As Tinubu approaches 66: Open letter from a non-Lagosian

Dear Asiwaju 1 of Nigeria,
Let me begin this correspondence on a high. First, as last week’s celebration of your 65 years on earth continues to resonate across the globe, it shouldn’t be too late or out of place to join the chorus and sing along a smashing 2017 birthday song. Secondly, this writer does not know Lagos that much. In fact, he’s only been there seven times in his 45 years. But, by piecing together crumbs of the feasts that our media and people have had on you, he knows you enough. This open letter is a function of that knowledge, and a certain belief about you.
In Nigeria, past and present, the South-West has permanently retained a stranglehold on the pride-of-place bragging rights as the geopolitical zone that has contributed the most human resource to our national human capital bank. Although ours is a country that plays politics on the religious or ethnic card sacrilegiously, no non-southwesterner would challenge that point because it is the truest truth. Nigeria has had iconic human input from your part of the country, citizens whose impact remains evergreen. For example, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the Sage who lives on, was a Nigerian from the South-West.
The region replicated his wonderful brain and heart across professions: in law, Chiefs Rotimi Williams and Gani Fawehinmi –a twosome who ‘terrorised’ the global lawspace like the enigma that they were; in business and democracy, the one and only Basorun MKO Abiola, who after overcoming extreme poverty went round the country and indeed the world distributing philanthropy and would later, with his dear wife, Kudirat, pay the supreme price so Nigeria would have this democracy. In football, that has since dethroned religion as the global opium of the people, the Yoruba gave us ‘mathematical’ Segun Odegbami and ‘headmaster’ Mutiu Adepoju, whose overlapping and goalscoring exploits we would treasure for eternity.
Elsewhere, how can history forget Fela (the same Fela), King Sunny Ade et al, whose dexterity in music echoes in ears and hearts and lips across the world? Ditto, in acting: Olu Jacobs and wife, Joke; Kunle Afolayan; Funke Akindele; Omotola Jalade Ekeinde. Sorry, it should not be more than a pair of names per profession. Funny, right? Yes, let’s talk comedy; a sector in which the South-West has not carried last, as we say in Nigeria: check out Ayo Makun (AY) and Afeez Oyetoro (Saka). But, seriously, coming to areas like education (Prof. Grace Alele-Williams and Babs Fafunwa); literature (Prof. Wole Soyinka and Prof. Niyi Osundare); leadership (Chief Lateef Jakande and Chief Bola Ige); and such other recurring decimals like Mike Adenuga (telecommunications), and the perennial elder statesman, Olusegun Obasanjo himself; are Nigerians of Yoruba stock who could be said to have added monumental value, (inter)nationally.
However, when it comes to politics, it is not too difficult to see that you, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, are the man. It is also easy to see the reason(s): your many sides, your effervescence, your visionariness, your virtuosity, and, above all, your prolificity. It just feels good that you are a Nigerian. Political discussants and watchers are agreed that how you masterfully maneuver political landmines enthralls even your opponents. You never shy away from danger. For instance, you readily sacrificed your senatorship in 1993 to join the trenches in the pro-June 12 struggle, a la NADECO. Nigeria hardly rewards political sacrifice but she did you with Lagos’ governorship in 1999, when you took all six states of your geopolitical zone. Four years later, you showed class and vision by being the only one to survive the OBJ, sorry PDP, Tsunami. All the other five of your Yoruba colleague-governors were consumed because of over-trusting fire.
In 2007, against all odds, you produced a successor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, until then your Chief of Staff. I don’t care what happened or hasn’t happened between both of you. All I know is that that protégé stayed on in 2011, the year in which you also recovered some southwestern states and even made incursions into other regions. But 2015 was the year your star shone the brightest. Beginning in Lagos, your party still had the upper hand via Governor Akinwunmi Ambode; you swept your region as well as most of the North plus our best and biggest political prize, Aso Rock. There must be something you know that an alarming majority of so-called political godfathers don’t. Yet, this is not your main unique selling point.
Really, that should be any or all of the following: your uncanny ability to groom and deploy quality. A decade after you served as governor, you have not only remained relevant if not indispensable in the national major league of politics, men and women you discovered and trained are now in the nooks and crannies of the country and the world also doing exploits, big time. One of them is our Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who shone like a million stars as Acting President. How did you get these rare gems, sir, and what did you inject into them? The other part of you that compels awe is how you create balance. Let me explain: you focus on taking care of outside but you don’t forget to water inside (family). Your wife is senator, your daughter (?) is market president. And, even in terms of religion, you are not like our typical politician who promotes only own religion. Today, Lagos has a Christian governor when you are a devout Muslim. Your then-Attorney-General, Osinbajo, is even a pastor.
Furthermore, Your Excellency also commands respect and admiration across party divides as could be seen on March 29, 2017, when even age-long opponents fell over themselves to be counted among those who celebrated your birthday publicly. Your newspaper, The Nation, alone had nearly 80 pages of such goodwill messages. Yet, all you are is a former governor. I keep wondering whether any Nigerian currently holding office would draw such goodwill. I celebrate you. As I said earlier, I am thrilled that you are a Nigerian. I am excited that you have so far succeeded in every enterprise: accounting, activism, politics, business, and life generally.
However, (and I apologise that this sweet nothings-laden love letter would end like a tragedy) I want you to consider quitting partisan politics either before you turn 66 or the 2019 general elections. Please, hear me out, dear National Leader. Your ovation can never ever be louder than it is now. You have done what Napoleon couldn’t do. You have conquered Politics Nigeriana. Bid it goodbye today. Retire to concentrate on Nigeria. Move around the country and teach leadership, mentoring, political survival and strategy. You have fought many wars and survived them all. Come out, and go about telling your story. That’s what Nigeria needs, going forward: an elder statesman Bola Tinubu not the politician version of whom our people have had enough. Lastly, we need to stop calling you former governor of Lagos. It is an unbefitting nomenclature for a man who went to the moon of politics and returned intact. Wishing you years upon years of elder statesmanship and nationalism that knows no party. God bless Nigeria!