Rivers: How Will History Judge Tinubu? -By Olawale Olaleye

Rivers: How Will History Judge Tinubu?
Often drawing a parallel with some of the poor choices of past leaders appears one of the curses that hinders development and growth of the African giant, Nigeria.
Citing bad examples, glibly, to justify and also endorse obnoxious decisions or actions of a leader because he is “one of us” has continued to sink the country further into chasm.
One profound question that has yet to be answered on the Rivers matter is: who were those in the room with President Bola Tinubu, when he resolved to sidestep the constitution and exhibit dictatorship?
What was the problem in Rivers? Two spoilt brats knelt on the neck of the state solely for economic and political control and the president – a supposed father of the all – openly sided with one against the other.
The president was asked at the very beginning to mollify the madness being consciously orchestrated by one of his appointees and his estranged successor. But his intervention had only indicated that the governor, who was too naive and unintelligent to analyse what was coming, was being set up.
Who presides over a peace meeting with a pre-drafted agreement? Are peace agreements not usually drafted after all the issues had been thrown on the table at a meeting and the warring camps agreed to mend fences after they had each embraced the terms?
But the president, the all-powerful President Tinubu, the impossible peacemaker, allegedly walked into the meeting flashing an already drafted agreement and purportedly said to one of the parties in obvious resentment: “You’re a disgrace to democracy.”
Could such a statement have come from a fair arbiter? Was it not clear that the unthinking governor was being carefully guided and led into his eventual fall?
Surrounded largely by sycophants and seemingly conquered folks, the president had no one to tell him he had no powers to suspend an elected governor. Goodluck Jonathan must have been extremely lucky with the choice of those who served with him.
Perhaps, a serving service chief, not retired, would have been appointed by Tinubu to run the state for the period of the suspension if allowed to stretch further his god-complex and “I don’t give damn” approach to leadership.
Even more, the pronouncement by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, would later confirm people like him goaded the president on and sanctioned many of his unconstitutional choices, including Rivers.
Imagine a lawyer of his status – Senior Advocate of Nigeria at that – telling the states “not to dare” the federal government as though the subnational is subservient to the federal government.
Weeping for Nigeria is not enough to convey the depth of this letdown, coming from Fagbemi – a man, who embodied grace, goodwill and huge respect in the legal profession.
It was bad enough that the president, against constitutional provisions, suspended an elected governor like the principal of a secondary school would his student, he went on to install an illegal administrator, and also watched (of course with his backing) as this illegal occupant conducted local government elections in a democracy.
Has anyone taken time to listen and digest some of the spurious excuses advanced in support of the president? The most silly of them was that which claimed the decision was to save the governor from removal by the aggrieved legislators. So, which one makes more sense to them?
To let the state House of Assembly exercise its constitutional right however displeasing it might be or encourage the president’s brassy abuse of office under the thoughtless pretext of saving the governor, which was not really the case. It was all about annexing Rivers and that feat has been achieved.
For a man, who had spent his productive years flaunting suspicious democratic cards, it is yet to be seen how he intends to get out of the Rivers mess, which he walked into with unbridled arrogance of power and eyes open.
Both as governor and ordinary citizen – before and after office as governor – Tinubu had feigned to be a democrat, propounding ideas he neither believed in nor had the will to actualise, just so he keeps his followership and public approval rating.
The thoughts of a retired military person handing over to an elected governor after six months in ‘political suspension’ is repulsive and utterly unsightly. It is a desecration of everything democracy.
Suddenly, the whole thing started looking like an idea pre-conceived to achieve two things. One, to establish a strong footing for the ruling APC in a PDP stronghold through the backdoor. The recent local government elections clearly lent credence to this.
The second one is to possibly use the illegality of an administrator to save money for their election in 2027, since the oil rich state has too much money but unable to properly channel it to legacy goals and development except to enrich a few and create demigods.
As a former governor, Tinubu demystified the heritage of the democratic institution and her values. He desecrated constitutionalism and entrenched brigandage like brazen dictatorship in agbada.
He has shown, through Rivers, that his presidency is all about gabbing power and maximising same to the fullest. Nigeria won’t forget him in a hurry.
Except to project cheap hypocrisy, either for personal gains or blind support for an individual at the expense of the nation and the collective good of Nigerians, history will NEVER be kind to Tinubu as far as the handling and management of the Rivers matter is concerned.
It is inconceivable, and disturbing, to say the least, that everything Tinubu stood for – from his time in the trenches to the his days as senator, later as governor and also after office – he has trampled upon them all as president.
Rivers was the least of Nigeria’s problems in terms of the states that constitute threat to national security and unity. How many people died in Rivers when two ‘heedless and venal’ allies feuded?
To put this in context, let’s ask: How many Nigerians died in Benue? How many have continued to die in Borno and other parts of the north east, either through banditry, terrorism or humanitarian disasters?
Yet, only Rivers State caught the attention of Nigeria’s patriotic president so much that he wielded the “biggest stick” on the state and yet, some of you don’t understand why or still think his intervention was altruistic?
Dey play!
Olawale Olaleye