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Atiku, El-Rufai, Udenta and the vindication of ‘Esu Odara’

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By Tunde Olusunle

Scholars are divided over what the most appropriate description and perception of Esu in Yoruba cosmology should be. The more widely held notion about Esu, is to make it the lexical parallel of Satan or the devil, in the English language. Esu within this context, connotes evil and devilry in all its ramifications. He is the purveyor and conveyor of wickedness, mischief, anguish, grief, even negativity in totality. Esu in popular perception, is mean-spirited, malevolent, devious, vile. The list goes on. This dimension to the Esu persona, considered as a “most controversial mixup” by some scholars, has been ascribed to his portrayal by Ajayi Crowther, the iconic linguist and Emeritus pioneer African Bishop of the Anglican Church. Crowther translated the Bible into Yoruba and also translated Yoruba into English. It has been posited that Crowther, in the dictionary, translated Satan as Esu. Unfortunately, as Christianity and Islam replaced African Traditional Religion, (ATR), the reference to Esu as Satan, gained ascendancy, following Crowther’s precedence.

Yoruba mythology, however, admits Esu as one of the Orishas, mediums and intermediaries between man and Eledumare, God in the Yoruba pantheon. Affiliate Orishas include Ogun, Sango, Obatala, Esu, Obatala, Osun, among several others. But even this classification confers some ambivalence on the essential constitution and endeavours of the archetypal Esu. He is said to be a benevolent spirit who serves Ifa, the oracle who divines the future. He takes sacrifices through him to Eledumare, and brings his commands to men. He acts under his orders and punishes the wicked on his Principal’s behalf. Esu, however, is a multivalent medium, dreaded in his own right, for the vengeful mischief he can perpetrate. In this capacity, he is Esu Odara or Esu Elegbara, the unsparing evildoer.

It is necessary to lay this foundation against the backdrop of the quantum disinformation, misrepresentation, fables, falsehoods serially perpetrated against Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s First Vice President, in the subsisting Fourth Republic. Atiku has been repeatedly profiled for unsubstantiated malfeasance, unsustainable grabbism, primitive acquisition, vandalistic comsumptiveness, and similar labels. Atiku is the hardworking, high-flying presidential flagbearer of the major opposition political party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP), who is staking a formidable, full-chested claim to succeed the incumbent, Muhammadu Buhari. This is Atiku’s fifth shot at the presidency and one in which he is very highly favoured to win deservedly. It has indeed been advanced that he won the 2019 election, by independent forensic accounts.

The respected public engager, scholar and professor Udenta Udenta, indeed advanced in a recent television interview, that Atiku ticks all the boxes in terms of his several attributes, competencies and capacities for the nation’s top job. His words: “The most suitable President Nigeria needs now is someone with a sense of urgency, who is ready in terms of preparation, someone who is fully aware of national expectations. Every candidate comes with some bag, not just of expectations, but talent, assets and skill sets… Atiku Abubakar has been devoted to this quest for long. And for somebody to be devoted in his lifetime, almost the entirety of his adulthood
in pursuit of a dream, means there is something deep in his heart that he wants to give the country. He gave part of it as vice president for eight years, effectively for four years because the second term was very turbulent with his boss.”

Udenta is not emotional about the originating address of Nigeria’s next president. He is objective enough to speak from his own dispassionate interrogation of the country’s sociopolitical situation. He continues therefore by submitting as follows: “Atiku’s undying passion to lead Nigeria, actually means he has the staying power, in terms of persistence, which is very key to unlock the potentials of the nation. And being a vice president for the first term when the country was practically cut adrift from the international community, to restore the country back to the comity of nations with a sense of mission and purpose, I think he did very well. Whether as informal leader of the economic team or someone the president relied on so much to drive the government’s economic agenda, he seems to be best suited for the moment, in terms of who has the adequacy of experience and exposure and the network to get things done.”

The unfortunate narrative out there in the public sphere about Atiku, however, is of one whose hands are soiled in the lucre of state assets and resources, appropriated to self and cronies, while he was in office. These fabrications preclude the fact that Atiku, by his responsibilities as vice president, as spelt-out in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic, was actually and practically, severely constrained. The office and position, is an appendage to a president, and a strong one at that in Olusegun Obasanjo, on whose desk the buck stopped. Convoluted street talk in places, is of a man who desires the presidency as a personal laurel for the prosecution of an agenda for self-enrichment and personal aggrandisement.

