Despite the best efforts of media machines of President Bola Tinubu and his ruling All Progressives Congress, at spinning the court-compelled public display of his academic record in the United States, questions, no doubt, linger on the obvious gaps, despite the desperation, to connect them, for public opinion and law courts.
The gaps, especially the issue of the Social Security number of the real person who went to Daley College, (even if we agree with Felix Morka, APC’s spokesperson that the gender disparity wasn’t a deliberate muddling), as well as the re-appearance of Government College (which the President himself appeared to have consented to not attending by not re-presenting it to INEC when filing for presidency unlike when he did, for governorship) make wagering risky, even when the facts seem unassailable.
Save for that, I would have submitted that of the three front runners in the February presidential poll, the declared winner, is also the most brilliant, academically. Hopefully, someone won’t turn up tomorrow claiming that Bola Tinubu of their days in the Chicago, used “mercenaries” to write those exams, that turned up excellent grades. If political mischiefs with results, can also count for brilliance, then, we can say the President has always been fecund, maybe with heavy mix of incredulous street wisdom.
If Atiku is dinging the President with relish over his obviously-contentious and controversial academic record, the depressing episode is on the Nigerian leader, who allowed a pursuer to determine how the race would be run. On this page, I had admonished him to beat his pursuers, to the truth, no matter, how hurtful.
Quoting Jesus then, I leaned on the One whose words can never fail, to remind him that there is nothing hidden that would not be brought into the open (Luke 3:17).
Seeing the reaction of the Tinubu camp to the compelled expose, it appears they didn’t expect Atiku, Tinubu’s ex-political and business ally, to be so bullish, to the point, of making the President, literally roam the market place, stark naked. That is what you get when two desperate people want a thing, especially a lifetime desire and both, presumably on their last leg, though only God, the Controller of times and seasons (Daniel 2:21) can determine when a man’s sun will rise and set. The most powerful nation on the earth is today being ruled, by an eighty year old, who thuds in public, like a toddler.
Legendary writer and proverbialist, Chinua Achebe, famously said that as long as the history of hunt is told by the hunter, he will always be the hero, while the lions, would have to seek their own historians, to turn the tide.
It is a strange twist of our recent history that Atiku Abubakar is the face of the ongoing accountability campaign against President Tinubu, because he himself has been held down in his presidential quest, mainly because of the widespread perception of moral decadence and dirtiness in handling public money, since his days as an officer of the Nigeria Customs.
Well, anyone can be used of God or of the devil. It depends on the assignment at hand. Even the devil, both real and reincarnated, God can use. To get David, the anointed king-elect (by God) to the palace as a way of acclimatizing before his ascension, God commanded an evil spirit to possess the incumbent, King Saul (See 1 Samuel 16:14) and made David, the temporary reprieve!
Atiku may be widely seen to be playing the Abogade del diablo (devil’s advocate in Spanish), considering his own alleged corruption baggage, both in private and public sectors, but he might actually be a vessel in God’s hand, for purposes, even beyond Tinubu, despite being the one, whose self-worth is being daily ripped.
The popular scripture, 1 Corinthians 1:27. about God using the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and the weak things of the world to shame the strong, seems the plausible way of explaining Atiku, going the whole hog in the accountability quest, though his voyage can’t also be divested from his desire.
The popular idiom says if you look the part, you can play the part. Who else would have shown the kind of doggedness in the pursuit of the controversy, if not a man desperate to benefit from a negative outcome for the person involved. God has a way of choosing a perfect vessel even if he/she appears imperfect to men. Instead of Asiwaju’s men, engaging in frenzied crucification of Atiku for his supposed infidelity to comradeship, they should retreat into sobriety, to seek answers to why an unworthy man in the eyes of millions, (he wasn’t the choice of more than two-thirds of the electorate), would be the chosen of God. Yes, chosen, because there had been riggers who didn’t ascend power.
If Atiku is going to benefit from his US voyage, (which from human understanding isn’t likely considering that the incumbent may unleash on him now that all gloves are off), it won’t be political. His brand may not even surge on the Chicago discovery. His public perception index isn’t also likely to witness post-Chicago bump. He appears mired in his past too, just like the man, he is trying to unveil.
A revered Uncle of mine on Friday texted a terse response to the viral anti-trans message of UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, at the 2023 Conservative Party Conference; “I agree with him but that means he has lost the next election”. Uncle can be uncannily prophetically predictive and already Rishi’s party is already projected to lose to the Labour Party in the 28 January, 2025 poll.
My Uncle was suggesting that the expected fury of the bent community would overwhelm the little chance Mr.Sunak has to hold his job past the poll, considering his current poor poll numbers and the Kingdom’s economy tanking on his watch.
However, his likely imminent defeat won’t change the fact that his message wasn’t wrong. God created male and female, man and woman he created them. He brought a woman out of a man, for marriage and copulation at creation, was between a man and a woman (and Adam knew his wife).
Atiku is a timeliner. In the biography by his now-late media aide, Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo, he promised himself to quit Customs if he didn’t make it to the leadership zenith at age 40, 17 years after joining as a 23 year old. IBB bypassed him and made good his self-threat. But something extraordinary happened while touring friends, to intimate them of his conviction to walk. READ ALSO:
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This is how Ojo told the story told him by Atiku himself.
“One of those Atiku consulted about his planned resignation was his old friend from Apapa Ports, Oyewole Fashawe. He visited Fashawe at Owo, his hometown. Like most of his friends, Fashawe advised him not to rush out of Customs until he had served as Director. But Mrs Lydia Ijamolayemi, Fashawe’s mother, had a different opinion. She advised Atiku to leave the Customs and embark on the journey God has destined for him.
“Five years earlier, she had visited Atiku in his office in Lagos and predicted that Atiku would be presiding over the affairs of Nigeria by age of 52 to 55 years. The matriarch of the Fashawe family was well known all over Owo and beyond as an extraordinarily gifted seer.”
Atiku evidently believed the prophesy. He has been trying to run on it. Almost 40 years after, and six presidential runs, the prophesy is yet fulfilled.
