Editorial
Attack of Obi in Lagos: When Tinubu, Sanwo-Olu’s silence is not golden
Not a few Nigerians were shocked when the news broke out on Saturday that some supporters of Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, were waylaid on their way to the Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) venue of the party’s presidential campaign grand finale in Lagos and brutally attacked by some hoodlums.
Shock, in this instance, is a mild word, considering the grievous implications of the development. The incident ought to evoke some serious apprehension and be given a graver reading, if the place of violence in the history of Nigerian politics is dug up and placed on the front burner. Many historians have recorded how the Operation Wetie during the internecine conflagration, of the Wild-Wild-West era, in the Western Region Region, today’s South West, directly triggered off a series of event that brought down Nigeria’s First Republic, thus, largely responsible for then ugly face of Nigeria today.
Regardless the authenticity and credibility, that aspect of the Nigerian historical narrative, the fact that it is being raised at all, whether as mere spin or not, underscores the danger of violence and its concomitant import in the political life of a people. It is simply too dangerous to import it into politics at every level. That is why, everybody ought to be worried. That is why apprehension must replace shock and action must replace docility at this point.
Of course, for sometime now, there seems to have been a buildup to the incident. In various street corners and in the social media, the discourse around the 2023 politics, especially in Lagos, had given vent to some dangerous toxicity that ought to have wrung the bell in some informed and critical ears. The putrid smell had suffused the political firmament before now.
According to reports, the LP supporters were attacked with machetes and other objects as they made their way to Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) where the rally was to be held. In fact, but for the quick intervention of some medical personnel at TBS, who reportedly had their hands full as they attended to the injured, the story might have been different.
Who knows what might have been the fate of those seen in the viral videos and pictures of the incident, seen palpably wounded and in agony with parts of their bodies, heavily bandaged? Some of them could actually have bled to death for all anyone could know.
In fact, the reports say, the incident was a coordinated attack, as the hoodlums were said to have waylaid the LP supporters around Jakande in Lekki and at the Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) venue of the rally on Lagos Island, destroying their vehicles and inflicting deep machete wounds on them.
How else would anyone underscore the danger it portends, not only to the democratic ethos of the country, but the impact it could have, were it to be mimicked and replicated in other parts of the country.
Who are these people? Who sent them? What is their motive? Of course, fingers are being pointed at the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state. There is the allegation that the party has forbidden any resident in Lagos to vote any other candidate outside its own at the various levels of political offices at the pain of physical harm or even death.
Those, who carried out the attack and similar ones before now, were enforcers, unleashed to carry out orders in this direction. In fact, the social media is awash with recorded messages, where clear instructions were being dished out to some residents of the state from other parts of the country as to the direction they must vote, at the price of peaceful existence, habitation and business in the state.
In one of such particular tapes, said to emanate from one of the suburbs, the residents were being warned that they must record their choice of votes at the polls with their cameras, regardless that it is criminal offence to do so, just to prove that they voted for the APC candidates.
Of course, these stories, remain at the level of allegations. But real or imagined, the message are not only very clear, but the implications are very dire and dangerous, given that some members of the public, among them political brigands could act on them either as lone loose cannons or at the direction and instruction of higher authorities.
That is why those in authority in the state must come out with decisive, clear messages on where they stand on the dangerous development. It is not edifying that no words have come from the Lagos State Government, where the incident happened or Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor or Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, the alter ego of the state and currently the National Leader and presidential candidate of the APC.
Obi, who in his quick reaction, had described the attack as “troubling,” urging the police to fish out those responsible, had given further details, saying: “I received reports that four members of the Obidient Family were attacked and injured in Lagos ahead of today’s rally. That incident, premeditated or not, is deeply troubling. Such act stands vehemently condemned.
“We cannot continue to tolerate attacks on members of the political opposition, often fuelled by the incendiary rhetorics of political leaders. The new Nigeria that we seek is one founded on peace and justice, and the respect for the rule of law. I call on the Lagos State security agencies to fish out those responsible for the attacks.”
