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Tag: endgame

  • Game of Thrones, `Avengers: Endgame’ lead 2019 MTV movie nominations

    American Fantasy series “Game of Thrones,” “Avengers: Endgame” and “Ruth Bader Ginsburg” are tied for the most nominations at the 2019 MTV Movie and TV Awards with four each.

    The final season of “Game of Thrones” is nominated for Best Show for the third year in a row, along with Best Hero for Maisie Williams as Arya Stark.

    Also, Arya Stark was nominated for Best Fight vs. the White Walkers and Best Performance in a Show for Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen.

    “Avengers: Endgame” followed suit, with nominations for Best Movie and Best Fight  with Robert Downey Jr. getting a Best Hero nod, and Josh Brolin getting nominated for Best Villain.

    Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the first public figure to be nominated in the Best Fight category.

    “RBG” is also nominated for best documentary and a new category called Real-Life Hero.

    Similarly, “taboola-mobile-mid-article-thumbnails smallscreen,” “BlacKkKlansman,” “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” and “Us” join “Avengers: Endgame” made the Best Film category.

    Also, “Riverdale,” “The Haunting of Hill House,” “Schitt’s Creek” and “Big Mouth”  were also nominated in the Best Show Category.

    The awards holds on June 17 in California with host Actor, Zachary Levi who is also nominated for Best Hero and Best Comedic Performance for his role as the title character in “Shazam!”

  • Endgame for PDP?

    Endgame for PDP?

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is crisis-ridden. Stakeholders have advised the warring factions to seek a political solution to the logjam. Assistant Editor LEKE SALAUDEEN examines the implication of the intractable crisis on the image of the troubled opposition party.

    For almost two years now, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been embroiled in protracted crisis. The crisis was part of the fall-outs of the defeat in the 2015 presidential election. Since then, it has not been able to function as a party, let alone fulfil its role as the major opposition party, by putting the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on its toes. Observers believe the PDP would have saved itself from the self-inflicted crisis, if it had returned to the drawing board immediately it lost power; to examine what went wrong during the poll and take decisions that would reposition it as a viable alternative to the ruling party. Instead, few influential members hijacked the party by engaging in trivialities and leaving the fundamental issues unaddressed.

    The first major mistake committed by the party was the removal of its former National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, who was forced to resign without being given the opportunity to account for his role in the party’s defeat. Analysts are of the opinion that the decision to remove Mu’azu was hasty. His removal ignited succession problem. The former Deputy National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, wanted to take-over as chairman, in line with the party’s constitution. But, the northern caucus insisted that a northerner should take-over, to complete Mu’azu’s tenure. As a result, the party was polarised. The issue of who succeeds Mu’azu became a matter of litigation.

    In the process, two PDP governors, Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State and Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, took it upon themselves to search for a northerner with huge financial war chest, to lead the party. This, they found in former Borno State Governor Ali Modu-Sheriff. Observers recalled that the coming of Sheriff was a blessing to the PDP, because he was able to bail out the party from its financial woes; the party was broke and could not pay staff salaries and settle other financial obligations. He also made available his personal jets for the use of the party during the reconciliation process.

    The agreement between Sheriff and the PDP leaders was that he would complete Mu’azu’s tenure. But, Sheriff was accused of planning to perpetuate himself in office by engineering his own succession. To abort this move, the PDP leaders sacked the Sheriff-led National Working Council (NWC) and appointed a National Caretaker Committee to manage the party’s affairs, pending when a national convention will hold to elect a new executive. But, Sheriff insisted that he was the authentic chairman, because a convention has not been held to choose a new chairman and that his executive was not legally dissolved. His argument was hinged on the premise that there was no provision for the establishment of a National Caretaker Committee in the party’s constitution.

