JUST lately Nigeria was awash with gossipy news. It was gossipy because none of the observers or participants was willing to give his or her names as source. All the media reports quoted anonymous deep throats. There was a reason to it. It was that parliamentary privileges disallowed members to air in the open what they did with themselves in the secret, save authorised to do so. It is also meet to recognize that the same parliamentary protocols absolve any member from being charged for any rofo­rofo behaviours within their chambers. That explains why thuggish senators or plain agberos of the Houses of Reps, who break each other’s heads don’t get charged to court.

However, in this case, one of the senators in issue, Dino Melaye, Kogi West, opened up on his own version of the matter. His sparring partner it appeared was Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu, Lagos Central. That the matter broke out into the public space at all says something about the power and influence of the Tinubus.

But like in all real life situations, the matter is more complex than it appears on the face of it. Well this much can be said. Senators Melaye and Tinubu threw verbal fireworks against one another, and almost got the Senate in flames. However, Tinubu happens to be a female senator and as if that was not enough she also happens to be the spouse of Bola Tinubu. Now, Bola Tinubu, was not only in several incarna­tions, a former governor and senator, he is the putative leader of the Southwest and or the Yoruba nation. Or at least he is the leader of the most dominant – electorally – faction of the Yoruba world.

And the matter is not that ended. Reality is never all simple and tied up like a child’s dreams. Now the heartland Yoruba peoples are indigenous to and control the entire Southwest. However, the outlier Yoruba peoples it is al­leged sprawl beyond the Southwest, into Kwara and Kogi states, especially, and the Ishekiri nation putatively. Some even contend that its furthermost outreaches snake into Niger and other northern states.

Meanwhile the Southwest geopolitical zone is well surveyed and known, but what constitutes the Yoruba cultural or indigenous homeland is contentious. Are Kogi and Kwara, or parts thereof, culturally Yoruba and politi­cally northern? For ordinary peoples this is a matter of no consequence. But for political playmakers it may be a matter of life and death. For instance, a redefinition that delineates the Southwest as a distinct geopolitical zone from the rest of the Yoruba world, may amount to a strategic loss of electoral influence and its pro­jections for many masters of the political game.

Thus the question arises, is Tinubu a leader of the Southwest geopolitical zone or is he the leader of the Yoruba peoples wherever they in­habit or are found in Nigeria? This is the back­ground one must have in mind to understand what is really going on as against the empty drama of two senators at work and war.

That is to say that whatever problems Ms. Tinubu has with Maleye is not just a proxy war, but more importantly a war to delimit political boundaries and thus the powers and influences therein. To put things plainly, do the Yoruba have one political canopy, a Pan- Nigerian Alaafinate, under one command and control, ostensibly run from Bourdillion, on one hand. On the other hand, are the Yoruba to have an Ooni-dom, that merely radiates cultural oneness. That is, are the heartland and outlier Yoruba to be united by culture but separated by politics? Of course there is nothing exotic in this. The Jews in America live it. And the Igbo are so fragmented. The non-heartland or outlier Igbo, the Ika, Ikwerre, etc. are self-chosen independent and own political power centres. They are by one account, political stragglers, in the South-South. Though the mainland Igbo are tolerant of their politically wayward outlier cousins, they are full of shakara against their heartland Igbo siblings.

For the outlier Yoruba matters are a little different. First the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, who is a promoter and leader of this zone, is nominally and culturally Yoruba, even if not ethnically so. (His father, former senator Sola Saraki had once stated in a Sun interview, that his ancestors came in from Mali and brought their own Koran). For this Bukola Saraki led group, the Southwest is a competitor not co-composite zone. And this characterisa­tion runs against the grain of what the Bourdil­lionaires demand of things. This is what the real war is about. See a backgrounder: APC Crisis: Dino Melaye accuses Tinubu of plotting his sack from Senate. July 6, 2015Premium Times.

