A SEASON OF CONQUEST AND ACQUISITION
BY ABRAHAM OGBODO
Two things are involved in political leadership. These are politics and service. In a multi-party democracy where election is the sole leadership recruitment process, one must come before the other. Put differently, one starts where the other stops. It is like baking a rabbit pie. You must first and foremost, catch the rabbit around which the dough will be wrapped. It is the same way that you cannot contemplate making omelette without breaking eggs. Politics is the more difficult part of the leadership game. It is not only difficult; it is dirty too. Clean politics, at once, becomes a contradiction in terms. Almost like a search for a scenting sewage or sweet bile.
There is a sense in saying those bent on offering selfless public service outside partisan politics are in a different world. Good intentions are very good. They form the basis of good leadership. A political office seeker with proven good intentions or even mouthed intentions, stands a good chance. The only problem is that the partisan scheme does not recognise good intentions. For instance, between 2003 and 2015, General Muhammadu Buhari had in abundance good intention. His good intentions were overflowing for everyone to see but people still refused to appreciate him for that. In fact, he had to cry freely and openly like a baby to protest why knowledgeable Nigerians were unable to see his good intentions and vote for him to become the president of the country. Weeping instead of working does not also solve problems.
This was his reality when an adviser told him of a certain Lagos-based political leadership consultant. Buhari was adequately briefed. The consultant does not dream. He creates dreams and has just one intention, good or bad, as against the many good intentions of other political office seekers. The consultant has intention to achieve results and also make others achieve results. His records are clean. He delivers on promise once the agreed consultancy fee is settled. He enjoys almost 100 percent success rate. His name is Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) who specialises in designing vessels for the conversion of good intentions to achieved intentions. He worked tirelessly for Buhari in 2015 to successfully terminate the serial electoral failures of the Katsina-born retired General.
Between good intentions and good politics, Tinubu chooses the latter. He has not had any reason to regret his choice. Please note that we are discussing power and not morality. Therefore, telling BAT to switch his choices for whatever consideration, is like expecting him to abandon a winning formula. Nobody does except acted upon by a superior force. For now, the landscape, the skyline and the entire horizon are dry. Nothing appears threatening as Tinubu rearranges the chessboard for a cheap win in 2027. Simply, the terrain is shifting and President Tinubu is fighting tooth and nail to match the arising challenges. In 2023, the North was there for BAT while the South shot in several directions. Even Lagos State could not be recorded for the President. What happened to Tinubu in 2023 was just a shade better than what happened to President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 when he was voted President without the support of his ethnic base.
After two years of operating Nigeria like the Federal Republic of Lagos State, BAT has unravelled enough to keep the North vigilant about 2027. This is the crux of the matter. It has just dawned on many, especially elements from the North, that nepotism could be taken a notch higher in just two years than Buhari took it in eight years. BAT has recorded an improvement on nepotism that is asphyxiating the North. Political power is among the essential ingredients of life in the North. Taking the region out of it is like taking fish out of water. Through action, Tinubu has denounced the Northern ladder as no longer useful in his climb to 2027. The honeymoon appears over with the North and BAT is gliding southwards in search of new brides.
This is the only way to interpret the ongoing upheavals in the South-south geo-political zone. It is properly scripted. In Rivers State, it was a deployment of all the governmental forces. The executive, judiciary and the legislature were choreographed into an offensive that left Governor Siminalayi Fubura without escape route and panting for breath. The story that is developing right now is that the emergency rule in Rivers State shall terminate ahead of time, to first, allow the return of Fubura to Government House Port Harcourt, before an onward smooth sail in calm waters into the APC. Nyesom Wike’s role is larger than the operations in Rivers State. He is being oiled to keep the PDP quarrelling and weakened while forces in the APC, plot to steal their governors, one after the other.
In that regard, what happened last Wednesday in Asaba, Delta State, would go for the opening ceremony of an impending political tournament of epic proportions. The game is staggered to moderate the pace. The planners understand it could spin out of control if it gets too fast and breathtaking. And so, the months ahead will see the action shifting back to Rivers and then to Akwa Ibom where Governor Umo Eno is waiting to be let in. Cross River and Edo States are already in the kitty. There is no threat of resistance in Bayelsa State as the incumbent Governor, Douye Diri, who is on his second tenure, would just do his thing and leave. He doesn’t have a dog in the fight as such. The Governors themselves are cool with the game. There is a new maximum ruler in town that does not like sharing the control of the levers of power with other hands. The Governors targeted for capture are therefore in an existential chess game where a wrong move could spell instant death.
For everything, there is a season. So the bible teaches us in Book of Ecclesiastes. This is the season to be wise and survive the Tinubu’s onslaught. It is the season to play politics over and above morality, good intention and even service to the people. For BAT, it is the season of conquest and acquisition. This season shall pass away and a new season shall come. For now, BAT is focused on the South-south. He prefers conquest to negotiations which is why everybody is running helter skelter, like frightened chickens, away from his bulldozing track. He does not pretend about his intention. He loves power more than he loves the responsibility that comes with power. Posturing as a democrat to emerge champion in a democracy is just a means to an end. The end is power and he has it now. He knows how to use power. He is not like President Goodluck Jonathan, who had power in 2015 and was still busy looking for the power to use to retain his office. BAT is very different. He understands heavens do not fall in Nigeria. And so, he often acts to challenge heavens to fall.
The Southeast is also in view. The man in Imo State is the type that BAT likes doing business with. Like BAT, Governor Hope Uzodima talks and acts as if tomorrow will not come. Actually, the Southeast zone is not lacking in men and women who are ready to deal on good business terms. I am talking of men and women who are more interested in the business of a process than its morality and are prepared at all times to dine with the devil even without a long spoon. The calculation is to bring Anambra and Enugu States fully into the APC’s conspiracy against democracy. Abia State, with the confidence and traction it has gained under Alex Otti, can be ignored to stand alone.
This is also the time to seek out Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Bukola Saraki, Rotimi Amaechi and others, and ask them: how market naah? In 2014, these people said there was a snake in their house. Instead of battling to take out the snake, they chose to burn down the house that they spent time, treasure and talent to build so that the snake would be burnt alongside. I had not witnessed a more foolish decision in my life. They burnt their house and ran to a house that turned out to be infested with more dangerous reptiles and even lions, tigers, hyenas and wild dogs. They could not stay. They returned to rebuild their burnt house. That has been the challenge. They do not know the bricks to place to achieve a building block. They have been in the process of rebuilding the house since their shameless return to base. This house is also called the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which, once upon a time, crowed about being the biggest political party in Africa and was set to remain in power in Nigeria forever.
and then