Phantom figures have been concocted in relation to the manner of giveaways Atiku made of some highly prized national assets, under his watch as Chairman of the National Council for Privatisation, (NCP). The Ajaokuta Steel Complex in Kogi State; the National Aluminium Smelting Plant, Ikot-Abasi and the Nigeria Newsprint Manufacturing Company, Oku-Iboku, both located in Akwa Ibom State, among others, were allegedly auctioned to Atiku’s imaginary associates, going by the thread of these conjectures. Yet, government’s legally constituted agency entrusted with the responsibility of disposal of the assets was the Bureau for Public Enterprises, (BPE). Nasir El-Rufai, outgoing governor of Kaduna State, was the Director-General and Chief Executive.

Every electoral cycle, so long as Atiku is on the ballot, these tales are recycled and fed into our ears. Yet Atiku has serially submitted himself to public inquisition to authenticate the veracity of the unfounded aspersions regularly cast on him. Till date, none, out of the Code of Conduct Bureau, (CCB), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFFC), or the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, (ICPC), have invited Atiku for a chat since he lost his immunity 17 years ago! Atiku has always desired to be clinically examined. He is in “a townhall, different from” the balablu blublu bulaba of his major challenger Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), on this score. Tinubu, reportedly, has held his affluent state in his pocket and his vice grip into its 24th consecutive year! He is the ultimate, a godlike figure, the chess-master who determines if his constituents breathe or not. He actually wants to sneak into Aso Villa without facing the minimum request and expectation of Nigerians, for his participation in a question and answer engagement. As I type this, the social media is abuzz with a picture of Tinubu sleeping and snoring away, at a meeting of party leaders and presidential candidates, with the National Peace Committee, (NPC), in Abuja. Abdullahi Adamu, Chairman of Tinubu’s APC, participated on his behalf.

In an old short video clip dated August 11, 2011, which is making the rounds, El Rufai dismisses reports and allegations of Atiku’s interference or complicity in any form, with the privatisation exercise. According to him: “I swear to God, I am under oath, except for one time the vice president called me and said: Look, I’ve got calls from A and B requesting we help this guy win this. And I said: “Mr Vice President, you know the rules. Tell the guy to bid the highest price, because the highest price wins. And he said I know, in case they contact you, I don’t want them to say I didn’t pass on their message. That was the only time. Nobody tried to interfere with my work.” This is very germane to our thesis in this piece, about the eventual vindication of the much maligned Esu Odara.

Nigerians will yet come to appreciate the single-minded commitment to, and pursuit of rule of law and due process in governance and party administration, of Atiku Abubakar. This is the kernel of the negative and revisionist stereotypes that have been encased around him. Like Udenta noted in a section of his interview cited above, Atiku truly had a bumpy second term with his Principal, Olusegun Obasanjo. There was indeed a concerted attempt to unlawfully remove him from office in that government. The beef between Atiku and Obasanjo, we are told, derived largely from Obasanjo’s desire to contest for a third term in office. Atiku is said to have cautioned against any form of constitutional breach. Atiku we are told, reminded Obasanjo on that occasion, that since both of them were inaugurated the same day, they should disengage from office on the same day. Atiku indeed requested Obasanjo to support him as his successor so he could consolidate on whatever foundations they had both laid.

Defying his constitutional immunity as a sitting vice president, Atiku hosted a three-man “Board of Inquiry,” (BOI), made up of three serving ministers in that government, emplaced by by his boss. They asked him to show cause why he should not be unseated, brandishing a “charge sheet” of simulated breaches. Atiku, a due process adherent, resisted the move and challenged it all the way to the Supreme Court and won. Maxwell Gidado, SAN, (now Chief of Staff to the Adamawa State governor, Ahmadu Fintiri) and Chudi Ojukwu, LLM, co-edited an authoritative compendium on the Atiku litigations in the quest for justice. Titled Landmark Constitutional Law Cases In Nigeria: 2004-2007: The Atiku Abubakar Cases, it was first published in 2013. The 300-page book is “in memory of the late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and others who died for the cause of democracy and constitutionalism in Nigeria.” The book is a must-read for genuine lovers of democracy, justice and rule of law.

The serving aviation minister at the time, at the very climax of the fiesty acrimony between Obasanjo and Atiku, by accounts, dropped a bomb, during a meeting of the Federal Executive Council, (FEC). We are informed he averred that Atiku should be barred from attending or participating in FEC meetings! This was an unelected appointee of the Obasanjo/Atiku ticket attempting to humiliate the Vice President in public. Atiku was in attendance, we are also apprised, by the way. It emerged that that minister was prompted by the President to fly the kite. There was eerie silence thereafter, we are briefed. The president, read the unpopularity of his subterfuge and moved on to other issues on the agenda paper.