    The leadership crisis has torn the party apart at the federal, zonal and state levels. For instance, the impact of the tussle over the Ondo PDP governorship ticket last year between the two factions has been fingered as one of the major reasons why the party lost the election. There are two factions of the PDP in Ondo, like other states. The two factions conducted separate governorship primaries. The Sheriff group presented a business mogul, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim, as its candidate, while the Makarfi faction chose a legal luminary, Mr Eyitayo Jegede (SAN), as its flag bearer. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was confused as to which of the two candidates to recognise, but relied on court decisions. Initially, it recognised Ibrahim, based on the order of a Federal High Court. However, the Court of Appeal upturned the High Court ruling and directed INEC to replace Ibrahim’s name with that of Jegede few days to the election. Jegede had no time to market his programme to the electorate; which observers said affected the party’s performance at the poll. Analyst said if there were no such wrangling, the PDP might have fared better in that contest.

    The crisis rocking the PDP was compounded by the role of the judiciary in the matter. At least, four lower courts of concurrent jurisdiction had given conflicting judgments on the leadership tussle; a development that made one of the groups to take the matter to the Appeal Court. The Appellate Court in its judgment affirmed the leadership of Sheriff. The court ruled that the PDP did not comply with its constitution in removing the Sheriff-led executive. Justice B.G. Sanga, in a lead judgment, said: “A vote of no confidence may be moved on any officer, but in doing that, a two-month notice shall be provided to the secretariat of the party, which shall also be circulated.”

    He added that “the way the (Sheriff) executive was removed on May 21, 2016 showed that the party’s constitution was not complied with”. While setting aside the judgment of a High Court delivered on July 4, 2016, Justice Sanga described the action of the PDP as an illegality, saying that the court will not close its eye to such illegality. He described the various judgments given by different courts of coordinate jurisdiction as an abuse of the court process, even as he annulled the National Convention held on May 21, 2016, in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.

    Following the recent Appeal Court ruling, stakeholders are now thinking of alternative ways of resolving the crisis out of court. They argued that another court judgment may not achieve the desired result, because it may worsen the relationship between the two factions.

    Commenting on the judgment, Senator Ben Murray Bruce (PDP Bayelsa East), said the PDP has embarked on the path of destruction. Bruce who had been backing the Makarfi group before now said: “I am not in support of any more litigation. We will work with Ali Modu-Sheriff and go to a convention. Right now, the PDP is on a course towards destruction and abiding by the judgment of the court is the only thing that can save us.

    “In the first place, it is never the job of the judiciary to choose the leader of a party. I therefore call an end to the fighting. And I am supporting Ali Modu-Sheriff because it is the only way to preserve the party. Right now, what Nigeria has is a one-party state; there is no opposition. Enough is enough. This is the time for the PDP to unite; we are a formidable force.”

    Similarly, the Deputy National Chairman of the Sheriff-led group, Dr Cairo Ojougboh, has stressed the need for reconciliation among members of the PDP. He described the Appeal Court ruling as a compromise decision, with “no victor, no vanquished”.

    Ojougboh said there was an agreement between the two factions not to appeal the outcome of the judgment, saying Sheriff had promised to abide by its outcome. According to him, that explains why the National Chairman embarked on nationwide consultation with the party’s stakeholders in preparation for the national convention that will hold very soon.

    He added: “That is why we are calling on everybody to come on board, so that we can collectively put our house in order before the convention. We want to organise a convention that will be acceptable to all. We can’t achieve that without due consultation.”

    But, the Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Senator Walid Jibrin, does not share the above view. He is optimistic that the Supreme Court would rule in favour of the Makarfi faction. He said: “The dissenting judgment by one of the three judges that sat on the appeal was an indication that the Makarfi faction could still get a favourable judgment at the highest court.

    “This judgment is not a threat, but it will put us together. All former leaders of the party like former President Goodluck Jonathan and Dr Alex Ekwueme, are with us,” he said.

    But, a BoT member, Professor Tunde Adeniran, has called for a political solution to the crisis. He advised the warring factions to bury the hatchet.

    Adeniran, a member of the Makarfi group, said the Court of Appeal judgment that nullified the decision of the Port Harcourt national convention and reinstated the Sheriff group was a challenge to all the lovers of democracy nationwide to rally round the party.

    He said some of the reactions that have followed the Appeal Court judgment suggest that a rethinking and a reawakening are necessary at this point in time.  The BoT member said: “A political solution remains the best option and our founding fathers and all critical stakeholders must resume action in this regard, not just for the sake of justice, fair play and stability within the PDP, but also for the survival of democracy in Nigeria.

