TINUBU ON IKIMI: SOUR GRAPES AND SHENANIGANS

Former Lagos State governor and national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, recently lashed out at an ex-chieftain of the party, Chief Tom Ikimi, for resigning. Tinubu charged that, Ikimi 'was never sincerely committed to the party. He was always playing out a PDP script. He only wanted the chairmanship of the party as a bargaining chip for negotiations with his benefactors.'

Tinubu also wrote: 'At the formation of the APC, a crucial debate ensued about what to do about persons like Ikimi who had done awful things in the past, but who were now minded to align with the progressive tendency in Nigerian politics. Should we forever blacklist them? This would have been the easiest route, but it would have kept rancour alive. It would have made us slaves to the bleakest chapters of our past. Instead we opted to extend the hand of brotherhood, reconcile and put the past behind us. Not surprisingly, Ikimi acting true to type abuse that magnanimity.'

Ikimi, of course, is not the first politician to leave the APC. As the former Minister of Foreign Affairs himself said, before his departure several others had already abandoned the APC. Ikimi noted that, 'Those who have left include notables such as Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau of Kano State, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa of Sokoto State, Alhaji Ali Modu Sherriff of Bornu State, Brig Gen Buba Marwa of Adamawa State, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu of Adamawa State, Senator Ani Okonkwo of Anambra State, Pastor Osagie Ize Iyamu of Edo State.'

Considering this political haemorrhage that has afflicted the APC in recent times, why has Tinubu resorted to what can best be described as a display of sour grapes and schoolboy shenanigans in Ikimi's case? The answer may be found in the lengthy letter that Ikimi wrote to announce his withdrawal from the APC. In part, the letter dwelled on the image crisis the APC continues to suffer as 'Tinubu's party', implying that the party belongs to, and is permanently tele-guided by Tinubu, thereby causing the party immeasurable harm.

To drive home his point, Ikimi wrote: 'It is common knowledge that the vote against the very popular candidate Senator Chris Ngige in the Anambra Governorship election and recently against one of the most successful Governors, Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, was indeed a vote against Tinubu.' As displeasing as these assertions may be, what probably rankled Tinubu the most could be the dismissive and unfavourably suggestive anecdotes Ikimi shared in his letter. In one instance, Ikimi wrote of Tinubu that he 'could recall that this was a man I knew who was an easily forgettable character in the 1990s when I was National Party Chairman.'

To further rub it in, Ikimi added: 'It would come as no great surprise if Asiwaju Bola Tinubu's boasted great wealth did not derive from any stupendous inheritance ancient or modern. Or that his sudden bragging as though Nigeria's Bill Gates is an accumulation of extraordinary hard work or financial wizardry. I would rather trust the informed whispers in the inner circles of the party which have it that having positioned himself as perceived leader in the most lucrative income sources of the party, he is recipient and dispenser of bags and bags of party funds.'

The scathing insinuations conveyed by 'the informed whispers in the inner circles of the party' revealed by Ikimi must have prompted Tinubu to seek textual revenge. In response, the former Lagos governor wrote: 'It was clear to practically everyone who had the interest of the party at heart that we simply could not have a man of Tom Ikimi's antecedents as Chair of the party. As chairman of the NRC, one of the only two political parties in the country under the military transition programme, Tom Ikimi not only connived with the then military regime to annul the elections, terminate the democratic process and sell off his party.'

In charging Ikimi with conniving with a past military regime, Tinubu may not have realised that he has inadvertently shot himself in the foot. If he is implying that Ikimi should not have had anything to do with a military regime, what is he himself doing with General Muhammadu Buhari, a former head of a military junta and another leader of the APC, today?

Has Tinubu forgotten that Buhari is a former dictator who allied himself with soldiers who truncated a democratic government in 1983? Was Tinubu living on the moon when Buhari promulgated Decree No.4, one of the most draconian laws against press freedom that the entire world has ever known? Is Tinubu not aware that Buhari's regime incarcerated many Nigerians without trial? And is this not the same Buhari under whom it is widely believed Tinubu wants to take a shot at the vice presidency with Buhari gunning for the presidency in 2015?

The shenanigans of politicians never cease to amaze those of us who are watching from the sidelines. However, when a politician like Tinubu decides to throw a disingenuous punch at another politician, he should remember that not everybody is on his payroll and the log in his eye will be pointed out to him.

Written by Chukwuka Ezendiaru.