Tinubu and The Spirit of 1993

Bola Ahmed Tinubu

Somebody said political actors lie because the speeches they read in public are written for them, they are often not what comes out from their hearts but what the speech writers want the public to hear. So there is always an incongruity between what a politician says and what he does. I think this is why Peter Obi says he is not going to allow a professor to write his manifesto for him, hence his manifesto must be his own, he will compose it himself. Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not an orator, many of his attempts to speak extempore has ended with the listeners giggling. But he sure has some good and brilliant speech writers around him. Any Tinubu's speech must therefore be rigorously analysed to distinguish the Tinubu speech reader and Tinubu the politician.

Bola Tinubu's presentation of the reason he chose Kashim Shettima, a Muslim like him as his running mate was a very turbulent one. Tinubu knew it was not going to be easy, so also did his speech writers. So a very subtle one was drafted from him. And he presented it. A Tinubu lover told this writer that each time we saw Tinubu's fingers shaking while he read his speeches, it was not because of any ailment but because of exhaustion. I'm not a medical person and so I won't argue with him. Bola Tinubu did work very hard for his nomination, many sleepless nights; one of his media aides advised him while congratulating him for his 60th birthday a few years ago to sleep a little more. But Bola Tinubu won't sleep because ruling Nigeria is his lifetime ambition, so he could be truly exhausted. He told the President Muhammadu Buhari and the nation heard him too, that the presidency of Nigeria is his lifelong ambition. What is behind this ambition? Islamization?

So in paragraph 33 of this make-or break speech, Tinubu's speech writers made him say this: "The Spirit of 1993 is upon us again". I have a son that was born in 1993, he just left the university, and is on NYSC now. He would have left earlier than this but if you have to send your child to university in Nigeria, you have to factor in unending ASUU strikes, usually caused by the uncaring and unthinking federal government, and because of the poverty that long years of bad leadership have inflicted on Nigeria, your child may wait at home for some years while you look for money to send him to school. Nigerian leaders are wiser than the people that voted them to power, they steal public money and send their wards to good schools abroad with it. And when they return they celebrate them in the media. What can poor Nigerians do? What I'm saying is that 1993 is a long time, that children born in that year and before it will have to be reminded what that statement put in Tinubu's mouth means according to the writers and what it really means according to those who witnessed the events. In paragraph 32, Tinubu was made to say "In 1993 Nigerians embraced Chief MKO Abiola and a fellow Muslim as running mate, Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe in one of our freest and fairest elections held".

At this point, these crafty speech writers have put into the mouth of Tinubu these implications: we once did what I have done and about to tell you, get a Muslim- Muslim ticket. The election of the two persons of the same religion over a country with diverse religions and ethnicities was the fairest and they won despite the difficulties. In other words, they are making him say Nigerians accepted and it ran very well. They want Nigerians to accept the same ticket that Tinubu is presenting as the best for them. They want Christians especially to forget their Christian commitments and their fear of Islamisation. They made him say Nigerians "embraced" it.

My 29-year-old child will read that and say, if the generation of my father accepted it, then it must be good and I will also accept it. Remember our youths constitute the bulk of voters now, they will decide who wins. So it is good that they are well-targeted. For the older generation whose memory may be fading, especially among the Christian community who have been very wounded by their exclusion, they also will easily say, "well it's not bad after all, let us work for peace and move the nation forward". The speech writers were moving Asiwaju forward, they were making him to bear his leadership title Asiwaju, the one who leads from the front. But are they moving Nigeria forward or calling down untold chaos on the nation?

They didn't tell the environment of that choice by the late MKO Abiola and what the consequences of it were. They made Tinubu prophesy a bad end for himself and the nation. MKO Abiola died, and never sat on the Aso Rock seat. Would Tinubu live? Would he sit in Aso Rock? They made him prophesy chaos for the nation; they made him predict an interim government and the collapse of Nigeria's third republic. They made him prophesy the return of another Abacha-type military government which visited a heinous dictatorship in Nigeria. All these trailed Abiola's Muslim- Muslim ticket and the chance of that scenario being repeated must scare all Nigerians. Let's recall that environment again. Abiola was a rich businessman, the richest black man in the world then, who made his money from his connection with the military governments. He was in the rentier class. We can put Tinubu in that class too. His friend, the former Secretary to the Federal Government, Babachir Lawal said Tinubu made his money from politics and he is spending the money in politics. So when next you look for those who loot the treasury in Nigeria remember the words of Babachir Lawal. Ibrahim Babangida, a military general and self-styled president then wanted Abiola to have labour leader, Pascal Bafyau as his running mate. It will be recalled that Babagana Kingibe contested the nomination of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) with Abiola. Kingibe looked like winning the nomination but with a last-minute horse trading with the boss of Kingibe, General Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, Abiola won by a little margin. Kingibe quickly wormed his way to Abiola. An ex- military man, Air Commodore Dan Suleman was Abiola's choice as running mate. Dan Suleman was from then Gongola State in the North East and was a Christian but some power brokers in SDP felt Dan Suleman should not be because of his background in the military and because Nigerians wanted a clean break with the military. So Abiola's choice of Kingibe was not for any potential of garnering Muslims votes in the North, it was to please and assuage Yar’Adua.