    “Now, more than ever before, we should all be concerned about democracy and our dear country. This is an appeal to all PDP members  nationwide that whatever our positions on the contending issues and views on the appeal court decision, this is not the time for mutual recrimination or vitriolic attacks on any of our members, grandstanding and self-serving rhetoric. So much damage has been done to the PDP, democratic development and the rule of law that we should no longer fuel the combustible political packages designed by enemies of democracy from within and without.”

    A legal luminary, Mallam Yusuf Ali (SAN), has also advised the warring factions to seek a political solution to the self-inflicted crisis. He urged them to go back to the drawing board and settle their differences in the interest of democracy. Ali said they should be guided by the party’s constitution in resolving the crisis.

    He added: “It is good they have gone to court to seek judicial resolution, but the ultimate solution lies with the party members. Most of the issues at stake are political; they should apply political solutions. Participation in politics is like entering into a contract; they should dialogue and be honest to themselves at the negotiating table. That is the only way the PDP can bounce back as a major political party in this country.”

    He urged the factions to close ranks in order to play the role of the opposition. He said: “We need a virile opposition for our democracy to grow. Politics is about give and take. Without a formidable opposition, Nigeria is heading to a one-party state, which will be too dangerous for the country.”

    To a civil right activist, Emeka Njoku, the PDP may never get out of the crisis. No amount of court judgments will bring the two factions to come together as a party.  He said: “From the look of things the party may not survive the crisis and if it does, it may not recover. The party is heading towards extinction; I foresee a situation whereby the party will split and a splinter group would emerge and float a new party.”

    Njoku said no matter the group that is declared winner by the Supreme Court, the two groups cannot stay together under the same umbrella again. “Do you think Sheriff would surrender or Makarfi would accept Sheriff as PDP leader? For instance, look at the reaction of the Makarfi group to the Court of Appeal judgment that affirmed Sheriff’s leadership. They rejected the judgment and vowed not to have anything to do with Sheriff. Now, if the Supreme Court judgment favours the Makarfi group, would you expect Sheriff to accept Makarfi leadership? They will not.

    “This is why the Makarfi group should exercise restraints in their utterances and seek dialogue with the other group. They should not underrate Sheriff, because in politics the party’s strength lies in the number of supporters. The strength of the PDP has waned. It has lost members to the APC because of the persistent crisis. Some PDP members in the National Assembly have defected to the ruling party. Across the country the PDP members are jumping ship, especially in the Southeast and Southsouth, where the APC   performed woefully in 2015. The strength of both factions of the PDP, if merged together, cannot match APC’s.

    “Besides, the PDP in its present form is a bad product that will be difficult for anybody to market. Nigerians have not forgotten the PDP 16 years of looting and putting the country in the economic mess in which we are today. The image of the party is nothing to write home about. It is wishful thinking for the PDP to say it would regain power in 2019. A party that has failed to put its house in order almost two years after it lost power cannot be trusted by Nigerians.”

    A political analyst summed it this way: “Court judgments will never restore peace in the crisis-ridden PDP, because the court can’t enforce the fusion of warring factions. They should seek political resolution. Both factions should swallow their pride and return to the negotiating table to iron out their differences, so that the party can bounce back as a formidable platform and play the role of opposition.”

  • Endgame & Abacha’s last disciple

    Endgame & Abacha’s last disciple

    Those skilled in psychoanalysis could not have missed the telltale hint. Newspaper images we saw of Yahya Jammeh receiving ECOWAS emissaries at the Banjul airport last Friday clearly depicted acute weight loss, accentuated by a distant look on his face.

    Really, it would have been humanly impossible to be haunted at home and heckled from outside like Jammeh in the past seven weeks and remain unruffled. An unconfirmed source even quoted him jokingly beseeching the leader of the august visitors, Nigeria’s Muhamnadu Buhari, “Mr. President, please don’t invade my country.” If true, it would seem the self-confessed herbalist (he claims HIV/AID cure) who prefers to be addressed elaborately as “His Excellency, Sheik, Professor, Alhaji, Doctor” had, alas, become aware of the limitation of his muchvaunted talisman.

