By Olabode Opeseitan
I read with dismay a statement credited to the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Engineer Babachir Lawal on the remarks of #APC National leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu against President Muhammadu Buhari.
Babachir’s response and weeping-more-than-the-bereaved psychophancy betrayed a mindset with an abundance of obdurate bile for Yoruba people. Otherwise, how could anyone interpret a statement by Asiwaju on Buhari to mean the Yoruba people take delight in bashing the North?
Babachir quickly mischaracterised a conflict between Tinubu and Buhari as a war between the North and Yoruba people. His fertile mind swiftly found a reason to pummel the Yoruba nation on an issue the entire country has spent decades to heal from. He blamed the failure to actualise MKO’s June 12 1993 mandate on an alleged ethnicization of the struggle by the Yoruba. He even said this was why the North found it challenging to support Yoruba leaders politically.
He conveniently forgot how Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as President was fair to all Nigerians. Indeed, fairness and equity rank among the core ethos of the Yoruba nation. If anybody has earned their trust and respect irrespective of where that person hails from, they will celebrate the person. And conversely, if anybody has lost that trust, even if s/he is their blood brother/sister, they will insist justice must be done.
True, many Yoruba people have harshly criticised Buhari over the state of the nation because of the economic difficulties and insecurity Nigerians are facing but that is definitely NOT Northern bashing. Many more people and organisations from the North have also criticised the way the Buhari government has handled the matters of state.
Today, Babachir Lawal is complaining about the Yoruba, yet he could not be honourable enough to admit that the partnership between the North and South West produced the Buhari Presidency.
What gave him the impression that the view expressed by Asiwaju at the Abeokuta event represented the position of Yoruba nation?
Babachir Lawal and his infamous band of mischief makers should stop framing Tinubu’s outburst against Buhari as North vs South West. It is purely a personal opinion of Asiwaju on the sequencing of events over his Presidential ambition.
Many people I spoke with of Yoruba extraction believed Asiwaju went far in his remarks about the President. As a major leader of the party and a major stakeholder, he should have avoided any comment that could denigrate the personality of Buhari.
What sincere leaders do in moments when emotions run high is to make peace and reconcile parties. I believe Babachir Lawal is a mutual associate of #Buhari and #Tinubu. He should have done all within his means to calm frayed nerves rather than looking for the nearest fuel dump to empty its content on the smouldering tension. His express thunderous response was targeted at escalating a rift between two political leaders to worsen the distrust threatening to break up
