Dr. Engr Odo Ijere advises Tinubu to learn from Buhari’s mistakes and leave Igbos alone.
TINUBU’S MOLUE POLITICS WILL BE HIS WORST MISTAKE.
When Tinubu at election rallies spoke about continuing from where Buhari stopped, no one took him seriously. No one believed any living creature could model Buhari’s emptiness and lack of vision much less emulating his banality and myopism in office.
Buhari was characterized by governance illiteracy and uncouth behavior not befitting of any human ecosystem. So what was it about Buhari’s government that anyone should continue? Time is beginning to tell anyway.
Buhari’s only known format in office was to fight Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB and the Igbos. You may call it the singular theme of his eight years presidency of aggravated failure. For Buhari to validate his presidency for 8 years, it was either Nnamdi Kanu, or IPOB or talking down and acting down the Igbo race.
While he was busy pursuing the Igbos and Nnamdi Kanu like a street gang leader in a gang war against rivals, Nigeria went down with him in ruins. We hope this will not be one of the ideals of Buhari that Tinubu wants to continue with?
Buhari could be excused as an illiterate warlord who didn’t have what it takes to lift his countrymen out of poverty and ruins but the same cannot be said of Tinubu, a product of Yoruba progressive elites class, Pro-democracy activist, and probably well oiled in the ideals of western egalitarian society.
Tinubu has no reason not to lift himself above the ultra conservative culture of the northern political elite led by Buhari and his tribesmen. He is not expected to follow the numbskull ideals of street gangs and molue politics of the plebians that attempts always to place something on nothing. Tinubu must lift this nation or reprobate to nothingness.
When Tinubu was negotiated into power against the spirit of the ballot, some of us reasoned that any southerner would reposition the nation along the path of prosperity much more than an average northern conservative class. But Tinubu continuing the jejune trajectory of Buhari’s government is seen as a betrayal of the people of this country who voted to leave Buhari and his corrupt gang behind. Satan, get thee behind me.
Tinubu’s speech concerning the killing of soldiers in Aba is worse than Buhari’s “dot in a circle” speech against the Igbos. The speech which employs the traction of retaliation is vituperative, unpresidential, and a declaration of war against innocent Igbos.
It will be a grave mistake to this nation to continually use the presidency to levy a proxy war against a component part of the federation. It did not pay in 1966 to 1970, it didn’t pay in Buhari’s first tenure, the policy also failed in Buhari’s second tenure and will most certainly fail again under Tinubu.
We want to remind Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu that the Yoruba and Igbo are not at war against each other. Soldiers killed in Aba ought to be thoroughly investigated because many armed groups exist today in Nigeria and move around dressed like our uniformed men unchallenged.
That some unknown and unidentified gunmen took a decision to shift the theater of conflict to Aba is a known script that has played out many times in the past without solution. We have not heard that Maiduguri, Zamfara, Jos, Kaduna, Abuja and other major towns in the north are besieged because few soldiers lost their lifes. Why besiege Aba?, an economic hub and huge Igbo population center because of soldiers casualty. You cannot give Aba the Okuama treatment while leaving the real culprits at large.
The real danger for Tinubu and the Yoruba is his being seen and labeled as hating the Igbos even more than Buhari. How will hating the Igbo give Tinubu’s government political and economic milage? What is the real worth of hating the Igboman? Has Nigeria not brought self inflicted war against itself?
Tinubu is expected to reconfigure the nation on a new path of economic progress based on regionalism. Then every major ethnic group will redefine their own future and peace will return to this blessed land. Anything short of this is another long wait for Godot.
There must be conscious effort by this government to deescalate conflicts for peace to reign. Let the Igbos be because the Igbo race is a consuming fire. Touch not my anointed and do my prophets no harm. To them whom God have blessed, no one can harm.
Dr. Engr Odo Ijere.
