By  Fola Ojo

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AT the turn of specific seasons of life; and in set times buried in the exclusive knowledge of Divinity, humanity experiences the birthing of certain beings who have been marked to carry out specific assignments on behalf of specific territories and nations. Nigeria once had those beings. Many of them are late; but they are men Nigerians still celebrate up till today for what they dropped behind in vestiges from their strides.
In the Southwest was Obafemi Awolowo, an erudite and visionary personality, who carried his people and their well-being on his bruised and battered back for a very long time. Nnamdi Azikiwe was an admirable tower of sagacity from the Eastern part of the country. He markedly presided over an evolving Nigeria and departed a celebrity.  Ahmadu Bello Sardauna of Sokoto was an enigma in the North. He also pulled his weight with fortitude and strength among his people and in Nigeria. These men and many others, including women, emboldened their footprints on the interlock of Nigeria’s history. They raised disciples who, in turn, raised other disciples who thereon and till now are attempting to raise others in a combined effort to make Nigeria great and wholesome.
I have never met Bola Ahmed Tinubu, one-time political activist and one-time Lagos State governor, one-time senator, a bawling voice in the wilderness of Nigerian politics, and a phat phenomenon. He is the one I beam my searchlight on in this short treatise. I saw him for the first time when I sat a few feet away from him at Osun Stadium during the inauguration of Rauf Aregbesola as second-term Governor 2014. I purposely gazed at this man for a long time to determine if God would reveal to me why he is deemed such a terrific titanic to many. I saw an ordinary man donned in regular Guinea Brocade. A man just like you and I; but a being with a different swing in a realm unspeakable; moving, shaking, and shaping men, politics, policies and polity in Nigeria.
Those who love Tinubu are very many; and those who despise him are not few either.  I have stumbled on a few people in politics and business who believe their lives wouldn’t have had meanings if their paths never crossed Tinubu’s. I have also parleyed with some who loathe him and wish he were not in the big picture of Nigerian politics. The latter category of people will allege that Tinubu has made a mess of their political lives; but the number of his hardened admirers grows hourly for many reasons. Someone once affirmed that if a man wants to get ahead in the crude game of Nigerian politics; after talking to God, you must talk to Tinubu. He is the Jagaban of Borgu; and he is not a phantom phenomenon. He is phat!
Before Bukola Saraki pulled a fast one on his party last year to become the Senate President, he had to launch an underground campaign against Tinubu first. And, was that not a good soundtrack in the ears of Tinubu-haters? “Tinubu wants to control all of us, let’s tell him that won’t happen”; that was the mantra of Saraki’s campaign.
In the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara had to read off the same script to become Speaker. Dogara painted Tinubu as a control-freak first before he rode on to power. Dino Maleaye once accused Tinubu of being the brain behind his political travails, and those who were standing behind Ike Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President also claimed that Jagaban was the source of their tribulations.
For men’s marital and business woes, they have blamed Tinubu and it sold like hot cake in the market of ignorance and benightedness. Is Tinubu God? God is not a man! And Tinubu has never called himself such. But his traducers will tell you he acts like the Holy One. But, he is a man on a special spiritual assignment, and he doesn’t have to dream dreams and see visions to play that role. Tinubu is a colossus in Nigerian politics!
Men who choose to fight Tinubu do so dirty; and the field of the fight he now fights has grown wider since he stood behind Muhammadu Buhari in the last Presidential election and triumphed.
Buhari was not particularly a thriller as candidate. If Nigerians were voting charisma, charm and pizzazz in the election, Buhari will still be in the ‘other room’ beholding his beautiful wife’s face. If we were voting soothing, mesmerizing speech machinist, the General will still be in his Daura farmland feeding and milking his 100 cows.  But Buhari stands tall as a man of character and modesty who goes not after filthy lucre, gluttony, graft, or maddening amassing of wealth. Tinubu went into the rubbles of Daura and cleaned up the garments of this man who was once called an election serial-loser; built a bullish team coated with savvy salvaging spices around him, and marketed him to the same clientele that had three times in a row rejected the product.  He who was once called a serial-loser is now President over 180 million people and the Giant of Africa because of Tinubu.
Tinubu saw virtues in the president and decided to stand  behind him while he convinced all of the Southwest and more to stand behind the APC candidate.  The desire to change Nigeria came in a head-on collision with guts, and there was the birthing of a cohesive, unstoppable rainbow coalition that uploaded millions of brooms at the polls for a clean sweep. Tinubu is a discoverer of talents and a potter who moulds men of skills. He is a man on assignment, and wise men should reverence men behind special assignments. Chief Ebenezer Babatope, a PDP Chieftain from my backyard in Ijeshaland, once said about Tinubu in an interview: “…Though we belong to different parties, you underrate Tinubu at your peril…he is a master strategist”.
A ravishing master-strategist like none other he is. Don’t regard his sporadic slips in politics as sleep. It is a strategy.  Men on assignment are also strategic. Don’t join them in the shallow insinuation that the Ondo election results two weeks ago portend that the man is diminished in status. If Tinubu’s opponents want to build their strategies around that thought process, they do so at their paralyzing peril and crippling pitfall. In 2003, Tinubu was declared politically dead. The PDP election speed-train swept through the entire Southwest bypassing Lagos State. It’s tough to access Tinubu’s territory without his peoples’ permission. After the PDP sweep, we remember the aftermath a few years later. PDP was chased out in a cross-region shellacking that enthroned AC and ACN. Tinubu made it happen.
Ojo writes from Wisconsin, USA.
Until Divinity declares Tinubu’s assignment over, it’s not a decree that man can re-write. The jostling has begun now for 2018 and 2019. The political fiesta will kick off in my home State of Osun where several men will be struggling to succeed a financially challenged, outstanding, and revolutionary Governor Rauf. Whether you agree with me or not, Tinubu will be a major player in who becomes what in that territory. Some call it imposition, but I call it competition. Politics is competition; and a phat phenomenon like Tinubu knows what competition is all about. He belongs to the class of men I like to meet and shake hands with.
Milwaukee writes from Wisconsin, USA.