    But like the proverbial doomed house-fly destined to join the coffin in the grave, The Gambian buffoon failed to take advantage of the olive branch offer by the ECOWAS peace-makers in the last-ditch effort to save him from himself. Not even another face-saving offer of asylum by the Nigerian congress would dissuade him from the path of perdition.

    On Tuesday, he took liberty to impose a threemonth state of emergency even when his legal mandate would expire less than twenty-four hours (Wednesday night). Before then, the Government House had almost become deserted and Banjul a ghost town following the exodus of fearful citizens to Senegal and other neighboring countries.

    No fewer than eight cabinet members (including the Information and Foreign Ministers) had resigned and defected. The floodgate of resignations was opened by no less than the chief electoral officer himself, Alieu Momar Njai. After declaring Adama Barrow winner of the December 1 polls, Njai had admitted some glitches in the process of tabulating the results.

    But despite that the reconciled figures still did not alter the outcome significantly, Jammeh, who had ruled the tiny country for 22 years, suddenly found a cheap alibi to recant his earlier concession of victory to the opposition.

    From initially accepting defeat, the Gambian desperado now wanted a re-run. Njai’s responded by sneaking out of the country, upsetting Jammeh’s crafty trap. So, as the Nigerian war ship and ECOWAS troops begin to mass along the Gambian coast in the days ahead for what now appears an inevitable invasion of the presidential fortress in Banjul, the nay-sayers – like Nigeria’s deputy senate president Ike Eweremadu – need not misconstrue the historic necessity of the task at hand.

    The mission to dislodge Jammeh for refusing to obey the electoral verdict of December 1 should not be seen as a favour to a fellow West African nation. Rather, it is a moral duty owed the long-suffering people of The Gambia. The argument of Ekweremadu and those preaching against the military option is essentially based on the otherwise thoughtful notion that “to jaw-jaw is better than war-war”.

    But such pacifism is tenable only on the premise that we are dealing with a sane man. From his conduct over the years, especially the odd symptoms seen in the past 49 days, it should be clear to everyone now we have on our hands a power psychopath, if not a first-class psychiatric patient. Those presently worried about the material costs of a military invasion are only being myopic.

    They should consider the price ECOWAS would pay if the Jammeh cancer was not quickly staved and excised but instead allowed to metastasize into a full-blown civil war with the attendant humanitarian crisis and instability for the sub-region.

    If nothing at all, ECOWAS’ swift and robust handling of the issue thus far should be a source of pride not only to the people of the sub-region but the rest of the Africa that democratic norms and values are fast taking root and, most significantly, that the people themselves are now developing the mechanism and capacity to resolve issues arising therefrom in the spirit of African solidarity without the prodding of any external neo-colonial power.

    Overall, perhaps only those with fairly long memory today could attest that Jammeh is indeed a calamity long foretold. After seizing power on July 22, 1994 as a young Army officer, he never hid his admiration for then Nigerian fledgling despot, Sani Abacha.

    As the infantry general in Abuja was increasingly isolated by the international community on account of his murderous proclivities, Jammeh became a regular visitor to Nigeria for fellowship at Aso Rock in his trademark gaudy costume of over-sized white Agbada, conspicuous sword and giant-sized prayer-beads, offering the public ceaseless comic entertainment.

    One salacious account has it that his preference for big Agbada in public outing is to conceal a permanent bulletproof vest. But unlike Abacha who, lacking self-confidence, chose a rather serpentine route in pursuit of a transmutation from Army law-giver to civilian president, Jammeh short-circuited his own metamorphosis to a civilian president within two years in the relatively much smaller The Gambia.

    Like his hero in kleptocracy in Abuja, the little read Jammeh ruled his tiny country with iron fist, even as he mindlessly purloined the bulk of the little that trickled into the national treasury mostly from peanut and tourism. And while the vast majority of Gambia’s population of 2 million wallow in indigence, the megalomaniac leader lives a life of debauchery and filthy extravagance.

    To further secure himself, he lately decided to mix politics with religion by proclaiming his country an Islamic country in blatant disregard for the sensibilities of a good number of citizens who are practising Christians.

