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| Bola Tinubu |
By Jude Ndukwe
A desperate bid to play himself back into relevance in the current
dispensation, having been ignored in certain key events of this
government which he was believed to have spent enormous time,
treasure and wealth to help put in place, Tinubu used a harmless
statement by Kachikwu, expanded and redefined it to suit his
purpose, launching a needless tirade on the man just to make
himself politically visible again having sulked enough on the
sidelines.
That this tirade is coming at a time when news is rife that the
president is trying to woo him again for his second term, and
with APC’s BOT chairmanship up for grabs, Tinubu must have
thought that there was no other time better to speak on events of
national importance than now. In trying to catch the attention of
Buhari, Kachikwu, unfortunately, became his innocent victim.
Following the persistent fuel crisis, Ibe Kachikwu, in a bid to win
the understanding of Nigerians and make them realise the
enormity of the challenge on hand, had said he did not receive
training as a magician and that the fuel crisis could last for up to
a period of another two months. In saying this, Kachikwu, it
seemed, was trying to make Nigerians understand the efforts
being put in by him and his team to bring the crisis to an end but
that it was going to take some time to achieve and that Nigerians
should brace up to the challenge until a permanent solution is
found to the crisis.
That was the meaning ordinary Nigerians read to the statement.
But desperate politicians like Tinubu obviously read a deeper
meaning into it than the rest of us. Looking for a cannon fodder
with which he would relaunch himself into national reckoning, he
picked on Kachikwu’s statement and made a mince meat of it.
Even if what Tinubu said about Kachikwu’s statement is actually
what the junior minister meant, is it not the general trademark of
this administration and almost everyone associated with this
government and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to talk
down on citizens and speak as if they are emperors rather than
democrats?
What has Kachikwu said that Buhari has not said worse things to
the citizens? When Buhari says Nigerians should prepare for tough
times ahead, people like Tinubu hail him and say he is being
brutally honest but when technocrats in the midst of a wolfish
political class say the same thing, pretentious godfathers say they
are being flippant.
It is on record Buhari once said the dogs and the baboons would
be soaked in blood. Lai Mohammed has said worse things over
and over again. Rotimi Amaechi committed treason when, in the
run up to the last presidential election, he said the APC would
form a parallel government. Oshiomhole once told an indigene of
Edo State that she should “go and die” for all he cared. Oba
Akiolu of Lagos told Ndigbo that they would all perish in the
lagoon. Only recently, Femi Adeshina, one of president Buhari’s
numerous spokespersons while on a TV programme said those
who are complaining about the pervading darkness in our land
and blaming same on Buhari should go out there and fight
installation vandals by themselves etc. Where was Tinubu all this
while when these “progressives” kept churning out gibberish
against the Nigerian state and people instead of apologizing and
seeking their understanding on matters of national importance?
The fact is that Tinubu’s demand of Kachikwu to apologise to
Nigerians is far-fetched. Such a call is alien to the ruling party.
The army under the ruling party would not apologise for killing
close to a thousand Shiites at Zaria; nor would they apologise for
killing harmless Biafra agitators in Onitsha and Aba; nor would
anyone in the ruling party find it worthy enough to apologise for
the kidnappings, abductions and killing of Nigerians in their
hundreds by Fulani herdsmen across the country as a result of
government failure to protect its citizens, yet, Tinubu is splitting
hairs over a statement by Kachikwu while forgetting that
apologising for anything is not in the DNA of the ruling party.
Where any apology is issued, it is more of an exception than the
norm!
Even if we take Tinubu’s meaning of Kachikwu’s statement to be
the true position, then we must pity Kachikwu. It simply means
that a fine mind has been corrupted by a roguish company that
some politicians are!
In as much as Nigerians are not happy with the fuel crisis, it
should not be blamed on Kachikwu. It is obvious that Kachikwu is
among the very few ministers in the Buhari administration who
are not only working but are also seen to be working. Other
ministers have been applying the siddon look approach to
governance while the nation continues its unabated descent into
socio-economic abyss, no thanks to a lack of policy direction by
the president.
Rather than blame Kachikwu for the obvious gross incompetence
of the generality of the APC government, Nigerians will continue
to remember that it is wily politicians like Tinubu who conspired
against the Nigerian people to install a visionless and rudderless
government upon us all just to continue to feather their own
nests. Some have even alluded that the reason for this latest
attack on Kachikwu was because the APC leader has already
positioned one of his lackeys for the plum job for the diversion of
our commonwealth to the pockets of the Lagos landlord.
Even if the former Lagos State governor felt so irked about
Kachikwu’s statement, what one would have expected him to do
was to call the minister’s attention to it in private rather than
make it a public issue. As a leader of the ruling party, Tinubu has
unfettered access to all government functionaries. If there is no
ulterior motive to it, why all the publicity stunt? He should not
pretend to be weeping for us, we are not impressed!
The Jagaban should look elsewhere for scapegoats. He should be
bold enough to lay the blame of the current dire situation of our
country at the doorstep of the president at whose table the buck
stops, himself and his party. Never have we had it so bad!
It is not Kachikwu’s fault that Nigeria’s new staffing index is down
below 50.0 reading. It is not Kachikwu’s fault that products sales
have continued to fall since the advent of this administration. It is
not his fault that market growth has kept declining for straight 5
months. It is also not his fault that business confidence in Nigeria
is down for the 7th month in a row. Nigeria’s SMI (Sales
Managers’ Index) fell to a 12-month low in March. Our naira is still
in search of even a straw to save itself from drowning since the
“progressives” have halted its progress from May 29, 2015. The
power crisis is even worse than the fuel crisis. We are not even
talking about the continued job losses, the deeply depleted
capital market etc!
Rather than continue to play the ostrich, Tinubu should own up
and apologise to Nigerians for this grave mistake and hardship
which his political naivety enrobed in a borrowed apparel of
sagacity has caused the people. Using the unnecessary and
unsolicited criticism of a statement by Kachikwu as a launching
pad to winning APC’s BOT chairmanship is too mundane and too
hypocritical of a godfather-turned-spectator.
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