From Laide Raheem, Abeokuta
Governorship aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 general election, Segun Showunmi, has called on President Bola Tinubu not to make his government’s fight against corruption sectional by focusing on a particular ethnic group.
In an open letter addressed to President Tinubu, he equally advised him not to reinforce the perceived belief that Yoruba people are betrayers and avoid throwing those who fought for his ascension into office, particularly people from the northern part of the country, under the bus.
In the letter, dated April 29, in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Showunmi said he had observed that since President Tinubu assumed office, anti-graft agencies, especially the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), have been unleashed on key political figures from the North, especially those who toiled to ensure the president won in 2023.
He said the president’s body language would, no doubt, send a wrong signal to the political class in the North that he dumped them after using them, pointing out that such an attitude would further reinforce perceived belief that Yoruba people are betrayers.
Showunmi, who was the spokesperson of the Atiku presidential campaign council in 2019, said he was shocked to see the immediate past governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, humiliated by security reports during a Senate clearance for ministerial nominees, despite the undiluted loyalty and support he showed before and during the 2023 presidential election.
While charging the president to make his administration’s anti-corruption fight unbiased, the PDP chieftain wondered why members of the opposition will be left strolling about by the EFCC, but go about hounding those who worked their hearts out for his victory during both party primaries and presidential poll last year.
He, however, urged President Tinubu to emulate former president Olusegun Obasanjo who, as a military head of state and civilian president, kept his side of the agreement with his partners who got him into power.
“Without fanning the embers of discord, must everyone who worked hard with you to get the seat become minimised by those around you, who are using the agencies under your control?
“Do you plan to contest a second term or do you think your work will be done in one term of just four years? Shall tomorrow not come? Where are the men of yesterday?
“You know that on a deep level of nation-building, I won’t allow partisan politics to prevent me from saying it as I see it. You may need to understand that power must be shared and that the world over, people must feel protected by an arrangement they help bring about.
“How can you leave PDP people to stroll about and it will be the ones who worked their ass out to give you power that will be running helter-skelter.
“I see some very good ideas you wish to implement, I get the mess you are trying to clean and you know in your heart of hearts that I, Segun Showunmi ,with me, Nigeria comes first. I will nevertheless refuse to point out what will have grave consequences for our shared Yoruba race.
“The issues from the Awolowo era have not been resolved with other tribes, especially the Igbo who, to date, see Yoruba in a bad light but for the efforts of men like Obasanjo, Ayo Adebanjo and, to a lesser extent, myself who have demanded that fair is fair.
“Will you now break a long-term understanding between Yoruba and the North because you are now acting like you won’t respect people who supported you to the max, especially against their brothers Atiku Abubakar and Rabi’u Kwankwaso?
“My uncle cannot be misled. I trust him to fix this mess. I cannot have you make our future and my future hard because some of us will ask people to trust us with power. Won’t they be afraid?”