Not a few people are perplexed by the appointments made so far by Bola Tinubu. He has, to the amazement of one and all, appointed mainly his Yoruba kinsmen into critical sectoral positions. This unexpected action belies the impression most people had of him as a cosmopolitan and broad-minded politician who is at home with Nigerians of disparate backgrounds. Rather than be the President for every Nigerian, Tinubu has, through his appointments, given Nigerians the impression that it is the turn of the Yoruba to rule, reign and dominate other geographical groups of Nigerians.
While well-meaning Nigerians are working hard to situate the embarrassment which Tinubu’s sectional presidency is fast becoming, some turncoats have filed out morosely, pretending to be at ease with the unedifying action of the President. But we are not taken in by their antics. We know where they are coming from. They are attention-seeking fortune hunters who can deliberately misspell their own names if that will guarantee them a place in Fortune’s fortress. They are people for whom national interest can go on holiday provided their narrow, selfish interests are served.
In order to be seen to be working, the fortune hunters are asking us to look the other way even if Tinubu makes more Yoruba-centric appointments in the coming days. They tell us that what matters is for the President and his Yoruba gang to rescue the Nigerian economy from the doldrums. They want us to believe that it does not matter if Tinubu runs the country only with people from his ethnic stock in so far as they deliver on the task of transforming Nigeria for good.
I am almost certain that the purveyors of this piece of balderdash must be congratulating themselves wherever they may be. They are convinced that they have delivered on their assignment. If we have unthinking proles like these fellows in the land, it is because Nigeria has come to that unfortunate turning point where anything and everything is tolerable and passable. Nothing rankles anymore. Our country is one without abiding standards. Here, people can go to the pit of hell to dredge up the most odious piece of sophistry and force logic on it provided the right price is paid. In a famished land such as ours, people hardly worry anymore about national interest. The self-serving concerns of the greedy take preeminence over the interest of the collective.
Both President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (left) and Muhammadu Buhari are accused of making tribalism a state policy
Regardless of the roguish attempt to deodorise this dog shit, Nigerians of good conscience are stunned by Tinubu’s decision to run a Yoruba-centric administration. I can say with a reasonable level of certainty that many Nigerians did not see it coming. His appointments leave us with one clear and unequivocal message, to wit, that Tinubu has been aiming at Nigeria. He has been plotting to grab it by the jugular so that he could slice off a reasonable pound of flesh from the entity on behalf of his people, the Yoruba.
Tinubu must have grinned to no end at Muhammadu Buhari when his fulanisation policy was going on. He must have quietly said to Buhari: You think you are smart. Wait until I grab the opportunity to rule over Nigeria. That opportunity has come and Tinubu is making whatever Buhari did look like child’s play. Buhari, wherever he may be at moment, must have fully come to terms with the real meaning of nepotism. He taught Tinubu that you can blatantly flood your administration with your kinsmen and ask those who are uncomfortable with the setup to burn to ashes if they so wish. Now, Tinubu has taken the Buhari lesson a notch higher.
Like Buhari, Tinubu does not feel any qualms reserving the critical positions in his administration for the Yoruba. That is why we have the Army, Police, Immigration, Customs, Central Bank, Ministry of Finance, Attorney General of the Federation, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Marine Economy, Digital Economy, and lots more, all under the headship of the Yoruba. Tinubu is not just unapologetic about this, he is doing it unabashedly. It is only a moral and mental pervert that can defend this assault on our national sensibility.
But something is noteworthy here. Both the Buhari and Tinubu administrations were formed by the APC. This contrasts sharply with the PDP-led administrations of Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan. Nepotism was not a state policy under the PDP administrations as is the case under an APC arrangement. Also, whereas Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan were pan-Nigerian Presidents who did not discriminate against any section of the country, Buhari and Tinubu are parochial, clannish, and vengeful. Buhari behaved as if he had an axe to grind with anybody.
He actually had with the Igbo and he demonstrated his disdain for them by wilfully excluding them from the commanding heights of his administration. The same thing is true of Tinubu. His actions and inactions show that he has been waiting for this opportunity to get at Nigerians, especially those who he felt did not support him. Again, the Igbo come handy here. Tinubu has, so far, made no secret of his deep-seated reservations about the Igbo. He has a quiet disdain for them. Now, what he nurtured inwardly over the years has manifested rather compulsively. He has commenced a programme of exclusion against them.
In all this, one question is worthy of consideration. Should the Buhari and Tinubu approaches become the norm? Buhari ruled largely with his Fulani kinsmen. Now, Tinubu is ruling majorly with his Yoruba brothers and sisters. To imagine that this approach is being bequeathed to us by people who fought so hard to be President beats the imagination. Relying on hindsight, we can safely say that both men were driven by ethnic agenda while putting up a veneer of nationalism.
While Buhari instituted a Fulani hegemony in the name of a national government, Tinubu is set to run a Yoruba country while forcing it down our throat as a pan-Nigerian arrangement. Has anybody stopped to imagine what will become of Nigeria if the Buhari and Tinubu approaches become the norm rather than the exception? What will be the place of national unity and cohesion in the face of this aberration? What is going on under the Tinubu presidency is a recipe for ethnic tensions that could eventuate in national crisis. That Tinubu prefers ethnicity to building bridges of unity and mutual trust is a bold indication that he does not mean well for Nigeria.
Source: The Sun
