AKPABIO, ABBAS AND TINUBU’S SUCCESS BY TIJJANI IBRAHIM

AKPABIO, ABBAS AND TINUBU’S SUCCESS

BY

TIJJANI IBRAHIM

 Many contributed at different levels to what is now the Bola Tinubu Administration. The road was rough, tough and almost uncertain. No president in the history of Nigeria met a quarter of the hurdles President Bola Tinubu had to overcome on their way to the Presidency of Nigeria.

 I took special interest in President Tinubu’s political activities shortly before he emerged the candidate of Alliance for Democracy AD for the Governorship contest in Lagos state.  And afterwards as Governor and outside government, all he did was hunt talents. 

Sometimes he discovers raw ones, burnishes them and deploys them while at other times he got existing talents and deploys in the most efficient and effective ways to build a better social-political and economic structure for the good of society. 

Lagos state achieved the much it did in the last twenty four years because of the structure of talents he had built over the years. Peeping from this prism I had correctly thought a man whose political trajectory has been a history of sacrifice for the masses and politicians alike, would naturally find a pool of human resources to rely upon anytime he decided to run for presidency (which he had confessed to his inner circle was a life time ambition). 

Of course he had a lot of the persons whose lives he had touched positively and friendship he built along the way queued up to say Boss we would work for you free of charge in your bid to become president in 2023. 

The surprising thing however was that some of the biggest political beneficiaries of his large heart turned out to be those who constituted the most venomous snakes on his way to the Presidency. 

I will not mention names here, because one, everyone that followed political events in Nigeria especially from 2011 when practical steps to uproot the most wreaking and violently corrupt PDP government began know these persons. 

And two because this piece is not about identifying his political foes or friends. Maybe at a later date if it becomes necessary names would be mentioned. This piece is about helping our President to succeed in resetting Nigeria on the path of growth, stability, security and economic development.       

Majority of Nigerians especially those who support him including many of his adversaries do not doubt the capacity of President Bola Tinubu to fix the country having governed Lagos, the most complex state in Nigeria for eight years and supported his mentees to the political leadership of the state in the last 16 years playing a prominent role in Lagos’ emergence as the fifth largest Economy in African.  One of the most secured, if not the most secured state in Nigeria with the most stable political structure comparable to that of former Chicago Mayor’s, Richard J Daley political dynasty in its best days.

Just four days after inauguration the president has already made far reaching pronouncements signaling his readiness to fix Nigeria.

 He has made important pronouncements around fuel subsidy, exchange rate, the economy, fight against corruption, foreign policy, security, job creation, poverty eradication and agriculture and his willingness to take tough decisions to reset Nigeria. With a hint to follow the roadmap of his ‘Renewed Hope’ action plan. This is why we must give him the chance to pick his team to help him succeed.

Earlier in consultation with the Party he indicated his interest to work with Senator Godswill Akpabio as Senate President and Honourable Tajjudeen Abbas as Speaker of the house of Representative. 

The least elected members and non-elected members of the party can do is to support him in his choice to at least through a democratic process have them emerge as the heads of parliament to avoid unnecessary antagonism and usual populist posture opposition elements and in-house rebels are wont to display to frustrate a President’s efforts when he tries to effect great policies that can reset the country for the better through our National Assembly.

Recall the error of 2015 when Senator Bukola Saraki and  Honourable Yakubu Dogara alongside some APC members in collaboration with PDP elements high jacked the headship of the parliament against the Party’s will and frustrated many of President Buhari’s policies that would have saved us from many of the problems we face today as a country.

A case in point is the derailment of Buhari’s anti-corruption fight when the Saraki led senate deliberately refused to clear Ibrahim Magu to assume the chairmanship of the EFCC without any cogent reason. That action whittled down the effectiveness of the very courageous Magu who still managed to achieve some decent results despite the deliberate obstacle erected by Saraki’s Senate and an insidious Dogara’s House of Representatives. 

Painfully the scheming against Magu eventually got the buy in of some members of the former president’s cabinet who humiliated and got him unceremoniously removed for reasons Nigerians don’t know till this moment.

Unfortunately, in what seems like deja vu some legislators of the APC in collaboration with some opposition elements are toying with the Saraki-Dogara idea again. Planning to rebel against the Party and President’s choice. 

The difference today however, is that the President and his Vice are political tacticians who understand the intricacies of the Nigerian politics and they and their men can handle the antics of any rebellious legislator who wants to go against the party’s choice and they will not stand aloof as was the case in 2015.

Nevertheless, engagement with the rebels should still continue until they see reasons why it is in the interest of all to align with the party and support Akpabio and Abbas.

Tijjani Ibrahim is a Journalist, Data Analyst, Digital and Strategic communication Expert and Political communication specialist. He can be reached on 08034386837 and email @ drtijjaniibrahim@gmail.com