Benjamin Hundeyin, spokesman of the Lagos State Police Command, who also gave details of the incident, said operatives were already investigating the matter, adding that the attack was regrettable and that witnesses were already helping the police with relevant information.
“The Jakande Ward Chairman of the Labour Party commendably reported an attack on his party members at Ilasan Division. Four injured persons have been given medical attention. The Divisional Police Officer, Ilasan, has commenced preliminary investigations while the State Criminal Investigation Department is to fully take over investigations.
“The injured and other witnesses are assisting the Police with relevant information that would aid the apprehension and prosecution of the attackers. This attack is reprehensible! It is verifiable that the Command had stationed, since yesterday, patrol vehicles and officers at the Tafawa Balewa Square venue of today’s rally. We had already secured the venue to prevent any breakdown of law and order,” Hundeyin said in a series of tweets on Saturday.
Yet for Sanwo-Olu, et al, mum has remained the word. This is not healthy at all. This is not a time to be silent. Yes, silence is said to be golden. But not at this time. Outside politics, this is his state and he is in charge. Nobody should spell out to him that the security and welfare of residents in Lagos, remains his primary duty in office, regardless of who they are and whatever political leaning.
Outside a clear message to rein in such occurrence, either by quickly putting a machinery in place that would lead to the arrest of the hoodlums, he must be conscious of the fact that silence in this case, could mean either a tacit support or full endorsement of the attack, willy-nilly.
Suppose other states took a cue from the narrative in Lagos that residents must vote in one direction and insist that in their own domains as well, non-indigenes must also toe the line, where then lies the value of choice, which is the liv-ewire of democracy via election, as the most critical component? In the first place, would it not be foolish to assume that only Lagos alone is the make or mar state for the victory of the APC?
For us at the WhirlwindNews, it is not only an appeal, but a demand Nigerians and the world at large must make at this point. The powers that be in Lagos, Sanwo-Olu, et al, must stand up and speak. Now!
It began less than 10 minutes after taking the oath of office. In his address to the nation, he uttered those three-letter words – subsidy is gone. The ink with which he signed the documents declaring him President was yet to dry.
That was it. From that moment, Nigerians have known nothing but poverty, tears and death. It was a declaration that came out of impulse rather than articulacy. It was not even contained in his original speech prepared for the occasion. But it sprouted out – from a rash, unthinking and impetuous mental construct.
But the effect was instant, the impact direct. From that moment, Nigerians have never known peace. Every thing took a cue. Minutes after, the news broke that the price of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as petrol had jumped from N189 to N550. It was that instant. Today, it hovers around N1,500.
The effect: Within minutes, transportation cost quadrupled. So too, commodity prices. Caught unawares, marketers, who had earlier thought it was a day of the rains as customers rushed to their shops, soon became suspicious and then got wiser – these were not ordinary customers but smart alecs playing a fast one on them.
They stopped selling, retrieved the items they could from those who had not disappeared with their goods and closed shop to study the situation properly. Hours after, they responded. A plate of eba and soup, went up from N200 to N1,000. Prices hit the rooftops.
In fact, the vehicle transporting what used to be Nigeria, which had been moving at a horse and buggy pace in the days of Muhammadu Buhari, stopped abruptly, engaged the reverse gear and began galloping backwards. That has remained the ugly, parlous tale of the Tinubu days, since May 29, 2023.
Now, the expectation would be that the President and his government that wrought such a horrendous punishment on the polity, would themselves take some blows. But nada! Instead, the opposite was the case. Within months of plunging the citizens into the untold hardship Tinubu went on a binge, spending money – in the words of Olusegun Obasanjo, former President – like a drunken sailor.
Few weeks after, as Nigerians were reeling and gasping in pain from the impact of their new situation, 469 newly-minted Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), rolled out from factories in Japan, where they were produced into the premises of the National Assembly for the just inaugurated members.
Put the cost at N100billion – that is N160million for each unit, plus other charges. Reason: The lawmakers needed the vehicles because of their good suspension system, to navigate the so many bad roads in Nigeria. Yes, you heard right. How could they think well and make good laws after the hassles of the bad roads? Tinubu saw reasons, acquiesced and voila!
