By Olu Fasan

LAST week, at the launch of his autobiography My Participations, Chief Bisi Akande, former Osun State governor and interim chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, said he had no sympathy for President Muhammadu Buhari over widespread criticism of his performance because he applied to be president. 

“I do not sympathise with you,” he told Buhari, “you applied for the job.” As a political soundbite, the comment landed well. But as a statement of substance, it lacks depth, honesty and thoughtfulness. 

It’s interesting that Chief Akande used the analogy of job application. But if Buhari applied for the job of President, who gave him the glowing references that enabled him to get it? 

Of  course, it was Akande and his buddy Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State. They sold Buhari to Nigerians as a would-be saviour and facilitated his election as president. 

More on that later. First, a few words on Chief Akande’s autobiography, which both whitewashes and settles scores. Akande presents himself and Tinubu as men of integrity but paints former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Afenifere leader, and Chief Olu Falae, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation as dishonourable men!

I speak for none of the leaders traduced by Akande, but can’t help wondering why he thinks a world of himself but so little of those he disagrees with. Yet, Akande is an opportunistic and self-serving politician who would abandon long-held principles for political benefits. Take a few examples.

Chief Akande blames Obasanjo for his failure to secure a second term as Osun State governor nearly 20 years ago. He said that after the assassination of Chief Bola Ige, he and other governors of Alliance for Democracy, AD, were “left on the open sea like a floundering ship,” adding: “Soon, the sharks were circling.” He continued: “The man who came hunting for us was President Olusegun Obasanjo.” President Buhari, too, blamed Obasanjo’s “diabolical double-cross” for Akande’sdefeat.

But in 2014, the same Akande led APC leaders to the same Obasanjo to beg him to “diabolically double-cross” President Goodluck Jonathan and help deny him a second term. At the meeting in Ota, Tinubu told Obasanjo: “We are determined to rescue Nigeria. We want you to lead the mission. We want you as navigator.” 

Of course, we all know how Obasanjo destabilised PDP and orchestrated Jonathan’s defeat in 2015. So, for Akande, Obasanjo was wrong to destabilise AD, a rival party, in 2003, but right to sabotage PDP, his own party, in 2015? It’s called opportunism and hypocrisy!

Clearly, Bola Ige’s assassination in 2001 deeply hurt Chief Akande, who was deputy governor to Ige in the old Oyo State. But consider this. In 2018, the APC was about to lose Osun State, trailing the PDP candidate, Ademola Adeleke, by 353 votes before INEC declared the election “inconclusive”, and ordered a supplementary election. What happened next? 

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Well, before the supplementary election, Akande led Osun State APC to do a secret deal with Iyiola Omisore, his estranged former deputy. In the end, with Omisore’s support, the APC candidate, Gboyega Oyetola, defeated the PDP candidate by 483 votes. So, in order to retain Osun State for APC, Akande did a deal with the man he believed killed his leader and mentor. Opportunism and hypocrisy!

Yet, Chief Akande’s book is full of bile and hatred towards more credible leaders. He condescendingly described Chief Falae, a Yale-educated economist, as “a trained civil servant” and often taunted him about not being elected. It doesn’t matter that Falae is the only Yoruba, apart from Obasanjo and MKO Abiola, to have secured more than 11 million votes in a national poll, when he ran for president in 1999. For Akande, Chief Falae is someone who has “been trying to blindly straddle Nigeria’s complicated politics.” What a cheap shot! 

Well, that pales into insignificance compared with the insults Akande hauled at Chief Adebanjo. He described Adebanjo as a “blank politically-minded leader” who “never has what it takes to aspire for high political positions.” Wow! This Baba can throw insults! 

Yet, despite having been governor and party chairman, Akande lacks the integrity and relevance, in the eyes of many Nigerians, of Chief Adebanjo, who has been consistent and dogged on the defining issue of restructuring, while Akande has opportunistically flip-flopped. 

Chief Akande wrote a book on restructuring and once strongly advocated it. But since his party gained power at the centre, he has been inordinately mute on the issue. 

He said that APC didn’t promise “restructuring” in its manifesto but “devolution of power”. So, where is devolution of power after nearly seven years in office? He said restructuring requires “deft negotiations among different ethnic nationalities and constituencies”. But who has the convening power to create a forum for such negotiations, if not the president? 

Which brings us back to Buhari’s job application. As we know, Buhari applied unsuccessfully to be president three times. But on his fourth application, Tinubu, Akande and their cohort in the South-West partnered with him and gave him glowing references.

Tinubu said Buhari would rescue Nigeria, likening him to General Dwight Eisenhower or General Charles de Gaulle – retired generals who transformed their countries as presidents.  Of course, they knew Buhari wasn’t up to the job, but foisted him on Nigeria as a quid pro quo for Tinubu succeeding him as president. It was a selfish political calculation. 

When a Buhari-Tinubu/Muslim-Muslim ticket was rejected, Akande was livid, saying that “among the Yoruba, religion is not a factor in leadership.” Really? If so, why was there so much clamour for a Christian governor in Lagos State after a succession of Muslim governors? He utterly misreads his people! Chief Akande presents himself and his cohort as saints, and his opponents as evil. 

But his self-interested politics, his obsequious enabling of Buhari’s and Tinubu’s presidential ambitions, shows he’s just another opportunistic politician!

Vanguard News Nigeria