By 
By OLADIPO Oluwole
The making and unmaking of a president in Basorun Moshood Kasimawo Olawale ABIOLA, (MKO), within the realm of the accomplished/unaccomplished 1993 Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket, go beyond its present hullabaloo, over that of Asiwaju Bọla Armed TINUBU, (BAT), 2023- judging by the experience of the past in Alhaji Lateef Kayode JAKANDE, (LKJ), 1999.
Apart from their common value denominator in the making of a president, as managers of men and women, the trio seem to have the same undercover ALBATROSS in the unmaking of a president, as against the euphoria of Muslim-Muslim ticket.
Alhaji Jakande, a veteran journalist/publisher, whom I served in one of his tabloid newspapers, (The Lagos News), as the features editor in 1995/96, was the first civilian Governor of Lagos State in the second Republic, (1979-1983). While Senator Tinubu was the Lagos State Civilian Governor, (1999-2007), in the present fourth Republic, (1999-till date). Both performed creditably well.
The making and unmaking of a president in Tinubu, Jakande and Abiola, are reflections of the human elements, knowledge and lessons in transit, as history constantly repeats itself with human being as a conveyor of such a repetition.
As at the time the protests for the validation of the annulled June 12,1993 presidential elections were rife, both Jakande and Tinubu were already active participants of the change-agents in the National Democratic Coalition, (NADECO), and AFENIFERE, as political vehicles for the agitation.
However, Major General Sanni Abacha, after overthrowing the three-month old Interim National Government, (ING), of Chief Ernest Sonekan (26th August – 17th November, 1993), later reneged on his earlier promise to Abiola, to validate his annulled electoral victory.
NADECO and AFENIFERE, thereafter, instructed all the progressive members, hitherto, in the Abacha military government to resign, coupled with the spate of killings and bombings across the Yorubaland.
Alhaji Jakande refused to resign. And in my article entitled “Jakande, June 12 and Nigerian masses”, in the Lagos Newspaper of Wednesday, December 28,1994, pages 3-4, I asked a rhetorical question thus- ” will the alleged promise of presidential post, in an unspecified manner and time, be the yardstick for putting his (Jakande) life at stake, and long fruitful political career in jeopardy?
The making of the 2023 APC Presidential candidate in Asiwaju Bola Ahmed TINUBU, (BAT), was however, the unmaking of Alhaji Lateef Kayode JAKANDE, (LKJ), in the 1999 Alliance for Democracy, (AD), presidential candidate, despite his tremendous landmark achievements and performances, as the first Lagos State civilian Governor, and the best second Republic Governor,(1979-1983), with the appellation “Action Governor”!
Jakande’s albatross was, however, in his noncompliance with the call of his people, through the NADECO and AFENIFERE, to quit the then Abacha military dictatorship regime. Hence, Baba Jakande’s subsequent eclipse from the South West-Yorubaland political terrain.
Chief Bọla Ige and Chief Olu Falae, thereafter, took up the mantle of the political space at the Wednesday, January 17, 1999, mini-Alliance for Democracy, (AD), political party presidential primaries at the D’Rovan Hotel, along Ring Road, Ibadan, where majority of the twenty-three electors, chosen by Afenifere, voted for chief Olu Falae to contest against Chief Olusegun Obasanjo of the People Democratic Party, (PDP), at the 1999 presidential elections won by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
What you sow, you reap, and ” Ẹni tí kò bai tí kú, kò leè sọ irú ikú tó máa pá òun” – A living soul does not know what will eventually befall him – And that is quite the case of Asiwaju Bọla Tinubu who enjoyed and reaped bountifully well from the goodwill, love and support of his people – The Yorubas, in spreading his political tentacle from the regional AD, AC, and ACN to the present national APC.
However, as a progressive, Tinubu’s last national political alliance in 2013/14, with some of the Northern Conservative forces/political oligarchy, spearheaded by Major General Muhammad Buhari of the Congress of Progressive Change, (CPC), to form All Progressives Congress, (APC), eventually became Asiwaju’s own political albatross, too, just like the progressive Alhaji Jakande, of Chief Obafemi Awolowo school of political thoughts, found himself hibernating with the Abacha northern Conservative military junta/oligarchy!
