"Asiwaju, the argument goes, liberated the southwest from the PDP and his reward must be the everlasting silence of all Nigerians, even beyond the southwest. We should just all submit ourselves uncritically to his every whim, his every caprice, his every political calculus. We should just all become eternally grateful citizens of the nebulous empire that Asiwaju is building, no questions asked. To ask any question is to attract the ire of his supporters who mass in and rain insults on the critical questioner, blind as they are to the essence and meaning of democratic citizenship.
Democratic citizenship starts with my fundamental right to ask questions and probe the practices and politics of any participant in the political destiny of my country. If you are selling a political hero, democratic citizenship starts with my right to haggle, to critically examine the product you are attempting to sell to me, to ask questions about the provenance, usefulness, and durability of your product. Questions of worth and value are pertinent. To put it in a popular Nigerian parlance, if you are selling Asiwaju to me, it is my right to price your market. Pricing your market in this respect means that I can raise very serious critical and ethical questions about the ruinous financial slavery of Lagos state – and increasingly the southwest – to one man today. I have the right to ask questions about tax collection processes in Lagos state. I have the right to raise an alarm over tolling at Lekki and where the money goes.
If you are selling Asiwaju to me, I have the right to wonder if you are not asking me to replace the corrupt dictatorship of the PDP at the centre with the no less corrupt one-man show of an aspiring emperor. I have the right to ask if you are asking me to replace Nigeria's failed Federalism with Tinubu's political empire, which is emerging somewhat parallel to and somewhat in opposition to that failed federalism at the centre. When I peep into this emergent political empire and I see things injurious to the spirit of democracy, I have the right to ask you questions if you persist in selling that product to me.
I could tell you that looking at the untidy way in which Asiwaju's wife was imposed as a Senatorial candidate, the untidy way in which his choices are imposed as Local Government Chairmen everywhere he holds sway, the untidy way in which his choices are imposed as Governors everywhere he holds sway (until the Ondo rout), the untidy business of attempting to impose his daughter as the new Iyaloja of Lagos, the untidy way in which he and Chief Bisi Akande have privileged a rigid babacracy over internal party democracy in the political party over which they preside and, now, the absolutely horrible, undemocratic, and arrogant way in which he is trying to abort democracy in Ekiti by asking Opeyemi Bamidele to wait for his turn – I could look at all these things, all these dictatorial tendencies, the recurrence of the word 'imposition', and decide that the corrupt democracy of Aso Rock is better than the corrupt babacracy of Bourdillon Road. At least the pretense of democracy exists in Aso Rock whereas there is no room for even democratic pretense in Bourdillon road. Indeed, the unfolding outrage in Ekiti has confirmed my long-held suspicion that Bourdillon road is the most formidable antithesis to democracy in Nigeria now. I certainly hope that Opeyemi Bamidele will be buoyed by the precedence of Ondo and defy imposition and empire building.
When bold and patriotic compatriots raise these legitimate issues, Tinubu's social media supporters, who have no liver for debate, resort to knee-jerk 'eebu tins'. They rain insults and curse and curse again. They bully and intimidate the same people they are trying to persuade to adopt their orisha of Bourdillon. Yet, the very next minute, these devotees of the orisha of Bourdillon begin to hold out the southwest as an example of democracy to the rest of the country. They purport that the southwest has lessons to teach the rest of the country in democracy and its practices. I always wonder who dashed them the mouth to make such spurious submissions. Until the southwest deals with the untidy legacy of Tinubu's impositions and his long-winding trail of subversion of democratic principles, they must understand that they have lost the mouth with which to contribute to broader national arguments about democratic ethos. The rest of the country would be justified if they told the southwest: abeg, make we hear word.
What goes for Tinubu's supporters also goes for a vast majority of General Buhari's supporters. Indeed, General Buhari's avowed online loyalists make Tinubu's supporters look like kindergarten pupils in the department of 'eebu tins'. Unlike Tinubu's supporters who are trying to sell a political orisha because their principal is trying to consolidate an empire rather than openly jostling for an elective office, General Buhari's supporters are trying to sell a political candidate jostling for the office of President. They insist on the General's personal capital: simplicity, integrity, leadership, zero-tolerance of corruption, sound moral and ethical stock. According to this narrative, corrupt politicians would scamper out of Nigeria were General Buhari ever to be elected President for he would not spare them."
"What goes for Tinubu's supporters also goes for a vast majority of General Buhari's supporters. Indeed, General Buhari's avowed online loyalists make Tinubu's supporters look like kindergarten pupils in the department of 'eebu tins'. Unlike Tinubu's supporters who are trying to sell a political orisha because their principal is trying to consolidate an empire rather than openly jostling for an elective office, General Buhari's supporters are trying to sell a political candidate jostling for the office of President. They insist on the General's personal capital: simplicity, integrity, leadership, zero-tolerance of corruption, sound moral and ethical stock. According to this narrative, corrupt politicians would scamper out of Nigeria were General Buhari ever to be elected President for he would not spare them."
"So far so good. Things get a bit more complicated for General Buhari and his loyalists the moment you move beyond the General's impeccable personal capital to other things you need to be acceptable to all Nigerians irrespective of tribe and creed. General Buhari's loyalists are quick to insist that he is a pan-Nigerian statesman. His statements and actions suggest otherwise and when concerned Nigerians insist on raising that significant issue, the General's loyalists, like Tinubu's supporters, recourse to 'eebu tins' to sell their product. They curse and curse and curse. They rain insult upon insult on Nigerians for being simpletons who just can't understand the General. One wrote an article in Sahara Reporters advising the General to withdraw from politics because he is too good for Nigeria or Nigerians aren't good enough for him. The stupidity of claiming that 160 million of us are not good enough for or are undeserving of one of us was not apparent to this Buhari loyalist. I've encountered more bellicose variants of that insult coming from General Buhari's army of online loyalists. Nigeria, they insist, is not ready for him because Nigeria is not good enough for him.
"But the Nigerians who are being insulted by Buhari's loyalists are not the people responsible for the persistent question mark on the General's pan-Nigerian credentials. The General is and the blame must be placed firmly and unequivocally at his doorstep. General Buhari has done more in the last two decades or so to forge an image of himself as a closet geopolitical irredentist and very little to encourage perceptions of himself as a pan-Nigerian statesman. This is not limited to his healthy syllabus of northern and Islamic irredentist statements – his supporters are ever ready to insult us that we are just not intelligent enough to understand those statements – but also to his inaction. I will explain the bit about inaction presently."
Pius Adesanmi at his best. Please read it all...
http://saharareporters.com/2013/07/06/eebu-o-so-tinubu-buhari-and-their-supporters-pius-adesanmi
- Ikhide
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