Here therefore lies the reality of the relentlessly wrong, cruel and misleading depiction of Atiku Abubakar as a devil reincarnate, the essential Esu Odara, which in truth is unsustainable. Or how do we corroborate his recurrent demonisation, with the many positive inventions and initiatives he brought forth, towards the success of his erstwhile Principal and their joint ticket? Who headhunted El Rufai, a first class degree holder in quantity surveying from the Ahmadu Bello University, (ABU) and convinced him to serve in the Obasanjo/Atiku administration? Arguably, El Rufai has been one of the bright lights of the Fourth Republic, whose imprimatur is to be found everywhere he has treaded. Who discovered Chukwuma Soludo, governor of Anambra State, a first class economist? His landmark consolidation of banks and financial institutions, has been one of the most perspicacious achievements of this democratic milieu.

Did we listen to the recent testimony of Akinwumi Adesina, a first class degree holder in agricultural economics and former agriculture minister, the incumbent President of the African Development Bank, (AfDB), about Atiku? He noted in a public lecture, that Atiku is a “destiny enabler.” Atiku held his hands and flew him in his private jet, (Atiku’s airplane), from Abuja to Cape Town, in 2015. This was before the inauguration of the Buhari government. Atiku took him to seek former President Jacob Zuma’s endorsement of Adesina’s bid for the AfDB presidency. Nigeria and South Africa are very key members of the ownership structure of the AfDB. Atiku and Zuma have had a blossoming relationship, since their days as vice presidents to Obasanjo and Thabo Mbeki. Atiku was a private citizen at that time and remains one. But here is a global citizen, the foremost bridge builder, whose tentacles traverse the infinite span of the world. Fortuitously, Tinubu was on that Atiku-Adesina shuttle to South Africa and witnessed first hand, the bonhomie and camaraderie between Atiku and Zuma.

Very instructively El Rufai, Soludo and Adesina trained locally in Nigerian universities, notably: ABU, University of Nigeria Nsukka, (UNN), and the University of Ife, (Unife) which has been rechristened Obafemi Awolowo University, (OAU), respectively. They each represent Nigeria’s three major ethnic groups: the Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba. This speaks volumes about Atiku’s cosmopolitanism and confidence in the broad-spectrum intellectual and technocratic assets of Nigeria and the country’s homegrown quality. Atiku was not interested in the religious or ethnic backgrounds of these juggernauts before embracing them. He has tremendous capacity to appreciate and encourage scholarship and professionalism. Atiku’s over-arching global goodwill, among other endowments and qualities earlier enunciated by Udenta Udenta, recommend him as Nigeria’s most preferred, come Saturday February 25, 2023.

Tunde Olusunle, PhD, poet, journalist, scholar and author, is Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, GCON

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Opinion

Budget Padding: Salient Questions Nobody is Asking Ningi, By Ola Awoniyi

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What was the motive of Distinguished Senator Abdul Ahmed Ningi for raising a controversy over the 2024 federal budget?

Since the Senate at its Plenary of Tuesday 12th March, 2024 deliberated over the matter and handed a three-month suspension to the Bauchi Senator, there have been countless commentaries in the media on the issue but few of them have considered the pertinent questions that would have helped Nigerians see what Senator Ningi sought to achieve by essentially stirring up a hornests’ nest.

To start with, Ningi is not just a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He is a ranking Senator with vast experience in legislative business. Ningi was first elected to the House of Representatives at the beginning of the Fourth Republic in 1999 and is one of the longest serving federal lawmakers in Nigeria. He was the Majority Leader in the House of Representatives between 2003 and 2007, and Deputy Majority Leader in the Senate for another four years between 2011 and 2015. Those were privileged positions that made him a Principal Officer in both chambers of the National Assembly. That also means that the Bauchi Senator has participated actively in the passage of the federal budgets at the highest level.

With his experience from all those privileged positions in his long tour of duty at the National Assembly, Ningi understands the nitty-gritty of the legislative and Appropriation processes in both Chambers of Parliament.

Also, as a Distinguished Senator, he has unfettered access to all legislative documents. So it should be disturbing when a Senator of that calibre claimed that there were two versions of the 2024 budget and that the budget, which he actively participated in its passage, was padded with projects costed at trillions of Naira and skewed against his own section of the country.