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The consequence of this is that Tinubu leading the Yoruba Southwest and presump­tively the whole Yoruba, including Okun, had designed a Nigeria in which a northerner is the senate president. It is important to rec­ognize that for the Bourdillionaire Yoruba, Kogi and Kwara peoples are not northerners. For them the outlier Yoruba are and should have their political destiny or their centre of gravity in a single Alaafinate, currently be­ing run from Bourdillion. (The example of ex-dictator Obasanjo refusing to hire Chief Sunday Awoniyi, as party chairman, is instruc­tive. When he was reminded that Awoniyi was a northerner, Obasanjo who reminds one of Mbediogu, laughed out loud and clear, almost with tears in his eyes, just like Unoka in Things Fall Apart. When he roused from his laughter he started laughing again by the reports we have on the matter. Northerner abi? he mocked. Don’t mind them, Awoniyi is a Yoruba man. For Obasanjo, as these Bourdillionaires, all Yoruba are or should be Southwesterners by their centre of gravity or reality. And that was how Awoniyi, who was an eminent politician had his political stars foreclosed on him).

Apparently, Tinubu’s designs for Saraki are Awoniyi-like ala Obasanjo. It is just alas, that he doesn’t have the executive powers to purchase and fix it. And to worsen matters, both Tinubu and Saraki are nuclear powered warheads, po­litically. They are able to inflict MADness in the event of real escalation. They thus cannot afford direct confrontations. This is what draws them into a cold war and fights by proxies, just like America and the old Russia. While the Ameri­cans and the Russians fought it out safely at the Olympics, Afghanistan and Vietnam, the Saraki and Tinubu jousting is verbal eruption within the safeguarded senate walls, and by proxies. In other words, there is nothing real or substantive in these Melaye Mrs. Tinubu tangoes. Just as the Owerri people will say, nothing mega. That is a mix of English and Igbo, meaning, it is all theatre. The reality is behind the mask. Don’t get fooled.

Immediately this is understood we can now lower ourselves to share in the hilarity of the bad manners of the senators and proffer some advice. Number one, there is nothing extraor­dinary in what transpired between the two senators. As insiders confess, even worse jokes and bloodier threats have been traded in the closed and steamy sessions that senators enjoy amongst themselves.

But our sympathies go to Mrs. Tinubu. Her situation is a little delicate. She is the wife of the boss and our memories of her as the first lady of Lagos state are peerless. In fact, it is our wish and prayer that she remains inviolate and be treated not just as a senator but as a model first lady forever. She was so pretty good at it. But that would be if only APC is not faction­alised and Nigeria a one party state.

But we are not there yet. So the question: Can Bola Tinubu have his wife a senator on his own terms, as the model African first lady? If there is peace in the world, yes. Tinubu is strong enough to demand that. But if a turf war breaks out it will just be too risky. Thus it may be strategically wise and prudent to first pull Mrs. Tinubu out of the senate, before embark­ing on further escalation. This is to minimise vulnerabilities for damage. She is too much of a prize jewel to put to risk.

For instance, it must be understood that defining the political structure of the Yoruba universe is not entirely an intra-Yoruba warfare or affair. A faction of the conservative north is determined independently to fix how it is the political structure of the Yoruba is drawn up. For starters, they take it that the outlier Yoruba are part of their spoils of victories in the Alimi-Afonja misalliances, as well as those of Awolowo, Gowon and other fascist powers against Biafra. And it was this faction that chose Obasanjo as presidential candidate, in part to spite the Yoruba and their preferred choices. So a move against the Saraki-Melaye powers might invite their deep north alliances against the Bourdillionaires. A general cannot open too many battle fronts at any one time.

Finally, one fact need to be mentioned. It is that neither the Tinubus nor the Sarakis need to be fully seized of the ramifications of the wars they are precipitating. The matter is simple. Man as a conscious being, man as pure con­sciousness, is like the famous tip of iceberg. Our overt or rational consciousness is just about 1 per cent. That 1per cent is only a tip, immersed in our 99per cent sub-consciousness. So, man except he is Buddha, is only aware of the 1per cent of whom he is, of what he does. And the will to fight in man or beast is instinctive, is subconscious, is 99 per cent. And one is not less human because he is become a senator. And the fights get messier when it is about our right to mate and to our spouses. This is what natural history teaches all. Umuwa ronu!