The strong man of South West politics and the acclaimed national leader of the ruling APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has remained resolute in his support for President Muhammadu Buhari ahead of the 2019 presidential election. Tinubu has forcefully emerged the leading chorister in the choir of ignorance that is singing Buhari’s praises using his phantom good governance as rhyme and PDP’S sixteen years misrule as rhythm. For a self-professed progressive politician, many had expected Tinubu to remain true to his reputation of standing firm on the side of the side of the principles of good governance in the face of glaring bad governance of the last three years of the Buhari administration. However, a close scrutiny of Tinubu’s style of politics, public service records and his continuous political hegemony over Lagos state will reveal a most retrogressive politician.
Whenever Tinubu points an accusing finger at PDP for being responsible for Nigeria’s problems, four other fingers points to him as a major collaborator of PDP in its much talked about sixteen years misrule. Shortly after PDP’s former President Olusegun Obasanjo was inaugurated in 1999, Tinubu’s AD party was brought on board in a government of national unity. AD’s Bola Ige among some others was appointed into PDP’s Obasanjo government. By accepting to serve in a PDP government, Tinubu and his AD share responsibility for PDP’s misrule in its first four years in power.
By 2003, Tinubu’s AD will further confer legitimacy on Obasanjo’s PDP for another four years when it didn’t field a presidential candidate of its own but opted to support their ‘’son of the soil’’ for his re-election bid. Interestingly, the candidate who attempted to halt PDP’s first four year misrule was current President Muhammadu Buhari but was resisted by Tinubu and his AD. After the attraction between Tinubu’s AD and Obasanjo’s PDP turned fatal, Tinubu will go on to support then PDP renegade in chief, former vice president Atiku Abubakar in the 2007 presidential election. Again in 2011 presidential election, Tinubu’s ACN will pull out of a crucial alliance arrangement with Buhari’s CPC at the last minute and throw its support behind PDP’s Goodluck Jonathan. As a close collaborator and enabler of PDP’s sixteen year misrule, Tinubu lacks the legitimacy to continue to serenade Nigerians with now stale song of ‘’how PDP destroyed Nigeria in sixteen years’’.
Tinubu is not the solution he pretends to be but actually part of the problem. Beyond his close collaboration with PDP during its sixteen years rule, Bola Tinubu has been one of the most powerful aberrations in Nigeria’s political circus since the return to civil democratic rule in 1999. Contrary to the image of ‘’progressivism’’ that his public relations handlers have managed to make out of him, Tinubu has presided over perhaps the largest political heist in the history of the fourth republic with enormous state capture as his ultimate self-achievement throughout beginning from the time he governed Lagos state. His vice like grip over Lagos state has been sustained by his successful planting of his lackeys in key as helmsmen of the government of Lagos after his tenure. The devastating effects of Tinubu’s corrupt political franchise in Lagos are manifestly glaring for all to see. From vast pieces of prime real estate, government contracts and political appointments, Tinubu covets Lagos state like an inherited fiefdom. The huge financial resources from his coveted fiefdom have been deployed through an elaborate patronage system to buy and retain power at all costs.
As Nigeria’s former federal capital, Lagos state is endowed with the most advanced infrastructure among the 36 states of the federation. In addition to its massive federally bequeathed infrastructure, Lagos state has the economic advantage of being Nigeria’s major gateway [inlet and outlet] by land, sea and air to the world. Apart from its natural geographic position as a littoral state, Lagos is host to Nigeria’s major federal ports infrastructure through which Nigeria’s export and import activities are conducted. The Murtala Mohammed international airport in as well as the Tin Can Island sea port in Lagos are the busiest in Nigeria, handling over 80 per cent of all import and export cargoes in and out of Nigeria. The presence of these infrastructures in Lagos has created a beehive of business activities around them, which has translated into thriving enterprises and millions of jobs with taxable incomes.
Taking advantage of the economic viability of Lagos state, Tinubu has designed an elaborate scheme of savage extortion of individuals and businesses with taxable income under the pretext of Internally Generated Revenue [IGR] drive. In a classic corrupt case of conflict of interests, the private entity known as Alpha Beta, which is responsible for the revenue generation of Lagos state is widely believed to be closely associated with Tinubu. Today, Lagos, which is envied by others as the state with the largest internally generated revenue, which stands at about half a trillion naira for 2017 fiscal year alone with a monthly generation profile of about 34 billion naira in 2018 has very little to show for this financial endowment.
Lagos state is plagued by an acute deficit of basic infrastructure. The federally bequeathed infrastructure has become overwhelmed by the geometric exponential expansion of population with concomitant pressure without a commensurate expansion with monies generated from the populace. From Iyana Itire, Ijesha-tedo, Pako Aguda in the Surulere suburb to Iyana-Oba, Alaba, Okokomaiko in the Ojo axis of town, most parts of Tinubu’s mainland Lagos are without basic amenities such as paved road network and public water supply. A state without an extensive social security programme for its vulnerable despite its huge cumulative revenue from both internal and external sources [federation account], Lagos has the infamous reputation for the highest number of street urchins in Nigeria with crime infestation as a terrible consequence. Whereas Lagos state is the envy of all states in Nigeria for its huge IGR, its low quality public school and health care system are the envy of none. As the refuse capital of Nigeria being the state with the least kempt environment, Tinubu’s Lagos was recently ranked as third [138 out of 140] worst city for human habitation on earth, according to Economist of London’s intelligence unit. Tinubu’s Lagos is arguably the world’s most expensive slum to live in.
That Lagos state with highest IGR profile in Nigeria is also the state with the highest debt profile estimated to be around 2 billion dollars [domestic and foreign] is a contradiction, which can be resolved by unravelling Tinubu’s elaborate political franchise that is heavily dependent on government patronage to buy and retain power for purposes of state capture. Rather than utilize Lagos state resources for Lagos people, Tinubu has devised an intricate political scheme of power purchase throughout the South West of Nigeria and beyond for the sake of political self-preservation.
Like every champion, Tinubu’s reign is gradually coming to an end. The upset caused by a barely educated Ademola Adeleke of the PDP against the sophisticated APC apparatchik in the recent gubernatorial election in Tinubu’s satellite state of Osun is an indication that bad governance occasioned by sleaze can no longer be covered up intellectual dishonesty. The state of Osun, which is Tinubu’s second most priced fiefdom, is a near failed state, which is unable to meet its most basic responsibility of public service salary obligations. No matter the final outcome of the hotly contested Osun gubernatorial election, that PDP’s Adeleke lead in the first ballot is a clear indication that Tinubu’s hegemony over South West politics is gradually caving in under the heavy yoke of his legacy of bad governance. Tinubu’s entrenched patronage system of political leadership is fast losing sustainability in the face dwindling national revenue and a geometrically growing population.
Tinubu’s insistence on reinforcing Buhari’s failure beyond 2019 will most certainly hasten the end of his reign. Without concrete benefits accruable to his strong base of South West from the Buhari administration, Tinubu’s insistence on the elongation of a glaringly failed regime for the selfish reason of a post Buhari presidential ambition, will be an attempt to take his people for granted; an attempt that will most certainly resisted at the polls leading to his ultimate demystification.