But it did not end there. Tinubu suddenly realised that Kashim Shettima, his deputy, needed a new home “befitting” his new office. Pronto! A voucher of N21billion was raised and he had it. Till date a haze still hovers over the project.
The last news that was heard was that Number Two refused to take residence because the entire environment, including the toilets was wired to the teeth to monitor him. And Number Two needed privacy.
Again, in the same weeks, Oga Patapata, also realised that Madam needed to transport more comfortably. Pronto! It was arranged. Another voucher was raised for cars for the Office of the First Lady. Cost N1.2billion. Of course, madam needed the comfort for peace at home.
Naturally, since transportation is not done by land alone, he also took care of that. For the sea, a yacht was procured. Cost N5billion. Because the birds in the presidential fleet were not good enough, Tinubu did the needful.
He enriched the fleet with the one befitting of his status and had it transformed to mimic the US Air Force One. To complete the status symbol project, he also added a replica of The Beast, the US presidential automobile.
Ironically, the funds used in procuring these luxury lifestyle, came, not out of productive ventures of Nigeria, but through borrowing. Today, Tinubu has practically borrowed Nigeria blind, doubling or even tripling that of his predecessors.
Meanwhile Nigerians had upped the ante from mere groaning and skreiching. Citizens, unable to take it anymore, now stop their hitherto sleek vehicles on the Third Mainland Bridge and plunge into the Lagos lagoon to end it all. The option is now more rampant than remote and occasional.
Many others, taking the Socrates option, now drink hemlock and many more simply sleep off without any intention of waking up. That is where we are. That is the new Nigeria – the Tinubu Nigeria. But there is more.
Terrorists and the landlords of the forest, having now discovered that the Commander-in-Chief has other fancies than security and welfare of the people – the constitutionally-declared primary purpose of government and scant regard for the citizens, have practically gone haywire. They have taken over and established their authority.
Presently, outside those wantonly slaughtered or butchered in their homes like animals at the abattoir, incinerated alive while sleeping on their beds, among other forms of decimation, many more citizens are now spending months, going to years as victims of captivity with them in various forests in Nigeria.
In their rampage, the terrorists have since broken all barriers considered out of place hitherto. One of their escapades is the present videos of the school children and teachers taken from Oyo State. The gory imagery captures the current Nigerian story.
For instance, on Thursday, just as the sound of heavy celebration was going on in neighbouring Ogun State as the world marked the Ojude Oba yearly carnival, two of the victims, one of them with a toddler on her back, were pleading for their lives, as others went through various forms of torture, including heavy whipping like beasts.
Don’t forget that the terrorists had earlier slaughtered one of their colleagues. In the new video, the totally terrified women, informed that they had chosen another victim to be similarly eliminated. Yet, no word about rescue! Terrible!
Interestingly, if not painfully, Tinubu’s response, in the few cases he bothered, was to see the crisis through the politics lens. His most recent reaction was to tell the world that the harvest of attacks and carnages ravaging the country, were sponsored by his political enemies, intent on shoving him out of power. That to him was all that mattered.
Now, where are your powers as C-in-C? They are mostly found in the most disgraceful economic and political acts of impunity. Nigerians now waking up to hear of the award of brain-dazing contracts such as the N15trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Badagry-Maiduguri Highway – with scant regard for official regulations, is now becoming more common than rare.
Few days after one of the teachers was beheaded and the video of the hideous act made to circulate on the social media, the President and his All Progressives Congress (APC), party, rolled out the drums of his winning the party’s ticket to contest the 2027 presidential election.
To say that it has been three years of weeping, wailing, mourning and gnashing of the teeth, is a clear euphemism. There is no starker way of putting it than calamity – pure, unmitigated catastrophe – disaster.
Then comes the big question. Nigeria is already breasting the tape of these ruinous years of the first term. Suppose Tinubu succeeds in renewing his tenure by January next year? Will Nigeria survive five more years of a life like the last three? What will be left of Nigeria? Is there a way out, outside shouting – God forbid!?
