Is the outcome of the Ondo gubernatorial election enough and conclusive evidence that Jagaba Bola Tinubu is politically "finished" as some emergency wheelchair analysts have concluded?
Was the election primarily designed to destroy Tinubu or to strength APC as a Party? Did Buhari tell you Tinubu is no longer relevant and desirable to the protection of his political interest? Can you claim to be a staunch APC supporter by promoting acrimony and bitter divisions among its leaders? Is the so-called humiliation of Tinubu the official policy of APC as a party?
In 2012, these same political "experts" arrogantly declared that Tinubu was politically kaput because his then ACN candidate Rotimi Akeredolu was defeated by Dr. Segun Mimiko. Yet, the same Tinubu became the rallying point for galvanising opposition parties into one single formidable merger that saw the routing of PDP from power.
Tinubu controlled more states than other former opposition parties in Nigeria. He is a political giant killer, a consummate organiser and mobiliser whose political strategic genius was never taken lightly even by the then ruling PDP. His unflagging commitment to entrench unity and bridge the gap of suspicions and mutual distrust among opposition parties in Nigeria resulted in the most formidable merger that swept away a dominant ruling party which once boasted it would rule for 60 years.
The PDP was deceived by a false sense of security, and even boasted that the merger could not last longer than a year. It was proved wrong.
The success of the opposition parties in 2015 cannot be fairly and objectively written without recognising the role of Jagaba Bola Tinubu in bringing about the most formidable coalition to oust PDP from power. As the Daily Trust newspaper Monday columnist Mahmud Muhammad Jega once noted, it is a mistake to humiliate Tinubu out of APC when you don't have any southwest politician formidable enough to replace him for now.
Triumphalism is politically dangerous. No wise master should delight in destroying his loyal slaves. Tinubu had a choice to retain the southwest without caring to capture power at the centre, a posture that would have helped PDP retain power. None of the former opposition parties could have individually captured power at the centre because they were largely regional parties, unlike PDP which enjoyed broader national appeal, an advantage it destroyed on account of corruption and greed.
Having formed a government at the centre, what the APC needs now more than anything else is unity. You cannot however achieve that goal if you allow some people within the party to start singing the war songs of "finishing off" Tinubu or anybody else. President Buhari should distance himself from party members whose goals is to spread the seeds of acrimony and bitter divisions and driving a wedge between him and Jagaba Tinubu.
It is politically naive, even foolhardy, to start shouting who is Tinubu. The APC National Chairman Chief John Oyegun should make reconciliation his priority and not adding fuel to the flames of acrimony and bitter divisions. You can't humiliate Tinubu without putting party unity at risk. The disintegration of the alliance by starting wars you can't finish will do more harm than good to the APC.
Despite the fact that nobody is indispensable, some people do make a difference. Former Governor Suswam of Benue State humiliated Senator Barnabas Gemade and other key party leaders that helped the PDP to power and he paid dearly for it. Just because you have power in your hands, don't seek to bring down key stakeholders that contributed immensely to the party's success.
As Yahaya Adamu Bajoga argued, when former PDP Governors threatened to leave, they were cavalierly told "good riddance to bad rubbish." The rest is history.
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