    But one of the supreme ironies is that though he gave an executive order banning women from appearing in public without scarf consistent with Sharia practice, that hardly stopped his psychedelic Moroccan wife from continuing to flaunt openly her own procured assorted Brazilian hair at every opportunity. Indeed, “Abachaology” and the darkness it embodied had since unraveled in the land of its birth. But the enduring tragedy is that the infatuated like Jammeh still seem detained by that sordid past, refusing to read the ominous handwriting now on the wall.

    The savages are unwilling to accept that, with a more conscientised electorate, fixing elections results or disobeying its outcome is fast going out of fashion in Africa.

    It then explains why Jammeh, whose own family has since reportedly fled the country, seems still incapable of appreciating – much less following – the worthy footsteps of Ghana’s John Mahama who, tellingly, is among the ECOWAS peacemakers today. Mahama vied for a second term in the Ghanaian polls and lost precisely a week after the exercise in The Gambia.

    Once fully in receipt of the figures from the polling units, he promptly called the opposition candidate to congratulate him, even before the results were officially declared by Ghana’s electoral empire.

    Now, even after 22 years in the saddle, the political glutton in Banjul is still unwilling to let go. But he no longer has a choice.

  • Endgame in PDP imperils APC

    Endgame in PDP imperils APC

    Both factional chairmen of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ahmed Makarfi and Ali Modu Sheriff, have indicated their desire to explore merger options with injured ‘factions’ of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). While the PDP has openly splintered and are hamstrung by their obstinate insistence on fighting to the death, the split in the APC is more subtle and less indicative, but no less brutal and final. There will apparently be no reconciliation in the PDP, for the stakes are too high and the egos and ideologies of the leading combatants too large or too rigid to facilitate peace and progress. On its own, the APC is living in denial, its soul having left it when its leaders assumed office, and the current chief custodian of its values quite unable to decipher what the party means to its members and a country harried by economic troubles, social dislocations and political stasis.

    Now the ruling APC is in the very unenviable position of being dismembered while it is yet alive, its body cut in pieces while it still breathes, for that is what the factional chairmen of the PDP are sworn to do. Since the botched Port Harcourt convention of the PDP last August, before which court judgements struggled against court judgements, the party has been at daggers drawn. It is not unusual for a party to lose election and bounce back on an auspicious later date, nor does it mean a death knell for party leaders of a losing party to relinquish office. So, the PDP was not treading a strange and uncharted territory when it lost the 2015 elections and its chairman vacated office. If the party had kept its wits, it should have been able to sustain a semblance of unity while it began the search for new options. Instead, the simple task of getting an interim chairman immediately turned farcical and tragic. Rather than secure the services of one of its own, a tested long-standing member with enough restraint, nobility and charisma, the party recruited a fighter, the rambunctious Senator Sheriff, a man who does not shirk a fight nor have the temperament to measure his response.

    At first, the choice of Senator Sheriff, who was also a former Borno State governor, appeared to be sound, for the ruling APC’s flamboyant defiance and demolition of constitutional provisions needed a man of girth and grit in the opposition to caution and restrain them. The PDP governors were enthusiastically behind him, almost to a man. But when it seemed Senator Sheriff had other plans than simply conducting the convention in line with the terminal mandate given him, his backers, many of whom were governors, quickly withdrew their support. But the senator was not one to be incommoded by withdrawn support. So, he stood his ground and dared anyone to pull the carpet from under him. If the Port Harcourt convention could not be held, ruminated the former Borno State governor, then, why, it would be held another day and perhaps at another venue, only he would have to be the person to do it.

    No one thought the disagreement within the PDP would fester so badly and for so long. After party leaders got together on the day the Port Harcourt convention failed, and appointed a caretaker committee headed by former Kaduna State governor Ahmed Makarfi to replace the boisterous and ambitious Senator Sheriff, party members reposed confidence in their leaders’ ability to procure peace. Unfortunately for them, not only did Senator Sheriff refuse to step down, arguing that his leadership was still legitimate despite the convention fiasco, he pugnaciously took the fight to the soft-spoken but mercurial Senator Makarfi. The two combatants then quickly became diametrically opposed. Neither would submit to the other. And as the recurrent but failed attempts to reconcile the party over the leadership of the PDP shows, the factors and egos that divide them transcend the more primal need of the party to face up to the ruling party.

