultingly referring to his former boss in the third person, and using the Sahara Reporters photo that went viral on social media platforms to publicly mock (not defend) Tinubu for “urinating on himself,” Aregbesola accused Tinubu of carrying on like a tin god. Interestingly, Aregbesola seems to be afflicted with a common strain of selective amnesia else it ought to be clear to him that in vowing to upend Governor Gboyega Oyetola re-election bid and foisting his hand-picked candidate, Moshood Adeoti, on APC members in Osun State, he was also committing exactly the same ‘crime’ he was attributing to Tinubu.
The interior minister justified his fiercely combative opposition to the governor’s re-election quest on the grounds that the latter is determined to destroy his (Aregbesola’s) ‘legacies.’ But Aregbesola just doesn’t get it. The 2018 governorship election was in all respects a referendum on his eight-year performance, and APC almost lost! APC had to hurriedly broker a last-minute lifesaving deal with an erstwhile political arch-enemy in the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) as at then – Senator Iyiola Omisore – that finally saw Oyetola pushed over the line by the razor-thin margin of a few hundred votes. It would, therefore, have been politically suicidal for the incoming governor to continue the same repudiated ‘legacies’!
Why should Aregbesola feel ennobled by the trappings of the office of a federal minister to go for Tinubu’s jugular if not that he must’ve taken leave of his senses? “Our nature,” bellowed Greek philosopher and essayist Plutarch, holds so much envy and malice that our pleasure in our own advantages is not as great as our distress at others’.” Truth be told, Tinubu has contracted the vilest form of envy and jealousy that is second to none for a politician that has never held a national elective office.
Lest we forget, he willingly collapsed the ACN structure into the APC to enthrone Muhammadu after the first attempt at an alliance came unstuck in 2011. It is said he was to be rewarded with the VP position but he was completely left out in the cold and another abominably harvested the fruit of his labour. His candidate for House Speaker – Femi Gbajabiamila – was sidestepped and scorn became his lot among APC members of the National Assembly and the party hierarchy. Oftentimes it seemed like even Buhari was siding those seeking to give Tinubu an undeserving comeuppance.
It is, therefore, hardly surprising that when his reputation further suffered hard blows in the Edo State Governorship Election and the sacking of Adams Oshiomhole as APC national chairman, he was perceived to be getting weaker and vulnerable. The thinking of the cabal forever conspiring how to grab and retain power – regardless of political party affiliation – is that a well-directed shove is the only stimulus now required to deal a death blow to Tinubu’s political ambition. The ageing lion was to be caged while the young Turks rampaged the land.
The king is dead, long live the king!
The task of delivering that final shove – aimed at crystallising the mother of all coups de grace – fell to Aregbesola. It was billed to happen through the instrumentality of the high-stakes proxy war between a political godfather and his estranged political godson, with the Osun State APC governorship primary as the battle field. Considering Tinubu’s political stature, bringing him down is a high-risk venture. But the pay-off is equally very high. Building his political brand on a ‘giant-killer’ concept would give Aregbesola’s political stock a massive boost.
But things didn’t pan out as planned.
It is pertinent to point out that despite – or in spite of – the thinly-veiled acts of humiliation, Tinubu remained loyal to the party and to Buhari. Not that he had many choices at the time anyway. But as an uncommon political strategist, Tinubu perfectly understands the way politics is played in Nigeria. He didn’t deem it belittling to stoop and patiently await the ideal time to roar and conquer.
By the time the last howitzer was fired, the candidate of the godfather had made mincemeat of the candidate of the godson, and it turned out to be a day the latter would rather hope to forget for the rest of his life as Oyetola routed Moshood Adeoti in the interior minister’s ward in Ijesa East LGA, on his way to procuring a blow-out victory (Oyetola garnered a whopping 94 percent of the 235,550 valid votes cast state-wide!). The ageing lion it was that survived while the young Turks were roasted at the stakes. He that was written off as weakened is now riding the high wave of a new Big Momentum and threatening to henceforth give as much as he receives and would never be intimidated into dropping his presidential ambition.
The king is (still) alive, long live the king!
Tinubu must be mulling over the vicissitudes of life. One moment, he was the envy of many for the way he pro-actively groomed several men and women to assume leadership positions at the highest levels nationwide, and the next moment be down in the dumps as he watches his seemingly impregnable political dynasty come unstuck like the Fuji House of Commotion. Nobody ever expected Aregbesola to be counted among the metaphorical insects eating the leaf from the inside, but the reality is that there’s no art of knowing the poisonous envy that lurks in a friend’s breast.
During one of the meetings of the stakeholders of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Tinubu reportedly announced to a cheering audience that “Rauf Aregbesola is my trusted loyalist. If he gives me kola to eat in the dark, I won’t hesitate to eat (it).” It is very doubtful if Tinubu would now accept to receive kola nut from Aregbesola, talk more eat it, even in broad-day light. To think that it was this same Aregbesola that Tinubu, as testified to by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, spent a fortune hiring forensic experts from around the world to make it possible for him (Aregbesola) to judicially reclaim his lost mandate.
If only the members of the Tinubu school of politics, such as the Aregbesolas, could imbibe his disposition towards patience, endurance and need to keep an eye on the big picture. Can Aregbesola retrace his steps and seek forgiveness and redemption like a prodigal son instead of digging himself deeper in a hole with all the forming and bravado he is ill-advisedly indulging in? Tinubu himself might be minded to draw his enemies even closer so as to keep them under vigilant surveillance.
Aregbesola didn’t exercise proper judgement in needlessly savaging his party leader. “It is easy to fly into a (rage) – anybody can do that – but to be angry with the right person to the right extent and at the right time and with the right object and in the right way – that is not easy, and it is not everyone who can do it,” averred ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. Aregbesola must be counted amount those who cannot.
That Aregbesola went too far in his attempts to humiliate his erstwhile political benefactor only goes to prove that he never truly bonded with the inner-caucus members of the Tinubu political dynasty. English espionage agent Harold Philby who was indicted for spying for the Soviet Union and betraying England vehemently denied ever betraying England because “To betray, you must first belong” (he was a sleeper Communist!).
- Okoye is a public affairs analyst