Thus MKO Abiola's rejection of Babangida's recommended pick for the vice presidential candidate, Pascal Bafyau, a Christian from the former Gongola State in the North East was the reason Babangida later annulled Abiola's election. Babangida may have advanced the reason of the Northern emirs or some military men not wanting Abiola as the reason for the annulment of the election, but a careful analysis indicates that he did so because his recommendation was rejected by his friend MKO Abiola. It is highly possible that Babangida's ego was bruised. It is also possible that he had a plan for wanting Bafyau in government after he would have left or that he made the recommendation so that knowing that it will be rejected he will find a reason not to relinquish power. General Babangida was a military politician and suspected to have concealed political ambition. Paschal Bafyau was the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) but he had no vote-catching clout. Kingibe was a civil servant, not with much vote-catching clout too. Abiola was a southern Muslim who had spent his money on philanthropy across the nation. He had assisted the cause of Islam in the North. He married wives from almost every corner of Nigeria. Virtually every Nigerian was his in-law. With or without Kingibe, Abiola will win his election. Nigerians believed in Abiola not Kingibe.

So Abiola and Tinubu run for president are two different scenarios. The time has also changed. Nigeria was not as religiously divided in the time of Abiola as it is now. Today, Buhari, since 2015 has brought religious division to its zenith in Nigeria. In his appointments and in his disposition he has left no one in doubt that he wants Nigeria Islamised. It appears he was sympathetic to Boko Haram. He wants Sharia in Nigeria. He planned to give the Koran to all secondary school students as he said to encourage morality in schools despite that Nigeria is multi-religious. Buhari didn't just start that move in 2015, he began it in 1984 when he became military head of state. His move to Islamise Nigeria, a pastor who helped prayed in Jos told this reporter, is the reason Buhari was removed by a military coup in 1984. Buhari's rabid desire to Islamise Nigeria increased with fervency in 2015. His Islamisation was disguised with his Fulanisation agenda. It appears Tinubu is also of the same mould. During his first tenure as governor in Lagos he refused a plea for assistance from some Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) pastors because he said Christians didn't vote for him in 1999 and the Lagos PFN, in consequence, organized a prayer campaign against his reelection. In 2015, he pushed hard for a Muslim-Muslim ticket which will make him run as a vice presidential candidate with Buhari. Now his choice of Kashim Shettima is a continuation of that Islamisation agenda. Shettima is sympathetic to Boko Haram, and also a man against the restructuring of Nigeria, a popular cry in the south of the country. He was alleged to have shielded a Boko Haram commander who escaped from prison, Kabiru Sokoto. He was also heard on a leaked video as he campaigned to rout the Igbo traders in Kano. However, Kashim Shettima has denied all the allegations levelled against him. He affirms that he's a staunch believer in the Nigerian project.

The speech writers of Tinubu have made him tell Nigerians a lie. They have made him bring the wrong spirit to Nigeria. The spirit of 1993 is a bad spirit, it is a spirit that will put Nigeria in darkness. Already, Tinubu's choice has pitched the two major religions in Nigeria in direct confrontation. Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) is poised for a fight and it has directed pastors to tell their churches how they should vote in 2023 and also to defend their faith with their votes. Their directives though did not mention names or parties but are obviously targeted against Tinubu and APC and their Muslim-Muslim ticket. Nobody must doubt that similar things are being done in Mosques around Nigeria. Even before now, the Mosques in the North are known to have been places for political mobilization. If Nigeria goes up in flame Nigerians should know it is the prayer Tinubu's speech writers put in his mouth and the action he took despising Christians that is responsible.

Tunde Akande is both a Journalist and a Pastor. He earned a Masters degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.