    In a sense, given their statements and posturing over the months, it seems to the political class that Senator Makarfi is more ideologically grounded on PDP matters than Senator Sheriff. Importantly too, it appears that the former is more level-headed and can be trusted. But the two former governors are struggling for the soul of a party ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo described as undergoing treatment in the intensive care unit of a hospital, apparently dying because of leadership problems, ideological vacuum, and general moral crisis. The former president is also contextually right about the cause of the political crisis Nigeria is facing when he cast doubt on the readiness and reliability of the APC to govern. The PDP is in intensive care and the APC is weak in government, summed up the former president cryptically. It is, therefore, ironic that both factional leaders of a dying PDP have resolved to forge alliances with putative factions of an enervated APC. In other words, they have given up on reconciliation in the PDP, and have also indicated, together with other commentators, that their efforts to secure the affections of factions of the APC implies that the ruling party is a living dead. But if any of the PDP factions will succeed in forging an alliance with a faction of the APC, it will have to be the Senator Makarfi-led group. Senator Sheriff is too agitated and excitable to be trusted.

    The PDP is clearly in its endgame. It refused to carry out the work of cleansing it desperately needed to endear itself to Nigerians embittered by its lethargy and incompetence in government for 16 years. Had the party purged its ranks and promoted new faces to its leadership when the country needed them to do so, they would probably have positioned themselves to challenge a blundering APC. The ruling party itself has taken many missteps, displayed contempt for the constitution and the rule of law, and projected a dispiriting lack of coordination. It was impossible for the PDP which had presided over probably the most corrupt government in Nigerian history, bar that of Gen Sani Abacha, to offer any realistic challenge to the APC. Only a reborn and reinvigorated PDP could offer that opposition. But rather than opt for the hard road of thorough cleansing, the PDP had tried to paper over the cracks and downplayed the need for renewal. How wise flying that unharnessed chute was remains to be seen.

    In forging an alliance, however, the two PDP factions must still contend with their own misshapen identities and ambitions. So far, they seem long on ambition to reclaim the presidency than the hard work needed to recreate a solid party with great and lasting appeal. It may be sensible to come to terms with the near impossibility of reconciliation within the opposition party, but it hardly makes sense to assume that they can gloss over the crucial need to reform and rebuild, complete with the necessary development of succinct ideology, programmes and manifestos. There are no shortcuts. Even the APC, which seemed to have steamrolled into the presidency barely two years after its formation, had to carefully align and rebuild in order to engender some sort of appeal. But while the APC example may be great on paper, it is often not easily replicated in reality.

    As many political pundits are already suggesting, perhaps a third political force may be both desirable and ineluctable. The PDP is near dead, and the APC is faltering very badly. But whether they both die or not, in the next one year, the two hobbled parties will initiate many temporary political romances and alliances, and prostitute principles and values. Until then, it will be unwise to put a bet on what shape and content Nigeria’s political primeval soup, which is seething dangerously at the moment, would be in 2017 or 2018. The PDP’s internal succession battles between 2012 and 2014 hastened the end of many small parties and crippled the then ruling party. There is no reason to think the endgame in the PDP will not cripple and imperil a dithering and childish APC even before it had the chance to walk.

  • Fashola: Aftergame or endgame?

    Speculators may be correct about the existence of a wall in between two former governors of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Mr. Babatunde Fashola. But the specifications of the wall may well be beyond the scope of speculation. It is an instructive demonstration of changed and changing circumstances that the one who empowered the other has been linked with the demystification of power, but it is another matter altogether whether the power of demystification is potent enough to achieve its objective.

    The August 18 Lagos launch of three books on Fashola’s time in power was like reading a book on power and its consequences. His memorable era as governor of the megacity was captured by his media aide, Hakeem Bello, and Dapo Adeniyi in the titles “The Great Leap”, “In Bold Print” and “The Lagos Blow Down”. But the celebratory ceremony had the appearance of a blow down of Fashola’s well-publicised pluses in governance, particularly because of the significative shunning by the cream of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). Of course, there was a tokenistic representation of the party’s soul, but it was a presence symbolic of a parting.

