Is this the Political Death of Bola ''Where are the Cows?" Tinubu?
What does this Mean for the Future of SW Nigeria Politics?
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Does Bola Tinubu have any significant future in Nigerian politics?
Keeper of silence in the face of efforts to subjugate by blood and tears the people he is supposed to lead.
Dealer with the devil, helpless before the brutality of the evil he helped enthrone.
I am struggling to see how Tinubu's political career will survive the catastrophic error of judgment represented by his alliance of his SW political base with Buhari's CPC, based on political calculations but presented as an elevation of selfless leadership, a blindness compounded by his refusal to face head-on the consequences of that strategic mistake.
What can he do to rectify this problem?
Does he understand the problem?
From day one of his ascension enabled by that alliance, Buhari spat on the alliance by appointing his ethno-religious affiliates, the same demographic that could not get him the Presidency on his previous attempts, as heads of Nigeria's security agencies, publicly denigrating ministers as ''noise makers'' as he delayed for weeks or months, not sure which now, in appointing the more diverse group represented by ministers.
Buhari thereby demonstrated the primary focus of his administration, military power for national control by an ethno-religious clique, an orientation actualizing not only by the strengthening of Boko Haram Islamic terrorism but more so the ascension to national prominence of Fulani herdsmen and Fulani militia terrorism, directed by Miyetti Allah, headed by the nation's most elite Fulani and supported by Fulani in politics, academia and other spheres of national life, an alliance of ethnic supremacists representing the leadership of Nigeria's Fulani even as more reasonable voices within this demographic are muted.
What does this mean for the SW?
What can he do to rectify this problem?
Does he understand the problem?
From day one of his ascension enabled by that alliance, Buhari spat on the alliance by appointing his ethno-religious affiliates, the same demographic that could not get him the Presidency on his previous attempts, as heads of Nigeria's security agencies, publicly denigrating ministers as ''noise makers'' as he delayed for weeks or months, not sure which now, in appointing the more diverse group represented by ministers.
Buhari thereby demonstrated the primary focus of his administration, military power for national control by an ethno-religious clique, an orientation actualizing not only by the strengthening of Boko Haram Islamic terrorism but more so the ascension to national prominence of Fulani herdsmen and Fulani militia terrorism, directed by Miyetti Allah, headed by the nation's most elite Fulani and supported by Fulani in politics, academia and other spheres of national life, an alliance of ethnic supremacists representing the leadership of Nigeria's Fulani even as more reasonable voices within this demographic are muted.
What does this mean for the SW?
I get the impression that the SW political leadership need greater clarity about their role in the Nigeria project.
The last time the SW political front attempted national leadership at the highest level with similar aggressiveness was with Obafemi Awolowo.
I am beginning to think Awo was too aggressive in his role on the Nigerian side in the Nigerian Civil War, particularly since later events have shown that his level of commitment to the One Nigeria project was unreciprocated by his Northern partners in the coalition.
I am not counting Obasanjo's two time national headship because I see them as due to his military career.
I also see the recent ENDSARS protest as possibly significantly driven by the SW rooted, though cosmopolitan flowering of SW protest culture, from the Ransome-Kutis to Gani Fawehinmi to the new generation.
Perhaps an alliance is needed between conventional political management and the protest strategies of ENDSARS, the latter being one of the greatest happenings in Nigerian history and a template for moving forward.
Perhaps an alliance is needed between conventional political management and the protest strategies of ENDSARS, the latter being one of the greatest happenings in Nigerian history and a template for moving forward.
I get the impression, though, that such a vision is valid only within Southern Nigeria because the culture of the Muslim North is very different, in spite of the presence of Aisha Yesufu in ENDSARS, her prominence in that movement being unrepresentative of any prominent strand of Northern Muslim orientations.
Southern Nigeria seems to need to find its own direction within the quicksand of anti-people leadership and Fulani supremacist terrorism that now defines Nigeria's political life.
Southern Nigeria seems to need to find its own direction within the quicksand of anti-people leadership and Fulani supremacist terrorism that now defines Nigeria's political life.
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