*Tinubu’s Perplexing Parapoism, Reason Retirement Age Is Set At 70 – Dr Ugoji*
_Is this still Bola Ahmed Tinubu?
_
*_Written by Dr Ugoji Egbujo*
_
Some say it’s age. Not mental decline. But a psychological depreciation. Because the Tinubu of 2003 would not have succumbed to this.
So, a few analysts have implicated some age-related regression into small-mindedness that youthfulness and its broad optimism often forbid.
Perhaps that is partly why people should retire at 70, once mental menopause sets in. To avoid being saddled with the task of seeing visions when even the eyes have grown warty and tired. To avoid being asked to take a leap of imagination after the knees and ankles themselves have become stiff and cranky. In some people and at a certain age, the reversion takes them to where innate instincts regain advantage over the demands of reason and enlightened culture.
Many of the president’s critics are not persuaded by the age argument. They insist Tinubu has finally revealed his true self. They point at Obasanjo to prove their point. Obasanjo has been perpetually nationalistic in his outlook and preference. But even Obasanjo had once sought to corner and detain power. From all indications, he had once imagined himself a president for life, to retain power in himself altogether. Yet they argue that messianism which might be
Obasanjo ailment is a more altruistic motive than capricious mafia politics and mafia-type exaltation of loyalty over all virtues. In other words, having come to his denouement, the latter-day Tinubu, now a capon at the peak of his powers, is more interested in the politics of dynasty preservation than statesmanship or transformational leadership. So, having won the election, Tinubu couldn’t but move to Abuja with his loyal hands and trusted legs to stamp control.
Despite these arguments, others think Tinibu’s sectionalism is inexplicable. Because however compelling the pull emotions might exert on the strings of the ageing mind, many would have sworn that Tinubu was too clear-eyed and too nimble to inflict himself with deep wounds of nepotism and sectionalism. The man has been a smart politician. But would a smart politician award the biggest road contract the country has ever known to his friend without due process and transparency? Perhaps those who say the man has found his ultimate prize and is now free to flaunt his truest colours have a strong case.
Who would have thought that Tinubu, the democrat, the talent hunter, the wheeler-dealer with a nationalistic outlook, the Muslim who married a Christian and allowed her to become a Pentecostal pastor, would succumb to the myopic concentration of power in his zone? Even those who had started out justifying the head-spinning lopsidedness and other idiosyncrasies have run out of their spurious excuses.
There is nothing left to say . They know the true power fulcrums. Those who tried to wait it out must now come out of their hibernation to help their man return to reason. To continue to insist, actively by dubious equalizations, or passively, by inexplicable silence, that naked tribalism is a form of meritocracy is to engage in the promotion of reckless exceptionalism. The boil must be stabbed to free the pus.
In Nigeria , no ethnic group or section benefits from the appointments their sons get. The benefits often go to the appointee to fatten his bank account, while the crumbs go to his cronies and kin. That is it.
Everywhere else will remain wretched, wet with false promises. Katisina didn’t become another Dubai because Buhari, their exalted son, was on the throne for 8 years. That state is degenerating into a hell of mass hunger and rampant banditry. Bayelsa is still wretched and rural, replete with jobless youth despite Jonathan’s six- year rule.
The misgovernance heaped on the country by its leaders is total, all-consuming and evenly spread out. Southerners used to envy northern roads and despise what they perceived as Northern domination of power. But they now know better. The facts contradict the notion that the North benefited from its grip on power. Perhaps the marginalized have fared better.
However, in any multi-ethnic third-world country where institutions are moribund, arbitrariness rules over law and order, and ethnic passions burn, the recipe for unity is some shared sense of belonging. If the bulk of the population is unsophisticated and suggestible, the exclusion of certain groups from certain positions can only make them feel second-class, deprived and tetchy. So, though all the masses can enjoy in the distribution of offices and rotation of power amongst capricious and gluttonous politicians is bragging rights, the vicarious feeling of belonging and triumph by the identification with a kinsman who occupies a strategic position of authority is not altogether puerile. In Igbo land, a guest who hasn’t been offered kolanuts can only sit with one buttock.
In infancy, Nigeria embraced the quota system and federal character. It was an admission that the One-Nigeria concept was still idealistic. This necessary subjugation of an unfettered reign of merit to enhance inclusion and forge cohesion was part of the cost of nation-building. To further the camaraderie between the ethnic nationalities and sections, power, by convention, started to rotate between the North and South, seeking to deny no region access to the throne. As imperfect as these balancing mechanisms have been, one of the major beneficiaries is President Tinubu.
Federal Character and its son, Power Rotation, produced Emilokan. The northern governors in the APC ceded power to the South. These devices may have outlived their usefulness. But since they govern the union, they must be respected in truth and spirit, especially by those who have benefitted from it. Tinubu’s recent inclination to parapoism is unjustifiable.
Tinubu has come. Whether it was the turn of the southwest or not , he is president . Having come in the manner he did, having come with the slimmest of mandates as he did, having come at the time he did, at the time of turmoil, uncertainty and division, Tinubu was expected to embrace statesmanship and pursue unity. No one is deceived by dubious equalizations. He must substitute Yorubalokan with Nigerialokan. He cannot continue to assume that the nation doesn’t notice when a president craftily corners most of the strategic jobs for his kinsmen.
In multi-ethnic African countries, participation at the highest levels of security architecture fosters unity and democratizes a sense of belonging. Because ordinary citizens expect little else in democratic gains, they watch out for the equitable or a cynical distribution of what they consider the real power levers of the association.
Remarkably, Tinubu thought it wise to allow the Chief of Army Staff, the Police Inspector General, the Director General of the DSS to come from his zone. These three positions are the main pillars of the country’s security architecture. In previous times, those who complained about Hausa Fulani hegemony had always cited the concentration of these positions in the hands of the Arewa.
Those days, the Northerners who ruled didn’t mind leaving the positions of Minister of Defense, Minister of police affairs, sometimes the Chief of Defense Staff and the service chiefs of the Navy and Airforce for the south to make it look like power had been well shared. But everyone knows the truth. When the headship of the Army , Police and DSS come from the same zone as the President and Commander in Chief, then there is heavy lopsidedness in the security architecture.
The lopsidedness becomes utterly ridiculous if the heads of Customs and Immigration come from that same zone. Tinubu’s parapoism seems relentless, so we get vociferous to help him return to reason and equity.
The average politician understands optics. The astute politician only forgoes optics when he is totally power-drunk. Some say a Mobutu is near. It’s difficult to know what motivated Tinubu to concentrate power in his ethnic group. But the question that must be asked is, what legacy does Tinubu want to leave? In African countries, after Security positions, economic positions weigh highly. Tinubu, having concentrated security positions in his zone, has also domiciled the heavy economic positions in his zone. Lopsidedness becomes ultra when the zone that has cornered the security pillars also controls the major levers of the economy.
Is this still Bola Ahmed Tinubu?