    The stage provided thought-provoking insights into the drama. Tinubu’s representative, Prof. Tunde Samuel, was quoted as saying: “Fashola acquired a lot of apprenticeship in a wired political engineering and this further helped his actions while in office. I am happy  that  your ruggedness in office has shown Lagosians and Nigerians that Asiwaju took a very good decision when he made you his Chief of Staff and later two-time Governor of Lagos State…We are happy about your success in office and we believe the sky is your limit.” It is unclear how much of what the speaker said was politically influenced, but the implications of his historicization were obvious enough.

    On the same stage, Mr. Fola Adeola, a former chairman of Guaranty Trust Bank who chaired the occasion, painted a telling picture of things behind the scenes. He reportedly said: “I believe everybody that came here today considers Fashola as a friend, brother, cousin, so I greet everyone and welcome them. I will also say some people are here just because they are brave and not afraid. The people who are here are simply telling him that no matter what, they still remain his friend.”  Adeola’s words were important more for what he left unsaid than for what he said. Questions: Who are those no longer friends with Fashola and why? Why would anyone be afraid to attend a book launch?

    There is no doubt that the books and the launch were publicity stunts. The truth is that if gubernatorial grading is informed by fair-minded measurement of results, and devoid of the narrow-mindedness that comes with judging on extra-governmental grounds, Fashola cannot by any stretch of the imagination be qualified as undistinguished.

    It was fitting that Adeola was quoted as saying at the event: “I was in Benin and somebody was talking about Lagos State and Fashola. I was surprised and wondered where they knew him from. Also in Kano State during Governor Kwakwanso’s tenure, a young man was saying his governor is trying to replicate what Fashola is doing in Lagos in the state. So in my dictionary, Fashola represents every good thing.”  Indeed, so exemplary was Fashola’s administrative competence in a country used to mediocrities in power that ahead of the general elections held a few months ago, there was a serious public debate in his favour concerning his suitability for vice-president in a dream tag team with Muhammadu Buhari.

    To the extent that he demonstrably left Lagos State a better place than he met it, even if he allegedly merely actualised the grand vision of his predecessor and sponsor, Fashola does not deserve a place in the hall of infamy.  But the ways of politics and politicians are polyvalent, which is the central point about the aftergame that may prove to be an endgame.

    While Fashola may have offended party hierarchs based on misapprehensions and miscalculations encouraged by power, it is indisputable that while the romance lasted he was an awesome advertisement for his party and its leadership.  Fashola’s sins in the eyes of those he displeased by his failure to recognise his limits and limitations in the political game and the political space should not be considered too outrageous to be forgiven.

    It is revealing that Fashola himself is under no illusion as to the plot to rubbish him and his achievements. In an earlier statement, he referred to “manipulated and unsubstantiated allegations of wrongdoing.” He said: “They range from allegations of extramarital paternity of children, to mundane and phantom conspiracy in the National Assembly, a debt profile for Lagos State and lately a website upgrade contract of N78 million, which is being distorted.”

    The tragedy of Fashola’s apparent reduction within his party is that it provides ammunition to the opposition. Given the ugly picture of intra-party dissonance, it won’t be surprising if the opposition launches its own anti-Fashola campaign.

    Ultimately, the biggest casualty may be Fashola’s political future. Now that his party is in power at the federal level, Fashola’s fans are realistically hoping he would play an important role in the central government on the basis of his impressive governorship credentials. It would be an unmerited anti-climax if his political ascent is forced to plateau at this stage, considering the great promise of his governorship years.

    However, the APC cannot expect to go through the circumstances unscathed. Its progressive image will be badly dented by any dent inflicted on a rising and shining star in its firmament. As a symbol of the possibilities of developmental governance, Fashola just can’t be ignored. Those who appreciate that development always comes with a price tag acknowledge the great leap and bold print of the Fashola years in Lagos State. Nothing can blow these down.

    If what looks like an aftergame develops into an endgame, it would be an unwelcome ending to a political interconnection that has benefited Lagos State and deserves to be replayed to the country’s advantage.