AWOLOWO’S ALL-EMBRACING INFLUENCE

BAMIDELE ATOYEBI argues that the Sage has great impact on Bola Tinubu

As a man who was born on the night Awolowo passed, my parents’ Igbo neighbour said to my Dad, Awolowo has returned back to us. This single statement has made me to be conscious of who I am as an Awoist, spiritual, body and soul.

Awolowo was a main issue in Nigeria politics, says former president Ibrahim Babangida, and he still the main issue till now. Whether free or incarcerated, every political decisions in Nigeria till date revolves around Awolowo’s political theories.

When Awolowo died, many people who believe in his political Ideology thought it’s over for them and Nigeria, yet, they didn’t know that he invisibly lives among us daily through his various political theories that some top politicians and decision makers still practice today.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a man who’s a walking carrier of Obafemi Awolowo political spirit. So you can’t love Awolowo and hate Tinubu. They’re both siamese twins. Many who claimed to love him didn’t even know the ideology he practiced.

Awolowo is of the school of thought of Democratic Socialism. Kwame Nkruma of Ghana was his political mentor. Kwame Nkruma had said; the freedom of Ghana is not yet complete until all Africa is free, so Awolowo sent some of his young mentees to Ghana to go and understudy Kwame Nkruma style of politics. Part of those young people was Pa Ayo Adebanjo.

So my question is why did Baba Ayo Adebanjo hate Bola Ahmed Tinubu till his death and supported Peter Obi, an Igbo man, and a man who doesn’t represent any political school of thought? May be it’s beef or superiority complex. He feels, he should be the one to enjoy the political control in the South west that Bola Tinubu is enjoying. I was speaking as a prophet when I wrote in an opinion article that one of the enemies Tinubu has was those that feel he shouldn’t be their political leader since they ate and dined with Awolowo and he did not. Aside the fact that Tinubu was not part of the people directly around Obafemi Awolowo, he is far younger than Ayo Adebanjo of blessed memory. So the hatred is understandable but very unnecessary. Many people around politicians and big men always feel a sense of entitlement to automatically become leader immediately the leader exits. It happened even to Jesus. Salome had told him to make his two children to occupy the highest seat of power in his kingdom but Jesus turned her down and told her his kingdom is not about power but about service. Actually this is why many people around politicians block people from coming close to them till today, they always see a new comer as a threat to taking their role or space especially when the new comer has more to offer than them. Let me not digress for too long.

Many people don’t know that President Tinubu practices Democratic Socialism as ideology. He’s everything Awolowo was, so everyone who was an Awolowo fan or followers should queue behind Bola Tinubu. I knew this earlier, this was why I started following him from the age of 12. Tinubu believes in everything Awolowo believed in; in short, he advanced more than him in politics because he understands Awolowo political limitations and strengths, so he added what Awolowo doesn’t have to his political ethical practice. He bends some of his principles for greater goal, he actually tapped that from Ladoke Akintola.

Awolowo was combative in nature while Akintola was pliable. That was their political difference but Asiwaju combined both which is why he is president today. Awolowo was a courageous leader, so is Asiwaju, Awolowo believed in taxing right, so is Asiwaju. Yes, you don’t need to look further to know that he learnt taxing the wealthy and corporation more than taxing the poor in the society from Awolowo. That’s where the new tax reform emanated from. That was the same place he got his knowledge of reforming Lagos tax system.

Awolowo founded Action Group (AG), Asiwaju founded Alliance for Democracy (AD). Awolowo believed in free education and free healthcare care for children up to the age of 18, Asiwaju believes so strongly in same. NELFUND, TIVET, and Subsidzed dialysis, health fellow program among other free medical care ongoing. When he was Lagos State governor, he initiated ilera Eko, free healthcare for those born with deformity, among others.

Awolowo believed in bridging financial gap between the wealthy and poor, same as President Tinubu. The fact is not far fetched, “let the poor breath, don’t suffocate them”. He backed this up with several initiatives like credit corp N10 million interest-free loan for lecturers, minimum wage increment, signing and immediate implementation of FG ASUU 2009 agreement, conditional cash transfer for households and market women, and farmers cooperative loan, among others.

Another parallel between Asiwaju and the late sage was in their play of opposition. Asiwaju drew straight from how Awolowo played opposition politics of putting the legs of ruling regimes to the fire by constant constructive criticism as well as taking policies and programmes of his opponents to the cleaners no matter how good they were. That is a signature approach to making the electorate feel he always have better leadership to offer. Both of them did that with precision and capped it with infiltrating the ranks of their opponents and planting informants to have adequate knowledge of how to keep them on their toes. Even today, opposition to APC is adopting the same template thereby giving the impression they can do better than Asiwaju whereas the truth remains they can’t scratch his successes. Awo practised it, Tinubu adopted it and even the opposition today is copying from it.

So, you can’t love Awolowo and possibly hate Tinubu. Awolowo never died, he lives on.

Atoyebi is the Convener of BAT Ideological Group, National Coordinator of Accountability and Policy monitoring and a publisher at Unfiltered and Mining Reporting