A Major Commentator on Minor lssues
IN a manner of speaking we do not know who Bola Ahmed Tinubu is. He feels no discomfort about his variegated identity. His commitment to a life that showcases him as an exemplary embodiment of averseness to clarity is only a wonder to the rest of us. Everything about him is sipped in debates, doubts, and ridiculousities peculiar to Tinubu.
Trite as this sounds we know he is President though that is in dispute at the tribunal. What else do we know?
Nothing in real terms. Things about Tinubu are fleeting. Daily, new details emerge which should shock anyone but Tinubu.
Tinubu is different. He has brought so many things to the table about how unfathomable Nigeria is. Should this not worry us? Why should it when we watched Tinubu warm his way through the labyrinths of nebulous standards and it worked for him? He is hero to many who are climbing the ladder with his tactics.
Now that he is President can we know some things about him? Can we ask more questions when we have not got answers for the ones asked?
The vacillating answers his media hands provide are conflicting, tentative, momentary and only compound the indifference with which Tinubu treats important matters about his identity.
His followers say we miss the Tinubu magic when we interrogate it. We should accept his methods and ride with them. He is that different.
Of uttermost importance to Tinubu is to remain President. He has achieved his life-long ambition of being President of Nigeria. Nothing else matters to Tinubu, not his name, not his pedigree, not the confusion that his frighteningly fleeting policies are feeding a system that is hungry for sustainable measures to mitigate the locusts that eight years of Muhammadu Buhari were.
Nigerians have to banish thoughts of anything better from Tinubu who has surprisingly been honest about our worst fears. He promised to follow in the footsteps of Buhari. He promised to remove fuel subsidy. He did. He has exceeded Buhari’s harshness and has engaged his own steps.
When people speak of the President as a strategist, they instantly bring that word to gross disrepute, in ways that other folks can barely imagine. At the risk of swimming in unfamiliar waters I suspect that strategists aim for favourable outcomes as they move the pieces on their chest boards.
Tinubu’s strategies have landed him the presidency. This must be an end in itself. The applause ended before it started as the questions about who Tinubu is have become central to discussions about the President.
Is Tinubu bothered? Unlikely. Very unlikely. He has moved on with or without us. He operates above embarrassments.
Tinubu’s supporters think that funneling juicy appointments, as they are called, to them is a panacea to the challenges Nigeria faces. How many people would these appointments benefit? The hollow narrowness of platforms on which Tinubu is promoted only add to his opaque identities and raise more questions about Nigeria and her leadership recruitment processes.
Who writes to his university not to make his educational attainment public? Is Tinubu about to obliterate his Chicago days and drawls that he once was so proud about that he invested heavily in displaying them?
What is the essence of the Tinubu presidency that belies any thoughts beyond routine turns and tumbles? When will the President do a thing about the dreary economic circumstances bayoneting Nigerians?
There is always a Tinubu explanation for anything. While all the embarrassing details of our President are being contested in Chicago, Tinubu’s major defence is that the certificate from Chicago State University would not be admissible at the tribunal as the hearings have closed.
Nobody should minimalise the importance of that certificate. Answers to the questions about Tinubu, hopefully, from the Chicago court, would let us into some knowledge of the man who gained fame, fortune in that city.
We are already in troubles. We added Tinubu to them.
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Finally…
NIGER and Nigeria would not be in good neighbourly terms over the mis-handling of the change of government in Niamey. We should have put our strategic interests ahead of ECOWAS’ threats. It appears President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wants to remember that a war would hurt Nigeria more than Niger. ECOWAS cannot stop any country from managing its circumstances especially where ECOWAS sides with the sources of the challenges.
IS Minister of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa Musawa, still a serving member of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, as alleged in the media? NYSC confirmed she had not served. Senate President Godswill Akpabio asked her to take a bow during the screening for ministerial nominees. Time is ticking for Musawa to bow out.
NIGERIA Bar Association, NBA, has just handed Ifunanya Excel Grant, better known as “the baddest lawyer” what she craves most – publicity, more publicity. NBA said it had reported its concerns over Ifunanya’s social media posts that depict nudity and her consumption of illegal substances to Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee, LPDC. What types of behaviour of off-legal practice manners should be of interest to NBA? Ifunanya wonders.
HOW is the N5 billion handed out to the States supposed to be used? Some States would use it to pay salaries, in continuation of practices that assume the welfare of civil servants is the only concern of governments. We are not all civil servants. Millions of Nigerians work in the private sector. More millions are unemployed. Policies and practices of government should be more embracing.
MUDASHIRU Obasa, Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, who opened his current tenure with a declaration to make discriminatory laws against non-indigenes – he is not even from Lagos State – has upped the ante with the addition of religion to his arsenal. His charge that resulted in not clearing 22 of the 39 nominated as Commissioners reportedly rests on religion. When did religion become a substitute for competence?
THE National Assembly Election Tribunal in Umuahia on Monday dismissed the matter Chief Frank Ifeanyi Chinasa of Labour Party filed over the different names of Benjamin Kalu Okezie, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, of the All Progressives Congress. The tribunal dismissed the case for lack of merit.
Isiguzo is a major commentator on minor issues
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