Now that Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has fully executed his plot against Siminalayi Fubara, Governor of Rivers State, where would it be placed in terms of identity, nuances, ethos and history? Where would it be placed in democratic arrangement and value? In other word, by what name would it be called?
So, this is what President Bola Tinubu’s much-advertised democratic credentials is all about? This is what being listed among the arrowheads in the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), the body that fought relentlessly against the late Sani Abacha and his henchmen has finally come to?
Is this where “The Last Man Standing” – apologies Tony Elumelu – has ended up? So, after wedging an epic battle for and through Lagos State, against then President Obasanjo and practically defeating him, even if perceptibly, in all the struggles – such as running government without federal allocation for years and surviving the political onslaught that took away other South West states like a tsunami, it has come to this?
Don’t forget that it was this selfsame Tinubu that served as the bastion of opposition in Nigerian politics from when he was Governor of Lagos State, not only standing up against Obasanjo, but undertaking the relentless battles that led to the All Progressives Congress (APC), winning the war eventually in 2015.
So, this is what all the struggles, the speeches, the colloquia, the meetings and the strategies have come to – the end result? So, the definition of democracy, to Tinubu, is selling the dog to buy a monkey – replacing democratic bad-behaviour with democratic-heist? So, this is it?!
Make no mistake about it. What you saw play out in Rivers is nothing but Tinubu at work. It is all about him, it is for him. Never make the mistake of adorning Wike in the toga of a powerful man. That would be a fatal error of judgement. Every power he exercises, real, imagined, inferred or contingent belong to and are exclusive to Tinubu.
Take away the President and Wike would turn to a political meek-lamb or a jellyfish. Fubara would have eaten him for lunch a long time ago. So, Tinubu it is – the reason the klieglights must be beamed on him. That is why he must carry the can in this odious construct in Rivers in particular and the entire Nigerian political scenario in general.
With the picture that assaulted Nigeria regarding the APC primaries that have just held, what is different from the edition we saw in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of old? Is it not worse or the worst in real and imagined terms? What then has Tinubu been fighting all these years?
Incidentally, where we have Wike today, we had Lamidi Adedibu, the Amala Politics exponent, Tony Aneni of the Mr. Fix-it fame and the Uba brothers in Anambra to whom the political firmament in Nigeria once bowed, among many plethora of examples.
So, there is nothing really new about the development, but for the fresh dimension that has been introduced into the narrative by the Wike phenomenon, which is totally novel. Before now it was a case of one behemoth in a political party rampaging the system.
But today, it has gone beyond that. Wike has developed the penchant for taking no prisoners. In his own strange construct, he has now coalesced the entire APC and PDP structure into his shoulder basket, from where he dispenses favours.
Imagine Kingsley Chinda, purchasing APC governorship election form, as a PDP federal lawmaker without first resigning from his original party. That is how wacky it has become. Wackier still is that nobody – not even the APC apparatchik has been able to raise a finger. Why? Obvious answer – the Tinubu factor.
Now, here is the danger. By the heist in Port Harcourt adding to the sequence of political oddities and absurdities since the Tinubu years, it has become obvious that Nigeria is headed towards a Paul Biya’s Cameroun, a Yoweri Musaveni’s Uganda and Zimbabwe under the late Robert Mugabe.
Tinubu, has shown obvious incapacity to tackle the parlous economic crisis in the country with 150 million Nigerians plunged into multidimensional poverty and many more growing the list daily, while also displaying uncommon powerlessness towards addressing the debilitating state of insecurity.
Under his nose citizens are daily being forced from their homes into the forests by terrorists, with some of them taken from their crutching positions, positioned before the camera and slaughtered – heads cut off like animals at an abattoir and video images freely displayed on social media.
Yet, by what has now happened in Rivers State, it has become obvious that Nigerians are not being factored into the whole equation and if they were, scant regard is paid to their opinion, ending in their powerlessness to change the situation. That is the tragedy!
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