Comrade, you don’t know the man called Asiwaju Bola Tinubu at all or may be what you know about him are snippets of him here and there which you have assembled over the years into castle in the air.
But, on this 2023 presidential election, I have made up my mind that I, Asiwaju Mutalubi Ojo Ojutiwon Akinkunmi Adekunle Oyagbodun Oyagbade-Adebayo will not engage anybody in unnecessary argument or any argument at all.
My priority and my pre-occupation is how Professor Adeolu Akande would emerge as the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate and ultimately as the next governor of Oyo State to be sworn in, by the very special grace of God, on 29 May, 2023.
I will drive Professor Akande’s strategies and campaign and prosecute it with the same vigour and conviction that I prosecuted Team Penkelemesi from 2016 to 2019. So, help me God.
But I am wiser now, unlike in 2019 because I now have a Plan B in the most unlikely event that my hail doesn’t sail through (however, may God forbid). My Plan B is my fellow Ward 5 indeed, a quintessential gentleman and an omoluabi in all ramifications, and that is Mogaji Joseph Olasunkanmi Tegbe (aka JT Baba).
Last week Friday, I accompanied His Royal Majesty, Oba Francis Olusola Alao, Olugbon of Orile-Igbon Kingdom, to meet Professor Ben Ayade, the governor of Cross Rivers State, at his Asokoro’s private residence which he had acquired over 18 years ago.
Professor Ayade extolled some leadership virtues of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu that I wondered within myself whether the governor was talking of the same Lion of Bourdillon that some Yoruba so much despised and hated so much and will even wish that he becomes a pauper overnight or become an invalid vegetable, due to an imaginary affliction of health issues or that the man should just drop dead untimely!!!
We spent over three hours with Governor Ayade who I later got to know is a worthy alumnus of the best University in Nigeria, the numero uno, the premier, our University of Ibadan. I also learnt that Professor Ayade graduated at a very tender age in flying colours, and went on to bag a Masters postgraduate degree again from our same UI and later capped it up with a Ph.D from our UI again at the age of 26. He became a Professor at our UI but later left UI for Shell BP where he made fortunes.
The governor told us that he designed and built the UI sewage and effluent treatment and also the sewage system of Obafemi Awolowo Postgraduate Hall at our vintage varsity. I asked him for the reason why he left his comfort zone in Shell BP to join the murky waters of politics. His reasons would be a story for another day.
All that I was labouring to say was that why would Professor Ben Ayade, who is from the South-South zone, has tremendous respect for a Yoruba man in Asiwaju? While must we Yoruba always wish our own evil or bad luck and wishing them evil is not limited to Asiwaju Tinubu alone, some are also even wishing Professor Yemi Osinbajo same evil, while to others the evil should be the lot of Dr. Kayode Fayemi, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, my principal-in- law, the vintage Aketi himself and Otunba Ibikunle Amosun, just to mention few of them.
But why are we like that in Yorubaland?The answer is not far-fetched. The late sage, Papa Obafemi Awolowo, Chief SLA Akintola, Chief MKO Abiola, Chief Bola Ige and also my leader, my mentor, my confidant and my benefactor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, were all victims of Yoruba self-destruct politics. Are we to ascribe all those tendencies to the curse of Alaafin Aole too or do we trace it to that of the brutally sacrificed and cold-blooded murder of the hunchman at Oke’ badan?
All those, to me, were tell-tales because Williams Shakespeare had long settled and nailed it in his book, Julius Ceasar when he wrote- “The fault, Dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but ourselves, for we are the underlinings.”
Yorubas are the enemies of themselves and let us remind them again of Papa Hubbert Ogunde’s epic and ageless song, “Yoruba ronu o”.
•Adebayo Esq, Asiwaju of Idi-Aro and Ita-Ege, writes from Ward 5, Ibadan South-East Local Government Area of Oyo State.
