By Nduka Uzuakpundu
This is stating the truth. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, G. C. F. R., President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, said, the other day, that all was fair in politics.
He did not say, precisely, that, as in war, all – including the use of armoured tanks, rifles, F-16 fighter jets, the creation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, etc. which cause bloodshed, arson, disruption of public peace, all to the retardation of sustainable human development, mainly – was beautiful.
At the time that Tinubu made that comment, it was, strongly, suspected that he, cautiously, held back the expatiation to its depth or broad limits. It was guessed that it was in self-control, so as not to betray, in one fleeting moment of brashness, an ill-advised utterance. To the extent of giving him an irreparably bad press. All that assessment has morphed, all the same, into a besmirched press for Tinubu.
If a journalist, wearing a frown, as a betrayal of shock, had demanded, on the spot, that Tinubu should shed more light on that comment – in consonance with the Freedom of Information Act, this, one holds – and quite firmly, too – was what would have happened: In a brief – and auspicious – moment of drama, Tinubu – the sagacious politician from the South, would have paused. Cast a disapproving look at the journalist and some fifteen seconds later, in his response, he would have said, as a statesman, who is desirous of peace in the country, that: “Politics, in a multi-party, free enterprise democratic republic, like Nigeria, should be a peaceful exercise.” So peaceful, in the brilliant estimation of Dele Alake – a journalist of erudite constitution, versed in satire, and currently, minister of solid minerals – as ballooning to twenty- four the number of governors in the ruling All Progressives Congress (A. P. C.).
That question-and-answer moment, nonetheless, would have been one for a Tinubu, whose best legacy would be a Nigeria crowned with durable peace; the kind that the country was abundantly blest with, before the advent of Boko Haram et al – when he leaves office.
Thus, it would have been an occasion where Tinubu reiterated his bent to rewrite the political history of the country, by committing himself, anew, to peace, security of life and property, and sustainable human development.
Suppose on the same occasion, in the safe recess of the presidential villa, another journalist, nonplussed, by Tinubu’s utterance, had said that the Boko Haram crime, for instance, was also politics and, so their malfeasance of terrorism and rebellion against the Nigerian state should be interpreted as fair, this, I guess, from the strong position, fed by a feeler from an Aso Rock insider, would have been Tinubu’s reaction: “There’s a clear distinction between politics and rebellion; between progressive public administration and premeditated murder of innocent Nigerians; between retrogressive, self-destructive politics, freighted on a culture of neglect and violent refusal by a group of people within that cultural environment or society to resign themselves to an approximation rot, which is perpetrated by the palace or turban; and, amongst others, between the civil politics of enlightenment and the mire of backwardness.”
The same journalist would have disclosed to Tinubu that a report that reached him, while he was answering his question, was that a member of the Boko Haram sect, with whom he once boarded a flight to Lagos from Jos, Plateau State, in 1995, during dark days of the Abacha regime, was that all was fair in the activities of terrorism and the disposition of the Nigerian state granting amnesty to members of his terrorist group, who had ‘decommissioned’ their arms.
Tinubu would have reminded that journalist, presuming that he never knew, that his administration inherited the Boko Haram insurgency. And that he was under no illusion that the Boko Haram insurgency would ease off overnight.
That encounter, no doubt, would have struck Tinubu as an open offensive; a Tinubu caught off guard by a comment that was never expected to elicit tough reactions from that Aso Rock-based journalist and a few others within.
In the past few days, analysts, political party leaders, and other major stakeholders in the Nigerian project – sorry, the concept of the ‘Nigerian project’, which the likes of Pat Utomi, professor of political economics and Wole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate, once held, dear, since after the genocide against innocent Igbo sons and daughters, inside the Republic of Biafra – has given way to the caries in Nigeria today. It’s no longer a doughty political entity, they – and countless others – believe, once had engrafted faith in.
The decay has, in its ambitious wake, caused a deeply agonizing sense of loss for many, to the limit that they now see the Nigerian state no longer as a place to which they belong. They, unlike the people in power – the same people that they had elected to make life a lot better than it was for them before they invested politicians with their hope, confidence and trust.
See the exodus, in recent times, of skilled and seasoned Nigerian professionals, relocating to the United Kingdom, Canada, United States of America, Germany South Africa etc.
A whole lot of flak has since trailed the Tinubu comment – beyond what was imagined to have transpired between Jagaban and those journalists.
It was a faux pas. It was an unbridled utterance – a betise. A unique, Ill-advised jab never made by any of Tinubu’s sires. True.
