In 2012, now-President Bola Tinubu as the undisputed leader of his political party, now-defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) launched, led and funded a fierce judicial battle to eject now-Senate President Godswill Akpabio, from Akwa-Ibom government house as the re-elected governor of the state. Tinubu, pushing the frontiers of his political influence beyond the South-West, deployed his legal arsenal behind the candidate of his party in the 2011 poll, James John Akpanudoedehe and it was a bitter battle, fought up to the Supreme Court.
The legal team raised by Tinubu, which fought from Uyo to Abuja, was led by immediate VP, Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, then, a trusted ally of Tinubu.
The day the case was won and lost was the first and possibly the last time many in court would see Osinbajo literally lose it and be manifestly agitated, alongside another “coolly” SAN, former AGF Akin Olujinmi. The two gentlemen badly wanted to win and it obviously wasn’t for Udoedehe per se. The much-sought win was for the boss, especially on the side of Osinbajo, who, five years after office as AG, remained a top operative of Bourdillion. The lifelong presidential ambition of the leader, now President Tinubu, couldn’t have been hidden to those that close.
Osinbajo and Olujinmi were practically implacable on June 1, 2012, almost getting into a shouting match with the apex court panel that agreed with the submission of Akpabio’s lawyer, ex-AGF Bayo Ojo, SAN, that James John’s appeal was B-I-D.
Certainly, a special relationship, post-2007, existed between Tinubu and Osinbajo, reason many didn’t buy the bluffing of Osinbajo’s law firm, Simmons Cooper, when exclusive stories of its controversial deals with Ocean Trust, heavily-linked to Tinubu, were published by Punch and Peoples Gazette.
When Simmons Cooper would not stay quiet, PG went ahead to publish bank transactions showing credit transfers to its accounts from Ocean Trust and the noise and threat of litigation simply vanished.
Ironically, 11 years after, Tinubu, as President of Nigeria was helping Akpabio become the number three citizen of the country in a quid pro quo that began with Akpabio abandoning his presidential run to back Tinubu’s, while Osinbajo, Tinubu’s hitherto honcho and legal fixer, would become a vanquished presidential opponent of his former leader and almost a political pariah in the South-West, for giving vent to his aspiration when his leader, was closest ever, to fulfilling his.
The only reason the Professor of Law hasn’t become a villain of the race was the presidency eventually coming to the South-West. If he had beaten Tinubu to the APC ticket, to lose the general election to Atiku or Obi, Osinbajo would have been slammed for forcing self into a race he knew he could not win. If Tinubu had lost the February 25 poll, Osinbajo would still have carried substantial blame of “making the Christians vote against Tinubu, due to ecclesiastical solidarity.”
Rightly or wrongly, the cultural Yoruba do not believe in the elephant and its calf (baby elephant) trumpeting at the same time within the same ecosystem. An ambitious calf must seek its own forest. Of course, many would argue this as anti-progress. Whatever happens to fathers wishing their children to be greater.
On April 11, 2022, hours after Osinbajo made public his intention to succeed Buhari, Tinubu, fresh from a meeting with APC governors, philosophically said he had no son old enough to be president when asked about “his son” Osinbajo who just declared for the same seat, he was gunning for.
Without inferences, Tinubu’s statement won’t be correct. His son, Seyi, known to Nigerians, was 37 years then, and the constitution says 35 years, would qualify. But it was clear he was referring to Osinbajo and the message to the then-Vee Pee was that it wasn’t his turn in South-West. Maybe, Prof should have truly waited.
What is playing out between former President Donald Trump and his main challenger; Florida governor Ron DeSantis, for the 2024 Republican Party presidential ticket is a replica of the Tinubu/Osinbajo tango.
December 22, 2017, Trump endorsed the then-Congressman for the Floridan top job. The presidential support carried Ron through a crowded primary to general election victory, though by a narrow margin. By 2022, Ron had become a bigger brand, winning re-election by a landslide and now at a touching distance of the GOP ticket, to slug it out with Biden next year, though Trump is still ahead of the GOP field and likely the eventual nominee, despite his mounting legal woes.
Trump, like Tinubu, considered Ron running against him as an affront. In his characteristic characterisation of his opponents, he nicknamed him DeSanctimonious, someone who projects being morally superior to others, the same charge, leveled against Osinbajo by Tinubu. At the Teslim Balogun final campaign rally, Tinubu took a deserving victory lap over his former “son”. Trump will also certainly celebrate his likely defeat of DeSantis, who has refused to commit to endorsing Trump if the former president is the 2024 nominee. That however won’t rule DeSantis out as a potential running mate. He is surely a GOP star, just with the misfortune of blossoming when Trump’s MAGA is on full throttle.
Without the bad belle, it is also obvious that Osinbajo is an APC star and a pride of Yoruba race, just with the same hard luck of maturing when the matador of South-West politics, was in full bloom. If Tinubu and Osinbajo had run the presidential election on different platforms, Yoruba race would have had a choice problem. Both are, and carry the glory of the race. But Osinbajo did Tinubu a good which the President’s loyalists who branded the ex-VP a Judas, seem not to see now.
Tinubu is a restless, ever-engaging politician. As Buhari’s VP, he would have come as undermining, because he would likely not put his politics and ambition on hold, just to please the so-called cabal. Of course, there would be a repeat of Obasanjo/Atiku rift and the name-calling. If Abubakar is a struggling perception brand today, the head-knocking session with Aremu is mostly responsible. Buhari’s men would have branded and re-branded Tinubu and possibly costing him the ticket, though he would have fought for the ticket different from how Osinbajo did, as Buhari’s VP, and end up with monstrous scars. Running as an “outsider” like Trump in 2016, freed him from the encumbrances of a state-actor aspirant like Osinbajo, who mustn’t be seen as overreaching, though oga, wasn’t supportive.
Osinbajo, being in the race, also possibly forced the anti-power shift elements in APC, to divide their munition, on two instead of one leading South West aspirant, robbing the agenda of the potency that could have stopped Tinubu as a lone star from Yorubaland. The more you look at a supposed bad situation, the likelihood of a good, hidden in it. That is why Yoruba will say “ire wa ninu ibi”.
The Akpabio/Tinubu story also validates the saying, “eni se ohun to dunni loni, o le se ohun to dun moni lola”. Won’t be interpreting.
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