MTP is the law; he can do no wrong

By Ugo Onuoha THERE are many persons in this republic whose names should never appear in the same sentence with the word democracy. Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria’s current president is one such name. There are many others. He has been around for more than awhile. His reputation precedes him, but hardly for good. There’s no suggestion here that he’s a thoroughly bad man. And irredeemable. But he carries such a heavy baggage that ordinarily would have killed off the social, cultural, political, economic, public and private lives of three persons combined. You will be living in denial not to give credit to any person who has allegedly lived with a false name almost all his life, and who has travelled the world and also worked in transnational corporations with the said dodgy name. You probably may have read or known of someone who claimed to be an alumnus of a school they never attended. Tinubu is one such person. Claiming alumnus of an academic institution not attended is almost an everyday occurrence these days. He had once claimed to be a former student of the University of Chicago, and actually filled a form in that regard for election purposes. But it turned out that he was not a former student of that college. He was caught. He recanted, and then quickly recruited one senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi to play the role of a fall guy. He got away with it in spite of a dogged pursuit in the law courts by the late fiery attorney Gani Fawehinmi. “Tinubu is baked in the furnace of the streets, at home and abroad. Apart from becoming the president of our country, not much has changed concerning him. During his soujourn in the US in the 1970s, he was also law onto himself or an outlaw as some would like to say until he was not. He was alleged to be a banker to outlaws and henchmen of the underworld.” In line with what appeared to be his life and career, the same person who is today the president of our country attempted to hoodwink old students of the prestigious Government College, Ibadan in Oyo state to host a reception for him as one of their own who has made it in life, decades ago. Again, he was caught at the last minute when nobody could identify as his classmate. However, he was undeterred. Somewhere in his dark past, Tinubu had filled out yet another application to the effect that he had attended yet another Government College, but this time in the Eric Moore, Surulere area of Lagos in 1970. A casual search indicated that Government College, Eric Moore was founded in 1974, clear four years after he claimed that he had attended the school as part of a requirement for admission into a university in the US. He reportedly gained the admission into the college. The admission, to this day, remains controversial. He’s said to have acquired a diploma from that university. But the diploma remains controversial. Even forgery has been associated with it. Lawyers say you cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stand. This is not for Tinubu. He puts something on nothing, and wills it to stand. With Tinubu, the so-called learned people are stark illiterates. In some other climes their citizens and sundry gatekeepers of the sanity and health of their nations work extra hard to keep away some people from the levers of the powers of government. Many fall into the category of people who are usually shut out of acquiring and exercising the enormous powers of government. But for this conversation we will restrict ourselves to only two categories of such persons who should be kept out of wielding state power. The first of such persons are those who are mired in sullied and questionable past. The fear is that those in this category carry their life of criminal ‘entrepreneurship’ into government to the hurt of the majority of the people. A leopard does not change its spot. The second group that every sane society tries very hard to keep out of the very top echelons of government is the extremely wealthy, especially those with riches of the questionable type. During the 2023 presidential election, the phrase ‘wealth without enterprise’ gained currency and traction. There are many of them in government today. Lawyer and politician, Muiz Banire, it was who once described them as politicians without a second address. For such people partisan politics and access to the public treasury is their sole and only means of sustenance and livelihood. To them the talk of democracy and its ethos are tales by idiots. To them majority of Nigerians are fools and only good enough to be used as canon fodders in the quest for political power. “Tinubu has no principles. He only pretends to be a democrat. He is driven by selfish interests. He’s a tortured man. He is insecure in spite of his bragaddacio. If you are in doubt about how insecure Tinubu is, look at the form and texture of his security chiefs and kitchen cabinet?” Tinubu is baked in the furnace of the streets, at home and abroad. Apart from becoming the president of our country, not much has changed concerning him. During his soujourn in the US in the 1970s, he was also law onto himself or an outlaw as some would like to say until he was not. He was alleged to be a banker to outlaws and henchmen of the underworld. And reportedly refunded a huge sum of money to the US authorities in Chicago for alleged illicit deals. A lawyer who was one of his campaign spokespersons in 2023 said Tinubu was not sued for the recovery of the money suspected to be proceeds from illicit drugs. He said only the bank accounts which bore his name were sued for wrongdoing. The man who was engaged in that lawyering, Festus Keyamo, is today the minister of aviation