Still, it’s been offered, in some political and military loops, that Tinubu should make haste to recant that comment. Politics, in which parties vie, via the ballot box, for elective offices, should ring less of violence. By now – nearly three decades of uninterrupted multi-party dispensation – top politicians, led by Tinubu, should be preaching, regularly, the gospel of peaceful and credible elections; that, all, sans violence, is fair in politics. The intent is to sink, further, the deep, muscular and gargantuan tap root of the Fourth Republic, that Tinubu, Soyinka, Femi Falana, Ayo Obe, Odia Ofeimun, Olisa Agbakoba, Chris Anyanwu, M. K. O. Abiola, Balarabe Musa, Kayode Fayemi, Abraham Adesanya, Kudirat Abiola, Richard Akinnola, the Kokoris, the Ubanis, you name it, made gargantuan sacrifices to beget.
Perhaps, it’s plausible to posit that it was unrelated to Tinubu’s comment what a certain Muslim cleric said, recently, in Kano, that Nigeria is a Muslim country. That the Muslim-Muslim ticket of Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, vice-president, was okay and the Christians in Nigeria were infidels.
All was just as fair coming after Tinubu’s betise. Tinubu should wade into the Kano betise. Now. He should direct the Directorate of State Services to caution, openly, the Muslim cleric, whose name one has deliberately refused to mention. His utterance was another betise from north of the Niger-Benue confluence; one that can dislocate the peace of this country.
The state governor, too, who applauded the cleric’s betise, should be publicly berated by Tinubu. The time for that is now.
As Tinubu admits this was an un-statesmanlike utterance, he should remind his patients that their privileged position is not to draw upon Nigeria a war with religious complexion. Ours is a secular, multi-party democracy, where free speech and freedom of worship are expressly guaranteed. Those freedoms come with a binding responsibility to respect the sanctity of the Nigerian state at all times in both deed and utterance.
There’s no provision, in the 1999 Constitution, to the effect that Nigeria is a Muslim country. Tinubu should make this clear to his fanatical Muslim brethren to the north of the Niger-Benue confluence; that they have a compelling duty to respect the sensibilities of other faiths in the country.
It was a reassuring development that Rabiu Kwakwanso has deplored the cleric’s looseness.
The duty of Tinubu wading in is, indeed, binding. It should be forthwith – if only to douse the smouldering discontent amongst numerous Christians, who feel offended by the cleric’s and governor’s conduct.
It’s no less persuasive that it was the magical effect of Tinubu’s utterance, that all was fair in politics that spurred the reckless comments, by a 70-year-old senator, who belonged to the A. P. C., in Osun State, that members of the Accord Party should be murdered. That was on the eve of the gubernatorial election.
More than twenty-four hours, thereafter – amid large-scale mayhem, in places like Ilesa, and Osogbo, the state capital, Tinubu would seem to be unperturbed. One hopes that is not the case.
Ever since “all is fair in politics,” it appears Tinubu has acted against the spirit of peace that is required in this country; what every Nigerian needs to feel safe and move, freely, from east to west, north to south, without housing the fear of being abducted by criminals. The peace that he, as the president, should be proud of, as its architect, to govern the country with palpable ease. Kano is tense. Osun is aflame, because of the selfish political ambition of some individuals, with strong links to Tinubu, who are bent on unseating the much-liked Adeleke administration.
Back in the early ’60s, they were pockets of unrest – Weti e, for instance – and avoidable betise – both products of political rascality – that led to the demise of the First Republic. One has been reliably informed, by a retired colonel, who knew about the recently foiled coup that it would have been a sanguinary protest against the prevailing insecurity in the country, which is still not being helped by Abuja, Kano and Osun.
Back in the early ’80s, it was the Ajasin-Omoboriowo political violence, in Ondo State, that conspired with some others, elsewhere, and pulled down the Second Republic.
In the early ’90s – why was it, always, ominously, in the opening years of the decades? – it was the political trappiness of the Babangida regime that triggered a chain of a cousin of Shakespearean civil strife that made the Third Republic – after a tortuous and unusually expensive, transition programme – unrealistic.
Would it be fair, should one say that it might be the chemistry between Abuja, Kano and Osun – all shades of violence – that would consume the Fourth Republic? Christ forfend. For Tinubu’s sake – for, if it weren’t for the colossal sacrifice that he made, the struggle for the Fourth Republic, which he, now, heads, would’ve been in vain.
Tinubu should act, now, so that a conflagration, while he’s president, does not engulf the country. He fought, bravely, for the birth of the Fourth Republic and, so, he should not rest, complacent, while parasites and ill-guided elements cause its demise.
*Nduka Uzuakpundu is Lagos-based journalist.
