Senator Remi Tinubu again!

Forget the imputative tonal headline, I’m not here to castigate. We all misspeak now and then. If you have never, cast more stones because hypocrites have formed a long line of haulers, mauling her with rocks since video recording emerged, showing the senator representing Lagos Central and former First Lady of Lagos State, unapologetically unloading on a lady, Mrs Arinola Oloko, for attempting a forcible entrance into the criminally-unfit 250-seater hall for a supposed public hearing on a national constitution, expected to be attended by members of the public from three states of Lagos, Oyo and Ogun, with a population of over 40 million people. Even the very unreliable National Population Commission’s estimates of 2016, still credits Lagos with 12,000,598 million, Oyo, with 7,840,864 million and Ogun, with 5,217,716 million. That was five years back and an unreliable data, for that matter.

If the public hearing was to cater for even the numbers from the 2016 estimates, and just a percentage of the 25 million people, would be attending that should be like catering for about 250,000 attendees and not 000.1 per cent of that estimated attendees. Who relies on the outcome of such a perfidious exercise to chart a path for a nation in trouble?

One good thing the Remi Tinubu fiasco has done the nationwide constitution review public hearings, is expose the hypocrisy of the federal parliament, packaging it and the likely pre-determined ends, they are working towards, alongside their puppet masters and non-state collaborators. With the mindset betrayed at the Lagos zonal hearing and the obvious deliberate cancelling of other tendencies, even in the political space, it is crystal clear that the exercise, packaged to appear national, is an agenda of the ruling class that has held the country in bondage and mainly responsible for the wailing in the land, that the rule book, should be redrawn. If the Ahmed Lawan’s legislative leadership wants to prove its sincerity, the Lagos show, should be cancelled immediately and a new date set for a more accommodating public hearing, in a space befitting of such an exercise, superintended by Yoruba leaders, with pedigree and track record of being sincere with public trust.

Even without the wuruwuru-to-answer (manipulated to achieve a grand design), at the public hearings, the odds are already stacked against the fresh attempt at revamping the 1999 Constitution, seen, as fraught with too-many fundamental lacunas.

Respected Senior Advocate of Nigeria and lead counsel in securing judicial affirmation for President Muhammadu Buhari’s election, Chief Wole Olanipekun has introduced a new dimension to the debate on the desirability and this time, the legality of holding on to the 1999 version of the Constitution, citing the fundamental of lacking a root. The knowledge pedigree of this legal egghead needs no burnish. He said the Constitution for which Remi Tinubu called the Mrs Oloko a thug and, for which the Senator was justifiably lashed by others, bounced, alongside Mrs. Oloko, at the hearing, is a mere fiction. What a verdict, from someone who should know.

Fiction, has one of its definitions, as “something that is invented or untrue.” Olanipekun also says it is an author-less work, which in conventional practice, can never and must never, be subjected to a review.

His take, “You don’t amend a constitution that has no author. You can’t review a book that has no author. We say it with all sincerity, reviewing the 1999 Constitution is a journey to nowhere, because you can’t amend a fiction. The 1999 Constitution is a fiction. They should stop wasting our money. They should stop what they are doing now and remember that the country does not belong to this generation only. It belongs to many generations unborn.”

So, why would anyone want to deepen public animosity towards self, over a journey likely to end in tears? From feelers, it is almost certain that whatever is generated from the on-going wobbly process, would end up in legal entanglements. So, why is Senator Tinubu tactlessly turning herself, and expectedly, her husband’s poorly-guided presidential aspiration, to the butt of crude jokes and memes on information highway.

Yes, some may want to say being tactless in public conduct is her way, considering the size-able scandals trailing her, from snubbing, then Senate President Bukola Saraki over political feud with her husband, during senators’ swearing in, in 2015, to the sassy exchange with then-Senator Dino Melaye, to the you-used-my-husband-and-thrashed-him tantrum thrown at the presidency in 2018, to are-you-PDP unthinking barb at Senator Smart Adeyemi over insecurity and now this, excluding others that can’t be verified. Truly, whoever genuinely loves the Senator must be concerned about her.

As an aside, here is a piece of advice to her husband’s handlers; since she has now garnered enough notoriety to trend at the slightest paroxysm which is gradually becoming habitual and would not likely take a background role considering her reported strong personality, the ongoing subtle and coming active campaign for her husband’s aspiration, should factor her into information management and damage control. Without her constant verbal leakages, her husband is almost dead in the poll, grounded by past baggage.

Reproach says whenever it wakes up in the morning, it is looking for someone with a recognizable name to afflict. I pity Mrs Tinubu for being its constant customer. It is known as spirit of error. It afflicts and covers catch, with shame. To fight it off, the Word of God teaches us to be parsimonious with our tongue, because words are eggs. The thuggish utterance of Mrs Tinubu has splashed badly on the windscreen of her husband’s already-wonky political vehicle. Accident may be inevitable.

Mrs Oloko has rightfully demanded for an apology. That is the minimum irreducible Mrs. Tinubu, should give, to show her leaky mouth is just a mere character flaw and not a true definition of her person. If she is still standing by her reported no-apology stance, it would be obvious she views herself better than victims of her borderless tongue. Then, pride is about going before a fall.

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