Let’s note at this point that Ningi never said in his hell-raising BBC (Hausa Service) interview or at that Tuesday Plenary or in any of his subsequent media shows that he was denied access to the budget document, whether as proposed by the Executive or as passed by the two Chambers of the National Assembly. He has the entire document, like every other Senator or Member of the House of Representatives.

Are you not wondering then why he didn’t raise his observations when the document was being processed and during the final passage by the two Chambers?

Given his many years in parliament, it is incredible that Senator Ningi said at that Tuesday Plenary that he didn’t know the full details of the budget. Even more so the claims that he was unaware that the National Assembly jerked up the original budget proposals by N1.2 trillion, from N27.5 trillion to N28.7 trillion, and that he had no knowledge of Statutory transfers of N3.32 trillion to Government institutions and agencies on first line charge.

And curiously, Senator Ningi has not stressed in his media campaign the fact that he is a member of the Senate Appropriation Committee, which anchored the processing of the national budget in parliament. So he is familiar with the document, its content and processing more than many other of his colleague Senators.

The 2024 Appropriation Bill was signed into law on 31st December, 2023. But Ningi waited until 7th March, 2024 to rally some members of the Northern Senators’ Forum (NSF) to complain to the President of the Senate, Godswill Obot Akpabio, about the budget. Why did it take an experienced ranking Senator and a member of the Senate Appropriation Committee two months and seven days after passage to realised that something was amiss with the Appropriation Bill, which is often the most important law passed by Parliament? Why did Ningi wait that long after the Bill had been signed into law to hire a consultant (for N30 million) to scrutinise a document that was presented to the National Assembly on 29th November, 2023?

It was commendable that Senator Ningi at least drew the attention of the Senate President to his “discoveries,” however belatedly.

The Senate President asked to see the details of the “discoveries” made by the consultant. A fellow member of the NSF, Distinguished Senator Ali Ndume, said he also asked Ningi for the same information. But rather than availing them with it, Ningi headed to BBC Hausa Service, the day after the meeting with the Senate President, to grant his explosive interview. Why? And why BBC Hausa Service? Was it to play the ethnic card?

The members of the NSF at the meeting with the Senate President agreed on the need to establish the facts before any further step was taken. So why was Senator Ningi impatient to have his claims verified, even by members of his own Forum, and exhaust internal mechanism for correction of any anomaly before escalating it to an international audience?

Senator Ningi has said repeatedly that the “discoveries” are known to him and only him alone. He has exclusive knowledge of the report of the consultant that he hired, most likely in the name of the NSF. No other member of the Forum is privy to the findings of the consultant. Isn’t that awkward?

Why is he keeping the “findings” to himself? Why is he reluctant to share them with even Distinguished Senators in his Forum?

Some of them implored him to apologise at the Plenary after his claims had been established to be fictitious. But rather than heed their advise, Senator Ningi flew from the main issue to unrelated matters like the take home pay of the Senate President and the number of aides the Senate President and other Principal Officers have! Why?

According to the Senate Leader, Michael Opeyemi Bamidele, Ningi’s astonishing fiction was merely the opening salvo in a plot for Senate leadership change. As it turned out, that plot failed because the protagonist has no backing of any group in the Upper Chamber, not even of the Forum he chaired before the gambit forced him to step aside from the chair.

***Awoniyi, Media Aide to Senate President, writes from Abuja

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Edo, Ondo 2024 reechoes bitter tribal politics of 2023 elections

