Ahmed Yahaya- Joe
1. The ability to play the long game:
Tinubu started by rebranding Alliance for Democracy (AD) as Action Congress (AC) personalizing it in the process which he eventually transformed into (ACN) which has become the central issue in APC and by extension Nigeria. This forward momentum was not achieved overnight.
It is like meticulously charting a ship’s navigational course long before it leaves port. Even as an opposition element, I give it to him.
2. Making an offer no one can refuse:
This is an adapted quote from Vito Corleone of the pages of The Godfather by Mario Puzo.
Tinubu offered Atiku Abubakar an ACN ticket in 2007, gave Goodluck Jonathan a crucial South West alliance in 2011 to beat CPC, and in 2015 provided President Buhari a national platform.
But before all that teaming up with the Chagoury brothers at the onset of his second term as Lagos governor in 2003 to bring on board the 10 million square-metre Eko Atlantic land reclamation project protected by an 8.5 km long sea wall at the tail end of Nigeria’s commercial capital was pure genius.
It has always remained one heck of an offer the international community can never ignore – but which we opposition pundits missed.
Such an imaginative provider can always be counted upon as a reliable partner or useful idiot as the case may be.
Exclusivity is guaranteed at nearly $2,000 per square meter of land – an enabling environment to quietly arrive and depart under the shadows without actually touching base in mainland Nigeria as can be seen in the attached aerial photograph.
Eko Atlantic is like music in the ears of Western superpowers.
Perhaps, why the Americans are currently building their largest embassy in the world on 12.2 acres there?
Carefully understudy the attached aerial picture of Lagos extending into the Atlantic.
3. Know how to be a Player-manager:
Works minister, Babatunde Fashola recently described the outgoing relic at the Villa as, “The type (of football coach) that will prepare his team, sit in the dugout and watch them play for 90 minutes. He trusts them to do the work and believes there is nothing he can do.”
How can a clueless coach ever prevail against an effective player-manager?
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2023/04/how-tinubu-subdued-buhari-1/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vanguardngr.com/2023/04/how-tinubu-subdued-buhari-2/amp/
4. Master how to monetize loyalty and build “stomach infrastructure” where necessary:
Now you know exactly why Nigeria’s rapacious ruling classes will never stop the weaponization of poverty in politics.
5. Assemble a formidable inner circle:
Any leader’s potential is chiefly determined by those closest to him.
According to Machiavelli, “The first method of assessing any leader’s intelligence is by looking at those around him.”
Tinubu has consistently assembled the best brains and strangest bedfellows around him.
Will Villa’s idleness be like Osinbajo, like Shettima under the guise of, “national competence”?
One thing is obvious though, in every power dynamic it is just a question of time before;
“Alliances are turned on their heads. Old wounds are weaponized. Loyalties tested. Betrayals take on epic proportions.”
A very curious coincidence to ponder upon…….
Is the ongoing situation in Sudan over the proposed Russian naval base at Port Sudan?
Sandwiched between Nigeria and Sudan, Chad is where France after expulsion from Mali and Burkina Faso has retreated to. Meanwhile, the Central African Republic is where the Russians have their main military base after displacing the same French there in 2018.
The Wagner Group increasingly entrenching in Africa is therefore seriously looking for access to the blue sea as Mali and Faso are also landlocked.
Can somebody please remind me where the President-elect always flies out to?
The moral here is that Nigerians might have their say but the superpowers will always have their enclaves;
“All townships should be divided into a European and native quarter, separated by a non-residential area of a quarter of a mile in breadth, which extends around the former.
Europeans may not reside in the close vicinity of a township (African) but must live in the European reservation, where the amenities of pure water supply and public protection are as far as possible available.”
– p. 148 The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa by Frederick Lugard (1922)
I have therefore arrived at the crucial intersection that Nigerian politics is not only about the validity of votes cast. It is also about knowing how to juggle international interests.
Hear the British leader Rishi Sunak recently to Tinubu even before the Supreme Court passes judgment, “I look forward to working with you.”
While I am not the man’s political fan the moral here is that despite the political wishful thinking of some mischievous fellows;
“Aktor no dey die for fim.”
