OP-ED Opinions 

Bola Tinubu: A Veritable Comedian By Fisan Bankale

Mr. Democrat, e ku ise Sir! I am sorry, truly sorry,  that it is hard for me to allow Jagaban to go without commenting at two levels namely, your Person and your Ideas.

Once in a while I waka pass avoiding to pass comments on you but today, this speech by you won’t let me waka pass. 

I see the need to comment on this speech of yours but first I wish to ask you to do a few things that will make less of the ogre image you project. Only a few, for now. When the need arises we shall dig deep and wide.



Dear Jagaban, please, by yourself without any promoting initiate moves and review your pension downwards. It is rape to ask tax payers to pay for your house in Abuja for instance. It is a bad example, it is insensitive it is exploitative, an assault on the resources of the state. 

You were governor in Lagos not Abuja. It is corrupt practice for Alpha Beta to collect tax in Lagos and you don’t CAMA to tell you that. A decent person will walk away from that deal. It is obnoxious in the extreme. It is greed and disdainful of Yoruba Omoluabi ethos.

Next, sir, please consider telling your boys to account for the Lagos Metroline and complete the project. Your fans say you are the architect of a famous Lagos Master Plan. I want to applaud you too except that I am trained to identify, trash propaganda and embrace concrete, impactful and efficiently achieved results. I see little to applaud. 

The light rail is recommended in cities whose population approach 6m. We work on a figure of 25 million for Lagos and yet all we have is the bus. So where is the famed Lagos Master plan.

Sir, you have vicarious responsibility to ensure the project’s conclusion and it’s running, far into the future. So please tell your ‘boys’, as the self declared  leader of all democrats, that it is tomfoolery not to complete that project. It is wicked not to. It is a sign of bad management not to. I don’t live in Lagos, but I have family and friends there and each time I get caught in one of those impossible traffick jams, my mind goes to you and my spirit is gutted. 

Not concluding that project  reflects badly on a people whose more ‘correct headed’ leadership initiated a similar project 46 years ago. A people who were in the vanguard of development on a global level have become laggards.

Quickly let me refer to your speech to Edo people. First, am sure like most of us, you can improve your language and communications skills. You were neither inspired nor inspiring. We can deal with content, speech and poise, forever but we shall limit it today.  The wits you purveyed made you look too ordinary, to be ‘leader of all democrats irrespective of political party’. 

By the way, I am trying to fathom what the heck that means. It is a most politically illiterate comment. It has no meaning even in basic political philosphy. Utterly bereft. 

The thoughts you expressed in that speech are indications of why you, in the first place, gave thoughts at all to forming a political alliance of ‘progressives’ in which a team of  irredeemable despots, tribal, religious jingoists  of the worst form, regular rapists of FUNDAMENTAL or INALIENABLE HUMAN RIGHTS, and Abacha acolytes are the chiefs. And you are so proud of it. 

Since when did fascists start becoming progressives. The hood has never a monk made. Certainly not. Your speech proceeded from a confusion of thoughts in political philosophy. So you want people to vote for your candidate. Then you bring Ganduje as your party campaigner and Mr. Oshiomole. Bad joke. 

 Clearly and not surprisingly, _e ko gbo oyinbo tara ninu egbe yin_ and you don’t  understand the underpinnings of politics as art or as science. You know no philosophy and no matter how hard you try, a trained mind knows that you are not up to scratch. As a result, you have reduced many around you even intellectuals to your level which is palpably shallow and bereft in the most critical areas. 

I speak frankly, without malice, and truly I feel pain on your behalf that you are subjecting yourself, people around you and those among us who know a few  things about politics and governance to this level of ridicule. 

Your speech in this clip would be described by people with a modicum of depth and ‘width’ as ‘rambling’. Depressing!!!!! Or ok, let me be more charitable, it is not spirit-lifting.

Awo would say, ‘only the deep can reach to the deep’. I will add that visionary leadership belongs only to the deep and the deeper the mind the more visionary the man. You and your team have demonstrated a terrible lack of vision and so your strategies and tactics have failed  woefully.  

Sir, hasten to disband that group that you call APC for it has no basis in philosophy or in the art or science of politics. Well may be you cannot disband it but you can walk out of it.

When a wo/man is a democrat it has depth of meaning that you and many around you clearly don’t understand. Just as when someone is called a republican. Terms such as liberals, social democrats, socialists, communist, labour, tory, rightists, leftists have meanings beyond the ordinary use.

For anyone schooled in the fine points of political philosophy, your party is a shameful congregation of illiterates and strange bedfellows which reflects badly, but wait a minute, it actually validates  the extremity of the lack of knowledge and thus it is better put when we suggest that it rightly, reflects on the quality of the minds of you and many in your team.

If you suffer any doubts about this assertion, the degree of dysfunctionality of the government at the centre  should dispel your doubts. People are dying from Fulanis Herdsmen invasion, you are asking for the cattle. People are being killed in Benue you say it is global warming. 

Now you must know that it is the extreme of bufoonery to want power for the sake of it. Very much as reflected in that song, ‘Now that we found love, what are we gonna do with it? 

That is the fine point that puts an Awo out as a true sage. A leader envisions the end and chats the course. Awo you probably don’t know was a master of the English language, written and spoken. He was a master of philosophy and of political thought, theory and practice. He was the epitome of democratic thought and practice. Am sure you know that you can’t claim any of these capacities.

Awo beat a path for true democrats accross groups to follow in order to salvage Nigeria. Had you followed that path, our story would have been different today because _adie ati eye’le_ would not cohabit as your government represents.

But because that depth we talked about earlier was totally lacking in your wing of the party, you managed to believe that this ludicrous path would lead to any where other than the dysfunction and chaos we see now. _Isiro ni_ Sir! Simple 1+1=2 but you and your team wanted your own 1+1 to be 11. And so you _babararised_  (mystified) simple processes and landed us flush in fire. 

I wish you good luck but first you need to step back. You can’t cope because you are punching way, way beyond your weight. At every turn you are wrong footed. This season and the future are beyond your ken.

In closing, lest you need reminding, you and most of your advisers, more than anyone else, are responsible for the birthing of this government and therefore for ALL the ills that the government has brought the people. Am sorry to say that you don’t know democracy sufficiently to be a leader of or in it.

©Fisan Bankale

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