THERE is the legend of a man who dares an entire household because he is in a fight with one member of that household. He is strong enough to take on the entire people there and would not hesitate to show that prowess and also take actions to prove it. How did he prove it? Apart from the person he has a fight with, he poked all the members of the household in the face one after the other. O ba enikan jà f’owo gún gbogbo ara ile l’oju. The kind of man in the mix here is understandably powerful. He is so sure of himself and thinks he has what it takes to overcome adversaries even if they outnumber him. For this legendary figure, his dog has human back-up is therefore confident that it can hunt down a monkey. Each household has such a man. The man from two blocs of the community are now out, showing us that they are so powerful that they can even poison the community’s stream to prove that poignant point.
That legend came to mind after the campaign rally of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, a few days ago. While addressing the huge crowd at the rally in Abeokuta, Tinubu spoke his mind. He touched on a number of issues through which he poked the faces of all the people in the other household. From what he said and how he said it, he has shown that he is a legend that can go all out and in the cause of his fight with one man or one team, he has poked the faces of the entire household of those whom he believes are placing hurdles on the path of his smooth dash to the presidency.
Tinubu spoke in Yoruba and garnished his speech with a few dollops of English. The Wednesday speech was reminiscent of the first Abeokuta declaration. He was addressing some unknown powers. Tinubu is a power who has chosen to dare some other powers. He has been able to identify those other powers that is why he was able to label them as liars and impotent. He also employed numerous adjectives to describe the other powers but assured more than once that the power he was battling was not beyond defeat. He did not say if the power was a single entity or a coalition of communal spirits?
They are the palm kernel, he said. To get the kernel out of the palm, one needs to smash the nut. How do you do that? “If it’s your desire to eat the palm kernel, you’d put a stone on the ground, place the palm nut on it and smash the nut with another stone. Is that not so? Is that a smooth process?” The palm nut is hard and compact. To even get to the nut, there are layers of fleshy palm juice. Thus, before you get to the kernel you desire, you need to get through the oily, fleshy part to the hard nut. Then, the battle with the nut begins. Without the necessary tools, like the ones Tinubu described, you may not get the desired result. The desired palm kernel is hidden in the dark, impregnable belly of the palm nut. The basic or common amenities we sorely seek from our governments are kept away from us like the kernel is hidden in the dark, inner chamber of the hard, fortified and unassailable palm nut.
It is indeed not an easy task to get the nut to release its child, the cherished, succulent kernel. But Tinubu understands that we need to get the kernel and we must be ready for the onerous task of getting it. The APC presidential candidate also made his speech a kind of revival. We must be brought to the realisation that to defeat the powers he is talking about, it would be like the task of harvesting honey hidden in the inner recesses of the rock. He says: “He who desires the honey in the rock will not mind the wearing of the axe. Is that not so?”
Tinubu also told us that these people he talked about are mischief makers. He hinted that we, the suffering masses, are the ones to take our destiny in our own hands and face the powers to defeat them through the elections. They are plotting to not hold the elections, and added that one of their plans is the biting due, scarcity in the country. He charged that even if there is no fuel to power our transportation to the polling centres, we will trek there and vote and defeat the evil ones. “We have to reshape our lot with our own hands. We shall use the PVC to take government away from them. We shall walk there − they are full of mischief.”
So, these dark, mischievous powers are not just difficult, they are also wicked and unyielding. Tinubu has rallied us against them. Are we not willing to help him fight them? He has charged us to trek… to our polling units, no matter the distance, to vote for him if we do not get petrol to buy − even at the current exorbitant pump prices. He has given us a charge to disregard the current currency note quagmire and make it a date with his ambition at the election. He said: “Let us all continue with the fuel scarcity. They are the ones who know where they are keeping the petrol. You are hiding the money. You are hiding the petrol. You are hiding the Naira. We will vote and we shall be victorious. Even if you change the ink/colour of the Naira; you may squander so much money that you can become a debtor; your wishes will not come true (where you are looking at as the way, there would not be a road thoroughfare there). We shall be the victorious ones. Those people, the members of the umbrella group will crash.”
Tinubu’s second Abeokuta speech is also an eye opener for even passive observers. He has poked the faces of all those in the household of power. But who are they? Are they the people in the same political party with him? Are they not? Who is supposed to be in charge of the country’s petroleum resources of the country? Who is in charge of the country’s currency? Who are the squanders-cum-debtors the APC presidential candidate is talking about? Are the prodigal sons and daughters he is pointing at not the same people that supported Tinubu to become the standard bearer of the APC? This is a revolution − the coming election is a revolution and we knew it even before you echoed it. There have been several pointers to this fact and your charge to the youths does not mean that they did not know. It is the belief of many that you are among those you were referring to as ‘they’. You belong to the class of those who have stood in the way of the majority of Nigerians getting the desired results from their governments.
If nothing else, one of the predominant take-aways from what Tinubu said in Abeokuta is that President Muhammadu Buhari has not done well for the country. If this is not so, then he noted that the president has abdicated his duty for “the people of the umbrella group.” While this thought is implied, it is not implied from Tinubu’s speech that there is artificial fuel scarcity in the country. It is also not implied that people are trekking and are suffering at the fuel stations and ATM queues. Tinubu is not the only one suffering the effect of the fuel scarcity. Of a fact, Nigerians have been subjected to at least one episode of fuel scarcity per year in the past seven years. That is, every year in the life of this administration you so passionately campaigned for and supported, we have had fuel supply crisis. We have endured this thus far and it is your turn to feel what we have been feeling and see what we have been seeing. We are used to queuing − for fuel and for cash and for our PVCs. The current cash crunch is not as a result of the Emefiele’s CBN and its new naira notes. We see people ‘spray’ the new currency when powerful people organise parties. So, cash crunch is a result of the activities of powers such as Tinubu and his hailing band.
Meanwhile, what are you queuing for today? Petrol? New naira notes? PVC…Etc?
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