LET me be clear from the outset. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State and a leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, is constitutionally eligible to run for president of Nigeria. Eligibility, however, does not mean suitability. But that’s a subject for future columns if he formally decides to run for president in 2023. Of immediate interest, however, is the big falsehood being peddled by those fronting the campaign for his yet-undeclared presidential ambition.
Falsehood? Yes, because under the banner of SWAGA, acronym for “South-West Agenda for Asiwaju”, Tinubu’s acolytes are touring the length and breadth of the South-West, telling Yoruba leaders and traditional rulers that a Tinubu presidency would advance the collective interests of the Yoruba, or the South-West agenda.
To be sure, the South-West agenda is the Yoruba’s long-standing call for political restructuring. From demand for sovereign national conference under President Olusegun Obasanjo and advocacy for national conference under President Goodluck Jonathan to current clamour for restructuring under President Muhammadu Buhari, the Yoruba have been at the forefront of agitations for restructuring, for genuine federalism.
For the Yoruba, restructuring is an article of faith, a desideratum. They clamour for regional autonomy within a federal structure to allow their region to develop at its own pace, as it once did under self-rule when Chief Obafemi Awolowo laid the foundations for its prosperity. That goal is bigger than, and transcends, the personal ambition of any individual, especially an individual that lacks strong commitment to the agenda. And truth is, Tinubu pays no more than lip service to restructuring, treating the issue as a political football.
In 2014,Tinubu rallied his party, APC, in strong opposition to the Jonathan administration’s national conference. The APC later rejected the conference report, widely believed to be capable, if fully implemented, of moving Nigeria closer to genuine federalism. Restructuring requires both political and elite consensus. Thus, once APC, then government-in-waiting, opportunistically rejected the Jonathan national conference, its report was dead in the water!
But ahead of the 2015 general election, APC wanted the votes of the South-West people, for whom restructuring was a key demand. So, the party made the following commitment in its manifesto. “We will initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to the states and local governments to entrench true federalism and the federal spirit”.
During the presidential campaign in 2015, Tinubu and other South-West APC leaders played up the political-reform and power-devolution pledge to sell Buhari’s candidacy to their people, and Buhari went along with the campaign vow.
Yet, more than six and a half years in power, with barely 18 months left, President Buhari has done nothing to keep that key manifesto promise, and Tinubu rarely says anything beyond the perfunctory or platitudinous on the issue. He can’t bring himself to challenge Buhari’s adamantine opposition to restructuring; he even ignores the report of his own party’s committee on restructuring, led by Nasir El-Rufai, governor of Kaduna State.
One must wonder: Why has Tinubu not pushed hard for the fulfilment of a commitment that his party made in its Constitution and Manifesto, which it described as “Honest Contract” with Nigeria? Tinubu is called “The National Leader” of APC, the definite article “the” suggesting significant influence. Yet, in truth, when it comes to President Buhari and the North’s powerful interests opposed to restructuring, Tinubu has zilch influence.
Well, except on symbolic gestures. Ahead of the 2019 presidential election, with an eye on the South-West’s votes, Tinubu apparently managed to persuade Buhari to declare June 12 as ‘Democracy Day’ to commemorate the annulment of the presidential election of June 12, 1993, presumed to have been won by MKO Abiola.
The Federal Government also conferred Nigeria’s highest national honour, Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic, GCFR, on Abiola, while also naming the Abuja National Stadium after him. But these purely symbolic gestures cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, substitute for restructuring Nigeria, or amount to the nullificationof the South-West agenda.
Truth is, Tinubu has failed to demonstrate serious commitment to political restructuring. First, he rejected the Jonathan administration’s national conference and its report and, second, over six and a half years of his party being in power, he has maintained inordinate silence on Buhari’s betrayal of their party’s unambiguous constitutional and manifesto commitments on political restructuring.
Yet, despite Tinubu’s two-facedness on Yoruba’s restructuring demand, his self-serving SWAGA minions are falsely juxtaposing his putative presidential ambition with the South-West agenda and bouncing Yoruba leaders and traditional rulers into embracing the deception.
In April, during the SWAGA group’s visit to Chief Reuben Fasoranti, former Afenifere leader, the elder statesman said: “When he (Tinubu) gets there, he will do all we want”.
He added that, with Tinubu as president, Afenifere’s prayers for Nigeria would be answered, “particularly on the issue of restructuring and federalism”. The Tribune titled the story thus: “Nigeria will be restructured if Tinubu is elected President in 2023 – Fasoranti” (Tribune, April 6, 2021). But really? It’s utterly fanciful!
As yet, Tinubu has said nothing himself about 2023. But if he ran and became president, he would not do what Afenifere wants; he once split the socio-political group for his political ends. And he will not restructure Nigeria. But that would leave the Yoruba in a moral quagmire.
If another Yoruba becomes president in 2023 and fails to restructure Nigeria, the South-West will lose the moral authority to complain about power imbalance after 2031. The rest of the country will, rightly, say: “What’s your problem. You ruled Nigeria for sixteen years since 1999 and you’re still complaining of imbalance, what imbalance?”
Which is why, as I once wrote in this column, the Yoruba are better off joining hands with others to fight for restructuring rather than targeting the presidency in 2023. They will be utterly misguided to put their hopes in Tinubu. His SWAGA is not the South-West’s agenda!
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