Whence is this Blueprint being thrown up by Asiwaju Bola
Tinubu, a la Chairman Mao's Red Book, as the basis of extant imbroglio in the
ruling party in Lagos? Who designed it? Who approved it? When is it due for
review? By the way, how many of those talking about it as if it were the holy
book, have seen it?
Forget the Blueprint facade. The unfolding Gov. Ambode
reelection issue revolves around STATE CAPTURE - some few powerful mandarins
had seized control of Lagos for upward of 20 years. They have deployed every
imaginable tool, legitimate or otherwise, to hold Nigeria's most viable State
down. It is convenient now to talk of Tunde Fashola, as if they never made an
attempt to abort what the gentleman was doing.
Of course, Lagos has been the worse for it. Democracy is
lying prostate. An overwhelming majority of Lagosians remain extremely poor,
and live in subhuman conditions, even in the face of humongous resources, much
of which, by subterfuge, suspiciously ends up in private pockets! Small wonder
those who never set up any factory anywhere prior their involvement in Lagos
politics would boast obscenely, 'Osun does not have my kind of money!'
Akinwumi Ambode doesn't come across as perfect or an angel,
but we shouldn't confuse the narrative. What he has done 'wrong' is to have
chosen to stand up to the formidable, pretentiously progressive political party
machinery in Lagos. For those who own, run, and put same to use, it does not
matter whether a Fashola, or an Ambode is performing or not. Ambode has to be
stopped and taken out, for daring the lion. Simplicita! Now, how does it
constitute progress - when the particularistic interest of a few party
apparatchiks supersedes that of the masses of the people?
Ambode may not get anywhere with his current effort,
especially given what I think is a bad outing at his so-called World Press
Conference. It came across as poorly coordinated, choreographed, and too
pedestrian, for a governor on the type of mission he has taken upon himself
(they couldn't even get enough microphones!).
Even so, it is good enough that someone is willing to
challenge, and shake off the crushing weight of this cathedral of fraud in
place in Lagos for so long. No formation lasts forever anyway. After all,
somebody in the past did everything to undermine an Afenifere that he once
acknowledged made his emergence in the political firmament possible in the
first instance. What goes round comes around, they say.
The truth is that there is no self-respecting individual
that would remain under such a yoke that they are won't to place on a
'governor' in that place forever. As it was with Fashola, so it is with Ambode,
even when they may seem to have handled the challenge differently. That is the
sense in Fashola's 'may our loyalty not be tested' thesis.
Again, as I noted earlier, let the contradictions play out
rapidly, and irretrievably. That is the route to Shaka Momoh's seminal inquiry,
'When will Lagos State be free of one man’s messianic mentality? Who will
liberate the state from Bola Tinubu’s suffocating grip?'
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