Let me speak one more time in the name of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Obafemi Awolowo, Tai Solarin, and Ambrose Alli, good men traumatized in “General” Buhari’s Gulag. We are being dishonest and I will not shy away from what must be said. I return to the ethnicity factor. It is particularly telling that Yoruba intellectuals have praised to high heavens, the Buhari pretend-candidacy and have stayed silent about Tinubu. Those that have rightly criticized Buhari as unfit for leadership have no record either of publicly taking Tinubu to task. My theory is that to the extent that he is doing their job, they will be silent about his misdeed and criminal acts. Tinubu is a convicted felon, parades around with forged academic credentials and is probably one of the top ten most corrupt leaders Nigeria has ever been cursed to know. You will not hear any of this from a Yoruba thinker, certainly not publicly. Those that complain of ehnic baiting have been loudly silent about the crass ethnic baiting and manipulation that the Buhari pretend-candidacy is all about. Having failed to install himself as vice-president, Tinubu installed a lackey to that position. That lackey is Yoruba. Tinubu wants a Yoruba presidency next, after pretending to give it to the Hausa/Fulani. I honestly don’t have a problem with that – as long as it is not Tinubu or his lackey.
Why are the Yoruba tolerating and celebrating Muhammadu Buhari, an ethnic and religious bigot? I come to the conclusion that they are doing it for parochial and self-serving reasons, it is macchiavellian. Otherwise, they would shudder at the thought of installing Buhari, a man that treated Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Tai Solarin and Obafemi Awolowo, great icons of Nigeria like wretched criminals in a gulag. This is what Awolowo said of Buhari: “During the period of my house arrest ordered by Major General Buhari when he ousted Shagari’s administration, I had a restriction within my room for 24 hours a day, and for somebody who has tried to give others liberty all their adult life, that was absolutely intolerable.” I can imagine Awolowo and Solarin weeping in their graves at the perfidy of these new “leaders.”
This is all academic of course; my sense is that the PDP will remain in Aso Rock. I find that incredibly distressing. Goodluck Jonathan is not fit for the office of the presidency. But Tinubu er Buhari in Aso Rock would be even worse. The graft would continue unabated, with no serious attempt at making structural changes. It is tragic that we have come to this point where we have to choose between two evils, we should own a huge responsibility in the mess. What is our purpose? Are mere words enough? Obviously not. We have been complicit in the rot. For 15 years we have sat around either as part of the corruption or as silent, lazy witnesses to a looming conflagration. And the intellectual dishonesty is galling. One Jaye Gaskiya is on this list, a “comrade” who writes and says all the right things, but guess what, he was one of the many intellectuals that joined criminals lile Alaiyemeiseigha and Ibori at the recently concluded CONfab a glorified town hall meeting that gulped millions and millions of dollars. When I ask for a little bit of introspection, folks get all defensive and abusive. The truth hurts I imagine.
We are being lazy and cowardly, we don’t have it in us to fight our enemies. It is therefore my sincere hope that the PDP retains power. They will take us faster than the APC to that point where our backs will be against the wall and we will have to fight our traducers. Right now, Tinubu is playing the ethnic card, baiting us callously by dangling before us an ethnic and religious bigot with a history of rank hatred for those not from his side of the world – as change agent. Awolowo would have had something to say about that. I knew Awolowo, Tinubu is no Awolowo.
I am not Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, I am a minority within the Edo minority group. a double minority. I just want the best for Nigeria. I was born in Lagos and lived in places like Moor Plantation and Ibadan, there really is no incentive for me to engage in ethnic-baiting, whatever that means. It is just that I have no hesitation in having certain conversations. Buhari is bad for Nigeria. The good news is that we will have no opportunity to suffer his nonsense. Tinubu is bad for Nigeria. This is a man who forfeited almost $500,000 for his complicity in drug trafficking in the US, come on… You don’t hear our public intellectuals talking about it. What is wrong with us?
The APC has more than an image problem. The APC is the problem.
http://saharareporters.com/2009/02/18/bola-tinubus-heroin-tainted-assets-forfeiture-judgement– Ikhide
Credits: Ikhide, USA Africa Dialogue Series