A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF and close ally of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC, Mr Babachir Lawal has described as a “disastrous error”, Tinubu’s resort to picking a fellow Muslim as his running mate.
The former SGF said though Tinubu is a good man and great listener, it is in the nature of power that sycophants and lapdogs have the most influence on leaders with such character traits.
According to him, Tinubu has now been cornered by self-serving lapdogs, and warned that the Muslim-Muslim ticket is dead on arrival.
In a statement made available to Vanguard on Tuesday night, Lawal said; “I thought I will be able to avoid commenting on the disastrous error by my very good friend, Sen Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his choice of a running mate. I will be the very last person to stand in the way of my very good friend Tinubu’s path to the presidency. This is because since 2011 my consuming passion has been for him to succeed Buhari as President of Nigeria.
“It will not be true if I say that I did not see it coming. I have often read his body language, picked up snippets from several discussions with his lapdogs (some of whom, sadly are Christians but most of whom are moslems) and I have conveyed my reservations to them against the pitfalls of a moslem-moslem ticket towards which I sensed they were drifting.
“As part of my obligation to him, a close friend, I had on many occasions argued the merits and demerits of both ticket permutations to him. I have done so in both verbal and written form and I have likewise, done so with some of his close respectable associates and friends. In all instances I had left him with the sole responsibility for his final decision arguing that in the end the consequences of the outcome of any bad decision will be his to bear. There might be some collateral damages though.
“I have also on several occasions passed on to him counsels and messages from some well meaning Nigerians intended to alert him on the possible outcomes of the Presidential ticket permutations. Tinubu is a very good man. He is a great listener. He has a very humble and friendly disposition to every one. He is very generous in both cash and kind, especially where it could advance his political interests. But I have realized that it is in the nature of power that sycophants and lapdogs have the most influence on leaders with such character traits.
“They will lie to him, malign and disparage others and generally do any thing to curry his favor and to also put well-meaning associates in bad light. I suspect this is what has happened to my friend.
“He has been cornered by self-serving, hero-worshiping, lapdogs. It never used to be like this. While in his hay-days in Lagos, he surrounded himself with smart, street-wise guys that could tell truth to power. He had Rauf Aregbesola, Yemi Osinbajo, Babatunde Fashola, Dele Alake, Muiz Banire, etc.
“The Lagos days were the days of think-tanks, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation, principles and ideologies. But these people have since grown-up and moved up to establish their own systems living my friend stranded. Nature they say abhors vacuum. Welcome the Abuja equivalent. But the Abuja equivalent are people inflicted with the modern Nigerian diseases – religious bigotry, sycophancy and morbid tribalism.
“They are mostly political jobbers who are most times not averse to the application of diabolical means. Gone are the days of think-tanks, and strategic planning. Gone are the days of principles and ideologies. Try and call a meeting; they will not attend.
Try and make a plan; they will sabotage it. Everything is ad-hoc, everything is chaotic because they excel in such environments. The result is that they have played on his longterm ambition to be President and have built it into a sort of desperation and a crescendo that easily justifies this satanic resort to a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
Greek Gift
“This is the calamity that has befallen my friend. And why Kashim Shetima? He is an overambitious man who has a Machiavellian bent and has lots of money with which to procure a preferred-candidate status among Tinubu’s lapdogs. And as we are beginning to see, to also procure bogus supporters especially from among the Christian community to help launder his no-so-good image.
“But as a popular proverb goes: ‘Those whom the gods want to destroy they first make mad’. It appears that the gods want to destroy the APC and its Presidential Candidate and have chosen the instrumentality of the northern Moslem governors and their super ambitious tool and Kashim Shettima for this purpose.
“Alhaji Kashim Shettima is a Greek gift from the Northern governors to Tinubu. I advise Bola to make sure Kashima’s two hands are always in his plain sight and empty. True, based on the advice of his new friends, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has made his choice and I am sure he thinks he is ready for the outcome of that choice. He has chosen to bring religion to the front burner of Nigerian politics. And being a Muslim he has chosen to take sides with his own religion.
“For all he cares, Christians can go to blazes with their votes. But he must also be told that there will be consequences for this choice. Some of them are that Christians all over the country will revolt against the APC to put the chances of his election in serious jeopardy. It will also put the election of all Christians standing for elections in Christian dominated areas in jeopardy. This could result in APC being a minority party in both the National and State Houses of Assembly.
“Now tell me which Christian will vote for APC with the following contraption: Moslem Presidential Candidate (Lagos), Moslem Vice Presidential Candidate (Borno), Moslem National Chairman (Nasarawa), Moslem Deputy National Chairman (Borno), Moslem President (Katsina); Moslem Senate President (Yobe); Moslem Speaker (Lagos); Moslem Deputy Speaker (Plateau) e.t.c. APC the great! Wu na de try woh!
“The northern governors and some northern moslem elites must have persuaded him that they will never vote for a ticket that has a northern Christian on it. And he has agreed with them. But if he thinks a Moslem-Moslem ticket will win him the northern Muslim votes, he should have a rethink. They will massively vote for one of their sons because it is in their nature to do so.
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