Sometime in March, 2017, twenty able-bodied Yorubas, including an Ọba, were arrested in Ilé-Ifè, and later detained in Abuja, leaving the Hausa-Fulani that were involved in the fracas. Surprisingly, Asiwaju Tinubu, including the number two Yoruba man in government, the vice president Yẹmi Osinbajo, could not intervene, condemn or act decisively on the dastardly act of discrimination/injustice, on behalf of, and on the side of the Yoruba people whom they supposedly lead!
As if that was not enough, Asiwaju went ahead in 2019, to contribute again, in putting the same government in power! Thereafter, things changed to the worse, and aggravated into kidnappings, killings, and raping of the Yoruba young girls, and women, on the Yoruba lands, soils, farms, villages, towns, and bushes, by the criminal Hausa-fulani, and sometimes with their Yoruba criminal collaborators/counterparts- what an abomination, and desecration of the Yoruba ancestral homelands/domain?
However, except for the recent political permutations, none of the Yoruba leaders/leading lights in the ruling political party, including Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, could stand out against these atrocities, with condemnations and words of sympathy- but the only sympathising rhetorical question/answer was “where are the cows”? – what a crafty exhibition of human elements in every ordinary mortal !
However, unlike Jakande whose albatross turned out to be his immediate unmaking in 1999 AD presidential Candidacy, within his politico-ethnic group in Ibadan, that of Tinubu was his own making in 2023 APC Presidential Candidacy, in far away Abuja, and amongst his northern conservative/political oligarchy alliance members. But then, Senator Tinubu, hitherto majority love attraction, admiration, and support base, are gradually taking a sudden nosedive, within his political ethno-religious people in the South West, coupled with his frail and fragile health issues!
Hence, for quite a while now, the obvious ominous signs of the diminishing returns of love, and gradual erosion of admiration, have led to Senator Tinubu being always taunted, and the last being the physical stone throwing and damaging convoy vehicles by some of his kinsmen in his domain. And this I once pointed out, in case of Jakande, in the opening chapter of my earlier Lagos News article of December 28, 1994,thus- ” THE man, Alhaji Jakande, is gradually emanating from the negative and hostile attitude of the people whose love and admiration he hitherto enjoyed..”
These are, in fact, instructive lessons, in progress, on how not to turn one’s back on the loved ones and people, in time of distress and needs, no matter one’s present or future personal/political interest or ambition!
The pertinent question, therefore, is: Will Tinubu’s albatross, like Jakande, be revisited on him or not by his people, as the unmaking of a president, come 2023?
But, in number 33 of Tinubu’s list of 35 reasons for his choice of Senator Kashim Shettima as vice presidential candidate, he has justifiably or unjustifiably stated thus-” The spirit of 1993 is upon us again in 2023″, (after thirty years) – what a deserving or undeserving spirit of the accomplished/un-accomplished task of Muslim/Muslim 1993 Abiola/Kingibe SDP presidential ticket?
Coincidentally, both Jakande and Tinubu have equally followed the Abiola’s albatross in socio-political alliances/hybernating with the Northern conservative political/military oligarchy- with dire consequences, often turned out to be coloured and adorned in national ethno-religious garment/sentiment. Except Jakande’s albatross that was instantly dealt with by his people and enlightened immediate political elders/associates, before taking the usual national flight of manipulative ethnic discord.
However, the riddles are still – why was Muslim-Muslim ticket possible in 1993- ABIOLA/KINGIBE! Not possible in 2015- BUHARI/TINUBU!! But possible in 2023- TINUBU/SHETIMA?
TIME AND FUTURE WILL SURELY TELL!
TRUTH IS CONSTANT, KARMA IS REAL, INDEED!!
Mr. OLADIPO Oluwole is a current affairs analyst
Comments