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By Ehichioya Ezomon

In 2020, Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki fought the political battle of his life for a second term in office. Mid year, he’s disqualified by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), headed by Senator and former Governor Adams Oshiomhole as then national chairman.
In 2016, Oshiomhole had “imposed and installed” Obaseki as his successor. But the godfather-godson relationship didn’t last, as Obaseki decried Oshiomhole’s “godfatherism,” and connived to have him suspended from his ward in Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo North, and sacked by the courts as APC’s chairman. 
Oshiomhole denying Obaseki a re-election ticket prompted Obaseki to defect to opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which granted him automatic ticket, with which he contested and won the September 2020 election.
But in the course of the campaigns, former Lagos State Governor and acclaimed “National Leader” of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu (now President of Nigeria) called on the people of Edo State to vote for the APC candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, who’s chaperoned by Tinubu’s close ally, Comrade Oshiomhole.
It’s a wrong political move at a time Obaseki, his campaign and supporters alleged – with no concrete evidence, and yet believable – that Oshiomhole had carried out a script written by Tinubu, to disqualify Obaseki from the APC governorship primary. 
When Obaseki’s still in the APC, he led a group of governors and party chieftains to Tinubu’s Bourdillon road home in Ikoyi, Lagos, to solicit his assistance to settle the feud between him and Oshiomhole, and Tinubu, short of shunning the parley, remained noncommittal, thus sending signals that he sided with Oshiomhole’s antic to deny Obaseki a second term ticket.
The backlash from Edo people against Oshiomhole for “instigating” disqualification of Obaseki from the APC primary, was also extended to Tinubu for his alleged “interference in Edo politics,” and hence the coinage: “Edo no be Lagos” – a reference to Tinubu’s stranglehold of politics of Lagos State.
So, “Edo no be Lagos” became an anthem, and the rallying cry for the Obaseki campaign, members and supporters of the PDP, and Edolites across party lines, who felt Oshiomhole (and Tinubu) committed a “political sacrilege” by denying a return ticket to Obaseki whom he’d backed for governor in 2016.  
Thus, the Obaseki campaign adopted three strategies that worked for the governor’s re-election without a referendum on his “achievements” from 2016 to 2020: Deploy Oshiomhole’s “betrayal of Edo people” – particularly the Binis of Edo South, where Obaseki hails from; replay Oshiomhole’s campaign of calumny against Pastor Ize-Iyamu during the 2016 election, to denigrate and demarket Ize-Iyamu, and promote Obaseki’s candidacy that he (Oshiomhole) sponsored; and harp on Tinubu’s “interference” in Edo politics.
Now to the 2024 governorship election in Edo State where another version of “Edo no be Lagos” or “Edo no be Yorubaland” – with a ting of tribalism – has emerged in the lead-up to the September 21 poll. The 2023 General Election in Lagos State witnessed an intense recline to tribal politics between the Yoruba and Igbo – the one trying to stave off alleged plans by the other to dominate Lagos politics by declaring the state as “a no man’s land” to be “captured” in the 2023 elections.
True to the fears of the Yoruba, the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP) and former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi defeated Tinubu in his Lagos homestead in the February 25, 2023, poll. So, ahead of the following March 18 governorship election, alarmed conservative Yoruba resorted to whipping up tribal sentiments, telling liberal Yoruba that the intention of the Igbo wasn’t just to takeover Lagos – where they’ve an unverified 5m population – but also to bring the entire South-West geopolitical zone under Igbo domination.
Besides calling for “Yoruba Ronu” (‘Yoruba, Think’) – a phrase used by the legendary Hubert Ogunde “in his famous 1964 play,” warning about intra-ethnic divide among politicians in Yorubaland that could give way to external infiltration – the agitation for “Yorubaland for the Yoruba” culminated in rallying for Yoruba nationalism and supremacy in Yorubaland. 
As noted by Yusuf Omotayo in a piece, “The True Meaning of ‘Yoruba Ronu,'” first published in The Atlantic of July 10, 2023, “Yoruba Ronu has recently become the anchor on which Yoruba politicians have championed calls for fanatic support. The original core message of the phrase, however, is unity rather than ethnic disrespect and Yoruba supremacy.”
The Yoruba agitators backed up their alleged “Igbo Agenda” with declarative statements and videos issued and posted by social media influencers, calling on members of the “Obidients Movement” – the mass of voters who backed Obi’s presidential run – to “vote massively” on March 18, for the LP to takeover Lagos State.
And for good (or bad) measure, the LP featured as its governorship candidate Gbadebo (Chinedu) Rhodes-Vivor, who’s a Yoruba father and Igbo mother and wife – and whose utterances and actions, even on the campaign trail, tended to play up his affinity to Igbo more than to his Yoruba heritage. 
The Yoruba agitators dug into Mr Rhodes-Vivor’s social media posts – which some alleged were manipulated – in which he backed activities of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) – a group fighting for secession from Nigeria; his lead participation in the October 20, 2020, #Endsars violent and bloody protests in Lagos; and his intention, if elected governor, to dethrone the Oba of Lagos, and install an Igbo as replacement, declare an annual “Igbo Day” for Igbo to celebrate their traditional and cultural heritage, business acumen and dominance of the commercial and political affairs of Lagos, and give Igbo unfettered access to control all markets and commercial places in Lagos State.
