Looking back with relieving hindsight, it will be easy to see how Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu remains the only active “old breed” politician in active politics in Nigeria, and no one would justifiably deny that he is the biggest contributor to the sustenance and advancement of democracy in Nigeria. He sustained the most vibrant opposition continuously until he facilitated the upturning of the age long myth around the “power of incumbency”, the power that makes rulers mad men.
He is a political master designer, and an infallible political negotiator. He has never lost a negotiation.
Saraki knows that very well, and that was why he refused to meet with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo when he was scheming to scavenge on the powers over the 8th National Assembly. The point under reference here is that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the only remaining politician who is of the stock of the ” old breed” politician, as Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida labelled them in 1989. Unfortunately, this remaining torchbearer from “old” is who pupils of politics attempted to “cut down to size”, instead of sitting at his feet to learn how to win elections without cultism and social vices.
Let us go back memory lane and recall that during the politics of the Third Republic two major figures emerged to lead the two political structures of that time, two men who the military rulers saw, at that time, as more powerful than they were, even with their clutched guns: Tafida Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and Alhaji Adamu Ciroma.
These two men led the two political parties allowed to exist by the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida administration – the Social Democratic Party (SDP) which was led by Tafida Shehu, and the National Republican Convention (NRC) led by Alhaji Adamu Cipleadership , ,, imagine this: that if the June 12 1993 election results scared the military junta enough to warrant that unjust annulment, and the victim of their machination being their very close friend and in close relations with them, then imagine how unyielding they were to the two men who had all it should take to dwarf the entire Nigerian military, so they designed the concept of “old breed” and “new breed” politicians for that era.
With that concept they banned the “old breed” politicians, preventing Tafida Shehu and Alhaji Ciroma from contesting in the presidential race at the first stage of the events leading to the Third Republic and opened up the political floodgate to all manner of pupils of politics.
This metamorphosed into the brand of our incumbent politics, breeding several social vices developed and projected by those Babangida referred to as the “new breed” politicians in other words “black market politicians.
Today, we have to deal with cultism, rape, armed robbery and kidnapping in our national politics because when the politics of the 4th Republic began, it was these vices that the “new breed” politicians of the Third Republic used in intimidating and finally chasing out the “old breed” politicians, whose ban from the politics of that Republic had expired, allowing them to show interest in returning and aspiring to what they knew best to do.
Fortunately for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, he came into Nigerian politics spending his personal wealth, after his voluntary retirement from Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited heading the Directorate of Audit, as the second most spent sponsor of the SDP behind Tafida Yar’adua. In the “old breed” arrangement, Asiwaju Tinubu, having contested and won a Lagos Senatorial seat in the Third Republic, was penciled down as the incoming Senate President in the sailing on of Shehu Musa Yar’Adua onto the Aso Rock villa, and he only gave up that opportunity for Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola also from the South West as Asiwaju Tinubu, to contest and win the 1993 presidential election after Tafida Shehu was ban from participation in the emerging leadership needs of the Third Republic. Like he nominated Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, so did he nominate Senate President Iyorchia Ayu. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is the only remaining politician of the stock of the pre June 12 era. He should be respected by politicians of me his era if they must remain politically relevant.
It must be clear how one of the major fallout of the recently concluded national convention of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Abuja is the closing remarks in the address given at the convention by the national leader of the party. He clearly dwelt on the need for the party to make clear advance by using the APC broom to sweep out and rid the rubbish he referred to as the “remaining elements of the PDP” hanging in in the APC. He called them “fifth columnists retarding the progressive advance of the present administration”.
He stressed on the need to cleanse the APC House of unprogressive and undemocratic elements within the party. It is obviously very clear what the responsibility of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is, in the discharge of his responsibility as Chairman of the “Asiwaju Reconciliation Committee” (ARC). He has not pretended his desire to flush the APC of PDP elements. Hence the nPDP need not agitate for better treatment in the APC because nobody will listen to them. The APC has had enough of the nPDP in the APC. .
One thing is very clear now: first will be that in President Buhari’s next cabinet reshuffle, it is clear how people like Chibuike Amaechi, and all the antagonists of the national leader of the APC would not make the new cabinet – partisan politics demands partisan loyalty. Secondly many politicians will go on self exile in the post 2019 era. So, it is a humble advice to members of the nPDP that they should not bother to continue their agitation now that the party’s convention is over.
If they are not childish and immature, hence openly disposing their frustrations and desperation, they should read the handwriting on the wall and pretend that they are full blooded APC members or they just walk away like they are used to doing, as national political nomads. The man who led them out in a walkout from the PDP national convention of August 2014, who abandoned the party he founded, the Peoples Front (PF), has left again to the PDP from the APC, and because he is without any political ideology, he would rather go around, jumping from one party to another, showing clear anxiety and desperation to be President. He is a political prostitute – he is Atiku Abubakar.
Looking at the agitations of members of the nPDP, it will be clear how while claiming to be members of the APC, they choose to separate themselves from the other members of the party for pecuniary alignments, bearing the cloak that should have been torn and discarded long time ago when they joined the APC. Nobody serves two masters. Unfortunately, they are Nigeria’s political Fulanis: “roaming” is in their gene and political DNA, and they are politically deadly.
Like Asiwaju Bola Tinubu said openly during the just concluded national convention of his party, every PDP element in the APC must be flushed and swept out. And to show the nPDP members how criminally minded they are: just as they came into the APC under the cloak of the nPDP, so did others members of the party also come into tge party under their ACN, CPC, ANPP and APGA cloaks. If every merger unit in the APC comes to the central table in their separate cloaks that is not APC’s, like the nPDP members have done, how would the party remain cohesive and united? The political philosophy of the APC is still very strange for the nPDP members to imbibe in majesty. They are strange politicians.
Its time for the nomadic tribe of Nigeria’s politics to leave the APC immediately. As Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has advised: President Buhari must with immediate effect reshuffle his cabinet and flush out all the PDP elements in his government. Let them carry their political herds and begin their roaming on time, and pray they find ranches in the SDP, the PDP and the Labour party for their herds to graze on. The APC ranch is over populated for them to be tolerated any longer. They are all good riddance to bad rubbish. Next time, they should learn how to embrace a far better superior than them in national politics, than to seek to “cut” such far better men “to size”.
Good night nPDP, and from us in Akwa Ibom State: good night Nsima Udo Ekere, good night Umana Okon Umana, good night Udoma Udo Udoma, good night Ita Solomon Enang – roaming herdsmen, till we meet again never. Its time to clear the APC stable in Akwa Ibom State for John James Akpan Udoedehe, Sam Ewang and those who, like Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, have sustained opposition politics in the State. They should be the bona fide beneficiaries of the benefits of the APC. Let President Buhari set the roamers free for their roaming to begin towards the 2019 grazing season . “We are the world, we are the children, we are the ones to make a better day, so let’s start living”.
Ini Akpan Morgan writes from Uyo as Guest Columnist for PUO Reports
