Ahmed Yahaya – Joe
It is no longer a secret that former President Olusegun Obasanjo wants to float a political movement ahead of 2023.
Reportedly, “Even as the name for the hybrid party has not been made public as we speak, Baba is seriously mobilizing his keen loyalists and die-hard supporters across the country to actualize his dream of installing a government that would be answerable to him,” a source privy to the new political calculation, has said.
The source continued, “In fact, it was for these reasons that the former President has been moving round and consulting with those he believes can help in realizing the new political thinking, he has scheduled a strategic meeting with his loyalists and associates for Tuesday, July 13.”
Concluding, “It is expected that three former governors of Osun, Jigawa and Kwara states and other coordinators drawn from across the six zones of the country, as well as the structure of the fledging political movement, would be unveiled.”
If I have not read and photocopied parts of OBJ’s “My Watch, Vol. I”, I would have promptly ignored the unnamed source claiming Baba wants to seize political advantage of rumblings within the ruling and main opposition parties of APC and PDP respectively to float an alternative “Third Force.”
For me whether or not Baba succeeds is beside the point. The fundamental issue is that he has an ingrained Messiah complex and a grossly over exaggerated sense of self-importance.
But more significant to me, however is the attached photograph featuring OBJ (standing) and Chief Abiola (seated). Both were Baptist Boys High School; Abeokuta classmates admitted the same day in 1952.
Perhaps why Tundun, MKO Abiola’s daughter, told Channels Television on Sunday, 10 June, 2018;
“President Obasanjo and my father had a relationship and I think he’s always felt inferior to my father and what happened in their lifetime continues even after my father was dead. He cannot bear the idea of Moshood Abiola. This erasure that he tried to accomplish is so offensive to me. I have nothing to say to him.”
Like other Nigerians, I watch Tundun almost every other day on AriseTV’s “Morning Show” anchored by the sagacious Reuben Abati.
So, what happened in their life time?
Both were editor and deputy editor of their alma mater magazine, “The Trumpeter” and the erasure Tundun is referring to is over the June 12 imbroglio.
So how are these coordinating former governors?
My prognosis is Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Sule Lamido and Bukola Saraki.
Baba has his issues but he cannot be entirely being discounted. He has this constantly recurring staying power to remain relevant;
“Kick him – he’ll forgive him. Flatter him – he may or may not see through you. But ignore him and he’ll hate you.” – Idries Shah in, Caravan of Dreams (1968)
Despite the enormous respect I have for Baba, I feel he should exercise discretion and now step aside from national affairs by assuming a more elderly statesman role instead of a very partisan one. If truth be told, he has been part of Nigeria’s problem, to position himself as part of the solution is taking things too far.
As Niccolo Machiavelli would say, “When false hope takes possession of the mind, it makes men go beyond the mark, and causes them to sacrifice a certain good for an uncertain better.”
There has to be generational shift in our nation. The 1966 generation of generals have badly battered our nation. Enough is enough!
