By Ikeddy Isiguzo
NO time would have been right for Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Jagaban Borgu, to be President of Nigeria. Those who are more generous say with his knowledge of Nigeria, he would have made a great President if he were younger.
This is the worse time to suggest a President, one who even if he is available is barely attentive, aware, or has the capacity to manage the deteriorating stages of Nigeria. Someone whose incomplete thoughts are manifestations of his degenerating health.
Tinubu does not fit the bill of Nigeria’s President. Most times the wrong reasons are given to befuddle the Tinubu menace. His media minders in collusion with some intellectuals present a different problem. Their belief in Tinubu, yes their right to choose subsists, is at best nauseating for the reasons they give.
Age is the least of Tinubu’s challenges. His health issues are worse. Whatever ails him, however named, keeps him from optimal interactions with the public. He embarrasses the public.
Yet those are minor matters about Tinubu.
It is doubtful if Tinubu is aware that he has become an embarrassment to the race. His 2023 presidential race is troubled. Everywhere he turns, he makes that resoundingly clear. The challenges are too numerous to be recounted.
Where will you place a man who has been promoted to a god? They worship him. They wave off his unrelenting deterioration.
He cannot go wrong. He will not go wrong. Everything must be done to stop people seeing him as human.
Many are ready to die sustaining the lies about who Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is. Nobody seems to know him wholly. Maybe the man does not know himself too. Versions of credentials pasted on him peel off once a pointed question is asked.
Everything is being done to stop any questions about him. Having failed to cut off the annoying questions about his identity, Tinubu’s managers have made all types of rules and regulations for his sole convenience, safety, and selfishness.
The current position is that Tinubu, who wants to serve us, will decide if and when he will speak to us, and more importantly, what to say, how to say it, and where he will speak.
His determination to be President is not in doubt. His determination not to tolerate questions about him are even more obvious. Farming out questions meant for the President, Commander-in-Chief must count among his sagacity. What is he hiding?
Who are those supporting Tinubu in his inalienable right to be President? An example of their quality resides in Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, former Minister of FCT, Governor of Kaduna State. According to Wikipedia, El Rufai was –
Educated at Barewa College
Graduated top of his class, winning the “Barewa Old Boys’ Association Academic Achievement” Trophy in 1976
Graduated from Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, in Quantity Surveying with first class honours
Received a Master of Business Administration from Ahmadu Bello University
Attended Georgetown School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University in Washington, DC
Received a law degree from the University of London in 2008
Earned a Master’s degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University in 2009
Certificate from Kennedy School in Public Policy and Management having spent 11 months as an Edward A. Mason Fellow in Public Policy and Management.
El-Rufai testifies to Tinubu’s hold on his crowd or the trap of some who have caught him as their step to being proxy presidents. They gleefully support the charade Tinubu represents in his most disrespectful approach to the campaigns.
Let us not fall into their trap by discussing their agenda. Take the Chatham House hocus pocus, for instance, people are evaluating Tinubu’s performance, awarding him marks for what?
Nobody knows the Tinubu who was at Chatham House. That should worry Nigerians. He claimed educational qualifications he dropped when queried. He had to use Donald Duke’s picture to project the image of a prosperous childhood he never seemed to have had. When caught he mumbled one excuse or the other.
His name is in doubt. His parentage more so. His education is contested. What he did not do in America is as controversial as what he did.
Tinubu cannot answer simple questions about his age, his admission into an American university without basic education and when he changed his name and the reasons, if any, for the change.
We get insulting answers like if you doubt his age, ask his mother. His mother is dead. Was Femi Gbajabiamila, Speaker, House of Representatives, who insulted Nigerians with that retort, suggesting we had to die to know Tinubu’s age? How more insulting would it get?
Tinubu’s ability to produce great leaders, build modern Lagos, be a financial wizard, have warehouses of political strategies, pale to nothingness, if we do not know who he is.
Muhammadu Buhari, before we forget, with all the troubles he has caused Nigerians, is a production of Tinubu’s political ingenuity. Does anyone remember Tinubu apologising for the disasters of Buhari? He boasts about making Buhari president and promises to continue with Buhari’s programmes.
Until Tinubu happened on the race Nigerians never imagined that someone worse than Buhari can aspire to succeed him.
Tinubu can have the best manifesto, grant the greatest live television interviews, stand unassisted for days, hold his audiences captive with his oratory, Chicagoan accent and all – none of these is a substitute for us knowing who Tinubu is. Nothing is more important than knowing who wants to lead Nigeria.
Scrutiny of a candidate for the presidency is not the same as a governorship candidate. We cannot judge Tinubu by the screenings of when he became Governor of Lagos State.
Then he attended schools in Ibadan, both of which he has discovered he didn’t. A recent drivel about Tinubu is that he is such royalty that his early schooling was at home, like Queen Elizabeth of England. One of Tinubu’s most trusted aides said that.
Is Tinubu wealthy? How did he make his money? Is he healthy? These are not questions for someone with evolving identities.
How does one say a final word on Tinubu, who sees the Presidency as his, with the right of first refusal? Having said it is his turn, he must be surprised that anyone can ask him questions about anything.
The Jagaban has defined the 2023 presidential election to the point that it seems it cannot hold without him. He has minimalised the issues that granting a live television interview would answer all questions about him.
Enough damage has been done to Nigeria’s image by Tinubu lugging multiple identities, a damage heightened by some of Nigeria’s best patriots insisting that Tinubu is the best president for Nigeria.
It is more important to establish Tinubu’s identity than the spurious searches for his capacities for an office that at all times should not be used to elevate dubiety to excellence.
Finally…
WILL we ever understand our country? For years we have battled fuel scarcity. We never knew that the Department of State Services, DSS, had powers, by pronouncement, to banish the blight, in 48 hours.
. Isiguzo is a major commentator on minor issues
