By Ochereome Nnanna
BOLAJI Sanusi, formerly of Vanguard and now with The Nation Newspapers called me and promised to send a copy of a new book on Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the National Leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

When I opened the book entitled: Asiwaju, Leadership in Troubled Times (edited by fellow columnists Tunji Bello, Sam Omatseye and Segun Ayobolu), the circumstances it presented and the subject matter it treated made me decide to devote today’s column to it.

The 322-page compendium of topics published by Kraft Books Ltd, Ibadan, was a combined efforts of those I have decided to call the BAT Boys. I have often wondered why Bola Ahmed Tinubu has managed to escape being slammed with a three-letter acronym, such as Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) and Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ). May be, the effort was contemplated and abandoned because Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) may not sound politically romantic because of the unflattering looks and reputation posted by the flying mammal these letters refer to.

Listed among the contributors are 33 eminent personalities raised to political prominence by the Bola Ahmed Tinubu political machine since 1999, including those who have served within the party, the government and his ever-increasing media empire.

These include all the six ACN governors of Lagos, Edo, Osun, Ogun, Oyo and Ekiti States, former and serving commissioners, advisers, party workers and even traditional rulers. Glancing through the list, one name was very conspicuously absent; Joe Igbokwe! If Ben Akabueze, Louis Odion and one Senator Abu Ibrahim could make the list outside the rest who are of Yoruba background, Joe should have been there as he is very much a BAT boy just like the rest, being so visible within the party and government.

Asiwaju is a celebration of easily the most successful political leader of these times (1999 till date) by his own disciples. President Goodluck Jonathan is a tenured leader of a military created national political party. The moment he steps down as President of Nigeria his leadership of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) will expire. Same cannot be said for political parties such as the ACN and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). After successfully managing the crisis of nerves between him and the Governor of Lagos, Barrister Babatunde Fashola, which resulted in the latter being allowed to run for a second term, Tinubu firmly established himself as the leader of the ACN who has come to stay.

Characterisation from the eye of disciples

As you can expect, his disciples examined him from different perspectives as a “visionary”, “reformer”, “strategist” (even former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu’s employees, Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe, once wrote a book on him entitled, The Master Strategist. The political party and empire have since disintegrated. So much for a master strategist!). They also highlighted him as a “reformer”, “politician”, and two successful female BAT “boys” – Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa and the incumbent Deputy Governor of Lagos, Prof. Joke Orelope Adefulire – also wrote to affirm that he treats women as “equal partners”.

Of all these characterisations of Asiwaju Tinubu, the areas that interested me most concerned his political vision, mission and predilections. Former Commissioner and now member House of Representative, Hon. Opeyemi Bamidele described him as “an ideologue”, portraying him as a “liberal welfarist”. Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole says Tinubu is a “radical conservative” (just as Oshiomhole himself is seen as a “conservative radical”). To the Governor of Ogun State, BAT is a “pragmatist”, while his Oyo State counterpart thinks he is a “progressive”. To me, all these converge as “neo Awoism”. Opeyemi, in his contribution captures it well this way:

“Arising from his mastery of the core principles of social liberalism as well as the fortunes recorded by the welfare state in the United States, in Europe and South-western Nigeria (during the first and second republics) it is not surprising that the social and political values underlining Tinubu’s political campaigns and struggles were such that are in connection with the clamour for civil liberties, multiparty democracy, electoral reforms, the rule of law and independence of judiciary, the need to eradicate poverty and unemployment, the agitation for true federalism, a strong populist romance with the Nigerian masses as well as the spirit of national unity an solidarity” (p.35)

For me, the main winning strength of BAT is his strong political character. In this he can only be likened to General Muhammadu Buhari, the leader of CPC in this political dispensation embodied by crass political opportunism and adventurism. When he came back from exile in 1998 he was quickly able to outmanoeuvre Dr. Funsho Williams, the frontrunner of the post-NADECO party, Alliance for Democracy (AD) for the governorship ticket. Later on, Williams was killed by unknown assassins and Tinubu swiftly renamed Western Avenue, one of the most prominent streets in Lagos, after Williams.

By then, Olusegun Obasanjo, the first Yoruba man to be elected president of Nigeria, was in power. Obasanjo had no political home base and frantically needed one for his re-election in 2003. He was ready to do everything to get it. The Afenifere and all the other AD governors of the South West (except Tinubu) agreed to help Obasanjo to a second term in office, thus opening themselves up for Obasanjo to sweep them out of office and out of power. Tinubu saw through the danger and decided to fight the president’s stick-and-carrot manoeuvres. He won.

BAT’s greatest investment

Tinubu pulled out of the AD, distanced himself from Afenifere’s conclave dictatorship and founded, along with other leaders, the Advanced Congress of Democrats (ACD) which later became the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

The greatest investment Tinubu made towards emerging as the leader of the second largest party in Nigeria was in the judiciary.

He apparently picked the trick from northern Nigeria, where fifty years of investment in the judiciary has handed over the federal judiciary to the North, with the region about to produce the first female Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN). Tinubu realised that the Constitution of 1999 gave the judiciary enormous powers in deciding the fates of elected officials.

It was mainly the combined efforts of his investments in the judiciary and the media that snatched Edo, Ekiti and Osun states from the PDP at the Tribunals, thus paving the way for Ogun and Oyo States to join the ACN bandwagon in 2011.

As a neo-Awoist, Tinubu has stringently called for “true federalism” or devolution of powers, even though the Chief Obafemi Awolowo principle which argued that it should be along ethnic nationality lines appears absent in the Tinubu calculation.

Tinubu seems to favour regional lines, though he has not spelt out his political ideas in more explicit terms as Awo did. Indeed, as much as Awoism is still a cherished legacy, the BAT boys seem ready to let the world know that Tinubu is now in a spate of his own.

His effigy (as illustrated on the book’s cover) is no longer the borrowed Awo cap and spectacles. It is now simply the Tinubu cap. Perhaps, it has finally dawned on people that the struggle for Awo’s successor is not only quixotic but also potentially a political suicide mission for those who engage in it.

BAT and the pitfalls

Bola Ahmed Tinubu now has a duty to himself and his supporters to avoid the pitfalls that made Awo “the best president Nigerian never had”. In spite of his enormous administrative and political skills, Chief Awolowo could not escape the toga of tribal leader. Unless BAT is quickly able to diversify his political base (which will reflect in the complexion of his political camp) he might soon become circumscribed.

Another danger Tinubu must watch is the politics of alliances. The CPC/ACN alliance will surely lead to the destruction of the ACN unless the latter produces the president. What happened in 1991 whereby the People’s Solidarity Party (PSP), a much larger platform, was overwhelmed by a tiny cabal of the People’s Front of Nigeria (PFN) led by the late Major General Shehu Musa Yar’ Adua, should be an object lesson.

Before Tinubu can really enter the pantheon of Nigeria’s political leadership in the mould Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Mallam Aminu Kano and the lot, he has to let us see the difference between the ACN and the other political parties, particularly the PDP.

Right now, the ACN is much like the PDP – a mere election winning machine. Just like PDP there is no clear-cut ACN way of governance and politics – yet. There is little to link Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s “State of Osun” and his “islamisation” controversies with a prospering Lagos aiming to emerge as the business capital of the Black world.

The issues of intra-party processes leading to emergence of candidates and leadership succession also have to be codified. What will happen if, tomorrow, BAT is suddenly no longer available, just like all mortals?

For BAT, emerging as the leader of the ACN is the easier part. Building a solid national political party that will outlast his years on earth is now on his plate. We watch to see how he weighs.