These and other issues worked against the LP and Rhodes-Vivor’s ambition on poll day, giving the ruling APC and the amiable but assailed Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu a landslide victory, and crowning the “Yorubaland for Yoruba” agitators’ fierce campaign for “Yoruba Ronu” with defeat of the “Igbo campaigners” of “Na we build Lagos, na we own Lagos.”
Meanwhile – and sadly – the tribal politics of 2023 elections has resurrected in Edo and Ondo 2024 elections. In Edo, the LP candidate and former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr Olumide Osaigbovo Akpata, had to do a hit music in Bini, to prove that he’s a bona fide “son-of-the-soil” from the prominent family of the Akpatas of Benin Kingdom.
Decked in traditional attire, Mr Akpata leads “the cultural troupe” in a Bini song and graceful dancesteps to trace his paternal and maternal roots to ages, and pleads with Edo people that he isn’t a stranger or a Yoruba, as his political traducers want to portray him in the intense mobilisation for the LP primary, and the  governorship poll on September 21.
Amid lingering doubts as to Akpata being “truly” Bini and Edo, a tweep (a user of Twitter) posted “an advisory” on X (formerly Twitter) for Igbo residents in Edo State not to dabble in the local politics of who the parties field for the governorship, but to mind their civic duty of voting for their preferred candidate.
This stirred instant reactions from Yoruba netizens (habitual or keen users of internet), who reasoned that the advisory was issued to Igbo residents in Edo State because the LP candidate’s middle name – Olumide – is Yoruba, and hence anathema to the Igbo. 
The Yoruba say what’s sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. If Igbo supported Mr Rhodes-Vivor with a middle name of “Chinedu” and Igbo mother and wife for the LP governor in Lagos, why should Igbo steer clear of canvassing for Mr Akpata with a Yoruba name of “Olumide” as candidate of the LP in Edo State? 
Similarly in the PDP in Edo State, governorship candidate Asue Ighodalo faces scrutiny as to his Esan roots from Ewohimi in Esan North-East of Edo Central. In 2023, Dr Ighodalo, a Lagos-based lawyer and industrialist associate of Governor Obaseki, reportedly hired “an interpreter” to convey his aspiration for governor to his ward members in Ewohimi. Now, critics query his “Edoness” for “growing up and working in Lagos, and marrying a Yoruba.”
In Ondo State, lawyer and veteran politician, Chief Olusola Oke, has a primary huddle for marrying an Igbo named “Nkem” as a second wife, who’s reportedly “very close” to Mrs Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu, the Igbo wife of the late Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN), who died from a protracted ailment on December 27, 2023.
Accused of being an “Iron” First Lady with a domineering streak – and allegedly advancing the interests of Igbo to the detriment of the Yoruba in Ondo State – Mrs Akeredolu’s ethnic relationship with Mrs Oke may cause Mr Oke the primary ticket of the APC, and ultimately the governorship if the agitators for “Yorubaland for Yoruba” deploy “Yoruba Ronu” in the APC yet-to-be-scheduled April primary for the November 16 election in the state.
This is the stage we’re in Nigeria’s bitter politics, in which tribe and state of origin of spouses and their parents, living permanently or for a considerable length of time in their states of origin, and ability to speak fluently the local language, and imbibe the traditional and cultural nuances of the people, now determine one’s ambition for elective political position(s).  
It’s happened in Lagos, in the case of Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivor failing the governorship in 2023 partly because – in the estimation of the conservative indigenous Yoruba – he’s not “Yoruba enough” for having Igbo mother and wife, and “displaying disdain” for Yoruba language, traditional and culture. 
It also occurred in 2023 in Enugu State, where a resident of Ebonyi State origin was told by the locals that he couldn’t – as a “stranger” or “non-indigene” – become governor of Enugu. “A person from Ebonyi cannot be our governor in Enugu. God will not allow that” (to happen), one of the speakers – with members of the audience concurring – told the bewildered politician at a gathering to intimate the people about his governorship ambition, which’s ended thereafter!
On May 4, 2022, Senator Adeola Olamilekan (alias ‘Yayi’) (APC, Lagos West), gave in to emotions when his constituents in Ogun West gifted him nomination forms, to contest in the 2023 poll to represent the district. Pre-2015 general election when Chief Olamilekan wanted to represent Ogun West – his district of origin in Ogun State – there’s strong opposition that he wasn’t a Yewa man from the district. Some even claimed he’s from Ekiti State.
He’d to seek his political ambition in Lagos West (he’s Reps member from 2011 to 2015), which he won and represented from 2015 to 2023. But reportedly eying the governorship of Ogun State in 2027 that’s “zoned” to Ogun West, Olamilekan made attempts to switch from Lagos West to Ogun West, and met with the same resistance from APC members, three of whom filed a writ in court to stop him. 
However, majority of his constituents – who’d heard about his political exploits in Lagos West – rallied for, and 71 of them purchased the nomination forms for him to contest in the primary and election, which he won, and now represents Ogun West in the 10th National Assembly.
There’re also instances of women, who weren’t allowed to vie for elective political offices by chieftains of parties in the states they’re married into, and asked to go look for slots in their states of origin. That’s how, for example, Mrs Daisy Ehanire Danjuma – wife of former Chief of Army Staff, and Founder and Chairman Emeritus of TY Danjuma Foundation, Gen. Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma (retd) – left Taraba, her state of marriage, to seek senatorial slot in Edo State and won in 2003 (PDP, Edo South).
Can this bitter tribal politics in Nigeria be reversed? It’s doubtful, as the 2023 general election that’s supposed to subsume the primeval cleavage actually accentuated it, as fears of domination by residents fueled anxiety and outrage among the local and indigenous peoples across many states of Nigeria!

Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria

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Atiku, Nigeria’s democracy owes you one

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Atiku Abubakar
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By Tunde Olusunle

I’ve paid quite some attention in recent years to espousing the person, ideals and vision of Atiku Abubakar. A colourful and outspoken politician and statesman, he was the first Vice President of the present Fourth Republic who was in office from May 1999 to May 2007 and deputy to former President Olusegun Obasanjo. He has been celebrated in places for his sacrifices in ensuring in his time that democracy in the country was not subverted on the abattoir of greed and covetousness. He compelled legal inquisitions into and interpretations of sections of the constitution which were hitherto jettisoned by power-drunk leaders who desired to privatise leadership and governance. His sacrifices back in the days mitigated the propensity of people elected into executive positions to undermine their deputies with whom they were voted in on the same ticket. His perspiration also straightened up political parties, dissuading them from arbitrariness especially with regards to the imposition of candidates for electoral offices.

The manner of my immersion into “Atiku studies” reminds me of my proximity to my respected teacher and mentor, the distinguished Professor Olu Obafemi whose works I’ve also deeply engaged. Years ago, I subjected him to bouts and bouts of exhaustive interviews between his base in Ilorin and the nation’s capital Abuja. His oeuvre constituted part of the data for my doctoral thesis and I subjected him to rigorous inquisition on his literary works. On the sidelines, some of us his mentees were planning a 70th birthday festschrift for him and I had to grill him for an interview to be published in the compendium. Back in time in 1990, my schoolmate and fellow scholar, Wumi Raji, a professor at the Obafemi Awolowo University, (OAU) and I had interviewed Obafemi for the “Times Review of Literature and the Arts.” The literary digest was a creation of the Yemi Ogunbiyi era in the good old *Daily Times* which contributed tremendously to Nigeria’s cultural development.

Obafemi had remarked during my last interview engagement with him in January 2017 that he didn’t want to see me “anytime soon” on related issues! I had, he said, sufficiently “harangued, terrorised and squeezed” him that he would henceforth direct scholars desirous of engaging with his works to see me. I’ve had similar conversations with the multiple award-winning poet and scholar, Professor Niyi Osundare whose works I’ve been deeply engaging with since my undergraduate days. I remember the very hard bargaining we both had when I sent him a questionnaire of 20 questions as I assembled material for my research in 2013. We haggled and battled until we settled at 12 questions. Non-initiates often don’t know a fraction of what goes on in academics and the academia.

I beat even my own imagination when I took stock of my essays on the variegated strands of Atiku and his purpose sometime last year. I discovered I could actually come up with a handy compendium of my writeups. Yes the world is going “paperless” but the crinkling pages of a book would always stand the test of time. So I came up with a book of 120 pages titled: *Atiku: Perspectives On A Phenomenon* last November. For the discerning and instinctual, it takes conscientious lapping up of the atmosphere around Atiku to derive the inspiration to string words and expressions together. There’s typically some dynamism, some activity within his space which tells you a thing or two. Because Atiku is an area of interest for me, I also regularly dig up and study documents and dimensions about him.

This is the same way I stumbled on an essay titled “Atiku Abubakar: A journey of conviction” written by Anjorin Oludolapo and published in the November 8, 2023 edition of *Nigerian Tribune.* The presidential election had come and gone, the widely believed chicanery of the nation’s electoral umpire had been perpetrated, the contentious judicial adjudication by the highest court in the land on the poll had been pronounced. Even at that, Oludolapo felt compelled to revisit the person and ideals of Atiku Abubakar. For him, Atiku is “a symbol of unwavering courage and deep-rooted conviction.” The man he observes has “faced adversity and remained unyielding in his commitment to democratic principles and the betterment of Nigeria.” Submissions such as this are critical to focused perspectivisation of the classic Atiku Abubakar.

