There are many soup-guzzling elders in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Having lost the confidence of the majority of Nigerians, the party and some its chieftains are now afraid of their shadows. They have resorted to some underhand tactics and queer narratives to hoodwink the masses so as to continue to hold on to power.
Last week, the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, served us a double-barrelled attack on the opposition. He raised the alarm over alleged plots by some aggrieved people to truncate the transition process. In a statement last Saturday, Tinubu’s director, public affairs, and Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr. Festus Keyamo, warned the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, against taking to the streets. Those who are bent on delegitimizing the new government of Tinubu, the statement partly reads, are fixated on having an interim government.
Earlier last week, the same Keyamo wrote a petition to the Department of State Services (DSS). In the petition, he accused Mr. Obi and his running mate, Dr. Yusuf Datti-Ahmed, of incendiary comments over the outcome of the presidential election. He said Datti-Ahmed posed as an accuser, a judge and a jury all by himself, and unilaterally declared the “duly elected President-elect as ‘unconstitutional’ and, in a subliminal manner, threatened mayhem if the President-elect is sworn in on May 29, 2023.” He, therefore, urged the DSS to arrest and prosecute Obi and Datti for incitement and treasonable felony.
Keyamo knows what he is doing. He knows that Obi is a peaceful and civilized man. He knows and must have read when Obi urged his followers to remain calm and look up to the judiciary for justice. But he chose to play to the gallery. The Cchief spokesperson of the Obi/Datti Campaign Organisation, Dr. Tanko Yunusa, described Keyamo as a known rabble-rouser and chatterbox who didn’t want to lose political relevance before his paymasters. Saying Datti-Ahmed never called for insurrection or any act envisaging treason, Yunusa noted that “after the shameful Chatham House appearance of Keyamo’s principal, he was recorded telling key supporters to fight, snatch, grab and run with ballot boxes, which was exactly what happened in the elections. Why didn’t Keyamo the ‘patriotic citizen’ report to the DSS?”
Why didn’t he caution people like Femi Fani-Kayode and Musiliu Akinsanya, also known as MC Oluomo, who resorted to threats, hate speech and ethnic slurs against non-indigenes in Lagos? Or didn’t he think that ethnic profiling was more dangerous and could trigger tribal war in the country? MC Oluomo, the Lagos State Parks Management Committee chairman, had warned the Igbo in Lagos never to come out to vote, if they would not vote for the APC. Isaac Fayose, the younger brother of a former governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, aptly noted that what was disturbing Oluomo was illiteracy. I don’t need to belabour us with the inanities Fani-Kayode, a former minister, vomited against the Igbo in the name of politics.
Many people are not really bothered that much about Fani-Kayode and MC Oluomo. They know their antecedents. The major worry lies with the director, media and publicity of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Mr. Bayo Onanuga. This former managing director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) has said a lot of negative things against the Igbo. The other day, he warned that 2023 should be “the last time of Igbo interference in Lagos politics. Let there be no repeat in 2027. Lagos is like Anambra, Imo, any Nigerian state. It is not No Man’s Land, not Federal Capital Territory. It is Yoruba land. Mind your business.” If not for mischief, tell me why Onanuga would engage in this fallacious expedition. Does he not realize the dangers in ethnic profiling of this nature? The crime the Igbo committed in Lagos was that they came out to exercise their right to vote in a city they live and contribute to its development. I’m still in shock that a man like Onanuga could descend this low because of politics. And rather than apologise to Ndigbo for this cardinal sin, he said he owed nobody any apology for addressing the existential threats of his people. Too bad!
May I recommend Onanuga to someone like Whoopi Goldberg. This woman came under fire recently for using an ethnic slur, which is commonly used to describe the Romani people, on-air. The 67-year-old talk show co-host quickly apologized when fans criticized her for the slur.
The most painful side of this sham called election in Nigeria is the deaths and injuries inflicted on innocent citizens for no just cause. When these attacks and ethnic profiling were going on, many APC leaders feigned ignorance. After the deeds had been done, they came out to tell us cock-and-bull stories. Tinubu said the physical and verbal assaults committed were unacceptable and antithetical to democratic ethos. “I am particularly pained by cases of ethnic slurs, which are capable of creating needless mis-characterisation reported in some locations,” he added. According to him, elections are over, the healing process should begin. Which healing, if one may ask? How can there be healing when the victims of such attacks have not been compensated and when the perpetrators have not faced justice?
Besides, why has President Muhammadu Buhari remained silent on the trauma many innocent Nigerians are facing in the name of politics? What he has largely done is to gloat over the 2023 general election, saying it has proved that “Nigeria’s democracy has truly matured. People are realizing their power. Given the chance of a free and fair vote, nobody can tell them what to do…But I am inspired by the fact that voters were able to make their own decision, to decide who won and who lost.” Pity!
Well, Obi and Atiku are already in court to challenge the victory of Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate in the February 25 election. It is instructive that Keyamo has confidently declared that Tinubu would be cleared of all allegations. “All the deceit and lies and disinformation and misinformation about otherwise very simple and clear issues are about to be busted by our Law Lords,” he boasted. How did he come to this conclusion? Does he have pre-knowledge of the judgment?
No doubt, Nigeria’s democracy is in an emergency ward. We must all rally round urgently to save it from breathing its last. You cannot beat a child and tell him not to cry. Some elders of the ruling party have finished the soup in our common pot. When we complain, they beat us to stupor and tell us not to cry. May God help Nigeria!