Tinubu's God Complex...

First published: 3 March 2011 at 14:56

Source: BEHIND THE FIGURES by Ijeoma Nwogwugwu

ijeomanwogwugwu@thisdayonline.com

Tinubu’s God Complex

Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State, is running amuck and has been allowed to do so for too long. Otherwise how can one rationalise two statements attributed to the former governor in a space of 24 hours last week? The first was the order that incumbent governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola should sack all striking doctors and dentists employed by the Lagos State Government and have them replaced with new ones.

The second was his declaration that Fashola has no business appointing commissioners in the state he administers. That responsibility, he reckoned, lies solely with the ruling party in Lagos, the Action Congress of Nigeria. If these are not the utterances of someone who is getting high on his own sense of self-importance, then I need my own head checked.

This is not to make excuses for the irrational medical personnel in Lagos, who have been coddled and pampered by the state government and are currently being paid wages that millions of professionals in Nigeria would jump at. Still, calling for their sack in one fell swoop does not solve the problem.

For one, recruiting and placing hundreds of doctors and dentists in the right positions in Lagos will amount to a costly, energy sapping exercise that will take several months and years to execute. It would be a lot more cost-effective and faster to keep negotiating with the recalcitrant medical practitioners until an accord, suitable to all parties, is reached. Two, sacking all of them collectively would elevate the crisis, could attract the sympathy of their colleagues nationwide and other labour unions, and snowball into one of unmanageable proportions that Lagos State would later regret.

Three, shouldn’t the responsibility on how to handle the striking doctors in Lagos reside with the state Ministries of Health and Establishment and the governor, Fashola? Instead, Tinubu’s directive to sack the state’s medical personnel was littered with the pronoun “we”. As in “We have provided a conducive environment for them to work and yet they are still not satisfied…”, “We are not going to reinstate him (Dr. Ibrahim Olaifa) because the moment you subject the authority given by the constitution to blackmail, you are finished…”, ““We have increased the salary of doctors to 75 percent and what that implies is that the most junior doctors in the state today have their salary increase from N110, 000 to N170, 000”.  Who are “we”?

As I write this, I am not aware that Tinubu is still the governor of Lagos State, nor is he a member of state’s cabinet. Neither is he a member of the state House of Assembly. What we do know about Tinubu is that he is a member of the ACN, a key member and financier, but nothing more, nothing less. Even if the strike by the doctors and dentists in Lagos is politically motivated, as Tinubu has alleged, did he have the mandate of his party to issue the directive? Was it one taken by the stakeholders of the party that this was their position on the state they control politically?

Which brings us to the other bizarre declaration by Tinubu; that the responsibility of appointing commissioners and special advisers into the state’s cabinet resides solely with the ACN. Fashola, on the other hand, should accept whoever is thrust upon him, because according to Tinubu, “many trusted people campaigned with the governor on the field and hence should be rewarded.” In other words, if they are rogues, incompetent and complete imbeciles, they should be rewarded with appointments into the cabinet, just because the party (sorry, Tinubu), says so. I wonder if Tinubu as governor had his cabinet members picked for him solely by his party. Obviously, since he picked most of the cabinet members in 2007, he reckons he can lord it over Fashola again in 2011. Poor Fashola! What on earth has he gotten himself into?

But even if we were to digress a bit from Tinubu’s unchecked meddling into the affairs of Lagos and contrasted his statement with that of General Muhammadu Buhari’s on what led to the breakdown of talks between ACN and the Congress for Progressive Change on their proposed alliance, it has become quite apparent that there is something amiss.

Whilst Tinubu has blamed everything blamable under the sun, including some alleged moles planted by the Peoples Democratic Party and former President Olusegun Obasanjo to truncate the proposed alliance, Buhari and his party’s response has been measured, reminding the former governor that it was his ambition that led to the dissolution of the proposed affiliation. Buhari’s statement was further corroborated by a member of ACN, Attahiru Bafarawa, who claimed over the weekend, that it was Tinubu’s desire to be Buhari’s running mate that led to the breakdown in talks between the parties. I wonder how Nuhu Ribadu, the “presidential” candidate of ACN must be feeling now that everything’s out in the open that he was merely a pawn in a grand design that fell flat on its face.

Clearly, Tinubu is exhibiting signs of someone suffering from a case of the god complex – a state of mind in which a person believes that they have supernatural powers or god-like abilities, and generally believes they are above the rules of society and should be given special consideration. That they have taken this long to manifest is even a miracle. Quite frankly, anyone allowed to run around without control with the amount of power he wields particularly in Lagos and some states in the south-west would end up misusing it. Even those with some recollection of Chief Obafemi Awolowo at the height of his reign in the old western region and Lagos, acknowledge that the late sage was a lot more circumspect about imposing his influence over the dominion he controlled.   

Privately, I have always expressed concern about the stranglehold Tinubu has over Lagos. Those blindly in support of his excesses have always excused them on the grounds that he made Fashola what he is today and has shielded the state from the marauding army of the PDP. Yes, he handpicked Fashola and has managed to “outsmart” the PDP at its own game in some sections of the south-west, but that does not mean that those of us resident in Lagos should standby and allow the governor to be turned into a zombie controlled from Tinubu’s private fiefdom in Ikoyi. The governor, after all, swore to work for Lagos and its people, not for Tinubu and Company Limited.

Contrary to the popular perception, Tinubu really had no choice but to endorse and support Fashola’s reelection bid as the ACN governorship candidate in Lagos State for the April poll. Though Fashola had to beg and kowtow to get Tinubu’s blessing, realistically the ACN strongman knew that the governor was too popular to discard and would have had a riot on his hands had he done so. What this implies is that even when Tinubu’s judgement is beclouded with the power and influence that he thinks he possesses, some glimmer of clarity occasionally shines through and reminds him that power actually resides with the people.

Historically and current events in North Africa and the Middle East all point to the fact that no strongman has ever survived a popular rebellion by the people. A revolt, in this case, does not have to translate to people rioting on the streets and clashing with constituted authority. A revolt can come by way of protest votes for another candidate or a plebiscite indicating that they have had enough.

Tinubu’s saving grace to date is that his successor is widely liked. He should also thank his stars that the other parties in Lagos have not offered us credible alternatives worth considering. This writer among millions of Lagosians on election day would most likely cast our votes for Fashola on April 16. But Tinubu needs to get off his high horse and stop pushing his luck. Otherwise he will wake up one day to discover that the emperor has been stripped bare.

QUOTE

“Those blindly in support of Tinubu’s excesses have always excused them on the grounds that he has shielded the state from the marauding army of the PDP. Yes, he has managed to “outsmart” the PDP at its own game in some sections of the south-west, but that does not mean that those of us resident in Lagos should standby and allow Fashola to be turned into a zombie controlled from Tinubu’s private fiefdom in Ikoyi.”