Oludolapo, a seeming Atiku aficionado notes that the trajectory of the *Wazirin Adamawa,* the traditional “prime minister” of the global Adamawa emirate epitomises “the spirit where the path chosen is fraught with challenges and where the outcome is uncertain.” Atiku, Oludolapo observes, has made humongous sacrifices and encountered a myriad of challenges often at great personal risk. Historicising Atiku’s endeavours on the democratic trail, Oludolapo notes that together with Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Atiku embarked on a “perilous journey to build a pan-Nigeria anchored on democratic ideals.” Lives and resources were lost to this project according to Oludolapo, while aggregating a generation of young Nigerians who shared the vision of a more inclusive and democratic future.

In an unusually clear-headed contention, Oludolapo remarks that Atiku’s vision for Nigeria has always extended beyond personal ambitions as has been more commonly bandied. His judicial victories in the face of adversity he observes have entrenched democratic norms which many political actors gloss over and take for granted contempraneously. Atiku, Oludolapo notes “is a testament to the enduring spirit of a man who has remained resolute in his commitment to democratic principles regardless of the challenges that he has faced.” He recalls Atiku’s successful judicial challenge of the emasculation of the Office of the Vice President by Obasanjo between 2006 and 2007, all the way to the Supreme Court. This he says has tempered the condescension with which the Offices of Vice President and Deputy Governor are viewed by their principals. Atiku’s action was not one of defiance but a commitment to upholding the rule of law.

Oludolapo alludes to Atiku’s sense of ethno-religious sensitivity and the imperative for balancing. In 1998, he chose a Christian, Bonnie Haruna to pair with him on his gubernatorial ticket in Adamawa State. Even when fate thrust him upwards to the position of Vice President in 1999, he rallied support for Haruna to be duly recognised as governor. He reaffirmed his support for Haruna to serve the constitutionally allowable two terms of four years each when he backed him for reelection in 2003. He refused to be swayed by jingoists intent on beating the drums of the numerical superiority of one section of the state over another. Atiku’s deft navigation of the Sharia brouhaha when he was Vice President also receives attention by Oludolapo. The subject was a potential time bomb capable of pitting the North against the South and festering a toxic atmosphere of fissions in the polity. Atiku ate the bullets when he castigated the “political implementation of Sharia law.” He took this position at the risk of being profiled as pro-South when he was expected to stand with his fellow northerners.

Beyond the puerile reduction of Atiku’s politics as being solely focused on ascending the highest office in the land, the documentation of Nigerian democracy will be incomplete without a fair and honest acknowledgement of his enormous contributions to the processes. His political career has been patently committed to the imperative to grow democracy, accord equitable platforms for political participation with strict adherence to rule of law, justice, equity and fairness. His mantra is to tap the best brains for national development and foster unity, fully cognisant of the availability of world class technocrats and professionals from across the country. Atiku is credited with identifying some of the key operatives in the Obasanjo/Atiku government all of whom have continued to hold their own on the global stage.

Moving forward, democracy in Nigeria must take firm root beyond orchestrated false starts, deliberate disregard for rule of law and the sickeningly eternal rat race for primitive acquisition. Tertiary institutions should by then find it imperative to endow chairs and establish institutes to advance the principles which the authentic frontrunners of democracy embodied. Initiatives such as an “Atiku Abubakar Institute for Leadership and Governance” should be purposely endowed in a rainbow of institutions across the land. My departed senior colleague and elder brother Ayo Olukotun was the pioneer occupant of the “Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona Professorial Chair for Governance” at the Babcock University, Ilishan, Ogun State before he left us early last year for example.

Atiku’s *alma mater* the Ahmadu Bello University, (ABU) Zaria must lead the way in the cannonisation of his ideals and perspiration over time and space in the service of democracy. Such an invention will fast track the advancement of the frontiers of popular rule and rule of law beyond subsisting genuflections, the recurring “brake and quench” democracy. That’s the way a roadside mechanic would describe a malfunctioning automobile perennially coming on and ever going off each time it is ignited. As many as have been impacted by Atiku’s sweat, investments, dedication and selflessness in the deepening of true democracy in Nigeria owe him one, certainly and deservedly. This is the irreducible minimum bouquet of flowers for a man who continues, daringly, to take risks in the entrenchment and evolution of genuine democracy in our clime, into the fourth successive decade now.

Tunde Olusunle, PhD, is a Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (ANA)

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