As Fayose Pops The Champagne

BY ABU SHEKARA  

In a video that has gone viral on social media, former governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, popped champaign and raised the glass to the people of Sokoto State over the defeat of the Peoples Democratic Party in the just concluded Governorship election.

Obviously having taken a sip too many before the camera rolled, Fayose was in a drunken frenzy, celebrating what he viewed as the downfall of Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal and concluded with a call to the electorate of Sokoto to ensure that Tambuwal did not win the senatorial seat in the upcoming rerun elections in the state.

It is impossible to recall when Fayose had any cause to speak to the people of Sokoto State, let alone identify with them in their affairs. He can therefore, not be on the list of their friends or well-wishers thus, cannot tell them who not to vote as their leaders.

The people of Sokoto are also not accustomed to taking advice from drunkards under the influence of alcohol. Yes, they have had interactions with such people out of respect, they speak to them only when they are sober.

Sokoto State electorate are politically mature and have the level of awareness to elect their own leaders, without being prodded by a total stranger, talking down on the people, as if he is wiser. They have their partisan differences but Fayose’s attempt to exploit their political rivalries to interfere in matters that solely affect their state is, to say the least, an affront.

Notwithstanding that Fayose holds the record for being the most uncouth public office holder in Nigeria’s history, it is gross disrespect for the corporate image of Sokoto people, for him to make his usual motor park remarks about the sitting governor of their state regardless of existing internal partisan acrimonies. It is ironic that some indigenes of Sokoto State found the Fayose video amusing and worthy of propagating on social media. As late Walter Ofanagoro said, anybody, who does not know when he is insulted, should go back to school.

As for Aminu Waziri Tambuwal’s senatorial ambition, the voters of his zone are already set in their opinion as to whether or not he deserves their mandate. Their choice will be based on their conviction about his capacity to represent them in the National Assembly, rather than Fayose’s meddlesome and drunken diatribe.

It is no guarded secret that Tambuwal has had detractors through his political career, which is expected of a man, whose convictions and actions have at different moments jeopardized the personal ambitions and private agendas of individuals and groups. But, the true values of his actions will be inevitably measured on the scale of morality, the determination of Tambuwal’s motivations for those actions and their implications for the nation, part of the country and the political parties he belonged to.

Tambuwal’s decamping to APC from the PDP in 2015, on whose platform he was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, his return to PDP in 2019 and his stepping down for Atiku Abubakar in the 2023 PDP presidential primary are being used as cannon fodder by elements seeking to disparage him. The wisdom and vindication of these moves by Tambuwal have however, manifested through subsequent events in the nation’s politics.

The PDP in 2015 was a sinking ship, rejected by Nigerians and abandoned enmasse by politicians, due to general dissatisfaction with its dismal performance as the ruling party at federal level. Tambuwal decamped to the APC, a coalition for change in the country and subsequently withdrew from the race for the party’s presidential ticket, in spite of being eminently eligible, which elicited resounding praise from party elders, including current President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“This sacrifice you have made”, Tinubu said to Tambuwal, “will not be in vain. It must be noted by all democrats across the country as an act of great patriotism”.

“We all appreciate the position you have taken and the sacrifice you have made. There are lessons to be learnt from all that is unfolding towards building a better future. This is noted by the party and Nigerians.”

The rationale of Tambuwal’s exit from the APC in 2019 has been proved by the hardships that Nigerians are currently going through in all aspects of life, due to the failure of the national government the APC controls. His withdrawal from the PDP 2023 presidential primary for Atiku Abubakar, was a heroic act, which judging from unfolding scenarios within the PDP, saved the party from lending its platform for the execution of a vengeful sectional agenda of an unstable megalomaniac, that would have drawn Nigeria back to pre-civil war period.

The forces ranged against Tambuwal are long existing and their efforts are relentless. This is not therefore, the first time schemes are hatched against him by vengeful elements and those desperate to pull him down, so as to prevent him from rising to the level where he could stand in the way of their personal ambitions.

This is an issue that has often played out through Tambuwal’s political journey; it was an important factor in the circumstances of his emergence as Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2011, his bids for the PDP presidential ticket and second term as governor in 2019 and now his attempt to hand over to a PDP government in Sokoto State in 2023.

Now, Tambuwal may not have delivered Sokoto State to PDP, his detractors seem to have gotten their pound of flesh and as Fayose said over champagne, “it’s payback time”, while reeling out the crimes for which Tambuwal should hang, which included scuttling Neysome Wike’s PDP presidential nomination.

The PDP may have lost the governorship of Sokoto State and the Sokoto gang up have probably secured their first objective. That should be followed by stopping Tambuwal from going to the Senate, which Fayose pleaded with the voters of Sokoto State to again help them achieve.

If that happens, the gang believe, “Tambuwal is finished”, as Fayose enthused in his video. And then, with Tambuwal finally out the way, the individual and group agendas his politics has all along jeopardized may well succeed.

That is if politics, by its character and nature is as wieldy as Tambuwal’s detractors believe it is. That is also dependent on whether conspiracy is ever perfect and conspirators shall not end up being victims of contrivances amongst themselves.