Anti BolaTinubu Babarians: The Futility Of Chasing the Wind
By Remi Oyeyemi
In the days leading up to the February 25th Nigerian Presidential Elections, a lot of critical analyses had to be done. A lot of previously held positions had to be reviewed. A lot of new perspectives had to be examined. All these, leading to new positions that would be held, and new decisions, consciously taken.
Though, many saw the struggles for the control of Nigeria’s Presidency as usual partisanship, the usual political wheeling and dealing, may be so. But to this writer, it was more than that. It was deeper than that. It went beyond politics. For some of us, we perceived an existential threat. We smelt an evil agenda. We could see the insignia of hostile take over of our space. What we saw unraveled, was not politics, but a concerted effort at colonization of our space. Others called it insidious imperialism.
The way and manner majority of a population of a particular constituent unit approached it and did their campaign, brought to the fore some undercurrents, that many of us thought time had healed and would not be necessary to exhume. It is not as if this issue has not been a subject of suspicion, or even discussion in contemporary times, but sired in a culture that values caution and circumspection, the need to be prudent and discretionary in our reactions was premiumized.
Then, events began to unravel. There was inundation of petulance, and cantankerousness from most of this ethnic nationality. Rather than debate, they resorted to unfair criticism, vilification, reviling, denigration, and laissez-faire abuse of Bola Ahmed Tinubu in particular, and then Yoruba in general. They made mockery of Yoruba attitude of accommodation. They ridiculed the Yoruba for selling them landed properties. They call Lagos Yoruba Land a “no man’s land.”
Their obnoxious braggadocio tinged with insalubrious ignorance continued unabated. They had dived into the dreary dungeon of disgusting disrespect of and for Yoruba. They oiled olid insults and propelled such with gusto and insensitivity. They engaged in mephitic aggression, and putrid holier-than-thou sermonizing, insisting that they are better businessmen and women than the Yoruba as if the Yoruba are oblivious of their own history. Their approach underscored some hidden bitterness and determination to destroy and subdue not just the Yoruba, but other constituent units in the contraption.
They fatuously laid claim to victimhood and used that as a pedestal to launch their destructive agenda against other constituent units they perceived as being the hurdle to their ignoble desire to subvert and subdue the rest of Nigeria. Even after they have failed woefully in their fetid efforts, they exuded the most malodorous genre of indecency, discourtesy, incivility, and churlishness.
They became intellectually discombobulated. They could not separate facts from fiction. They became oblivious to reality as compared to fantasies. They wallowed in unmitigated utopia, romancing mirage, dancing with delusion and had unrestrained fondness for phantasm. They marinated in miasmic myth. Thus, when faced with reality, they were too far gone into the abyss of hallucination. They could not retreat or recover. They were unable to recuperate. It was impossible to revive them. They became depressed. They became bitter. Emotionally paralyzed. Sentimentally paraplegic. And psychologically obtund. They resorted to being destructive of everything and anything that is good, beautiful, and sensible.
In their putrescent aggression, they attacked, abused, and insulted men of great accomplishments for no reason other than being told some home truths. Men who have achieved. Men who have attained. Men with verifiable strokes of genius. Men who have become institutions. Rather, they continued to celebrate mediocrity, nitwits, pedestrians, and amateurs who are bereft of fundamentals of Nigerian public and social space.
Even, if the eminent men of accomplishment expressed views that were not acceptable, didn’t they have rights to their views? Why must they be attacked and vilified because they are discomforted by such views? Why couldn’t they provide alternative views to the ones they disagreed with? What happened to democracy? And freedom of expression? Why do they think that they are the only ones who have the right to express their own views?
You find a Pastor publicly expressing the wish that Senator Oluremi Tinubu should have poisoned her husband, the President-Elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. You find their women supplicating to their “Chineke”, to engage in self- immolation and self-destruction. They want their “Chineke’ to destroy the Presidency of Bola Ahmed Tinubu which he (Chineke) had made and blessed himself.
One of their small girls who understood a little of English language, even had the temerity to write to my neighbour here in Delaware, President Joseph Biden of the United States, to ensure that Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not become Nigeria’s president. She had overestimated her value. She had been inebriated by their collective delusion. She had been blinded by bitterness. She had exuded dipsomaniacal intellectual retardation.
Looking at their so-called “Seadogs”, they lined the streets, insulting Bola Ahmed Tinubu, calling him “Baba wey no well,” rather than sell their own candidate. They ridiculed the concept of “Emi l’okan” which has become a source of spiritual supplication for and to many who knew how to appropriate blessings. Unknown to the so-called “Seadogs”, they were singing the Nunc Dimittis of their candidate and their devilish agenda against Nigeria in general and Yoruba Nation in particular.
There was also a gang of them going to Courts with frivolous suits. Jocose suits that would have been adorable lines in comedies. Flippant suits that a first year Law student would find to be a disrespect of and to the judicial process. Suits that are perfect studies in unseriousness. Products of bitterness and confusion. Products of minds serenated in adumbrated self-righteousness.
There were their business moguls too. One of them, a newspaper mandarin, was careless and reckless in his utterances. He called the Yoruba “rascals.” Some of his friends tried to defend him and insisted that he did not mean it the way it sounded or came across. But with my limitations in the Queen’s language, I felt offended by such irresponsible remarks. May be if he had made the comments in Yoruba language, I would have had a better understanding. His statement was emblematic of his ingratitude and that of his people.
Even, some in the media are so intimidated by their aggression that they frown at responses to this legion of putrefactive behaviors. They want the polity to heal, so they say. They want peace to reign, so they contend. These media men want to tend to the bruise ego of a crowd who do not care how barbaric their behaviors are in a sane environment. A crowd who respects no one and are arid of courtesy.
Many of these anti-Tinubu and anti-Yoruba anarchists, have been fasting. Praying. Going up to the Mounts. Traversing the “Holy Valleys.” Wandering the deserts of iniquity. Swimming in the natatorium of knavery. Trawling in the ocean of pettishness. Rummaging in the wilderness of jealousy and resentfulness. Hunting in the forest of splenetic hatred. Relentlessly, seeking the face of their Chineke, who obviously so far, has “ko eti Ikun” to their supplications. What a fair and unbiased Chineke!
They had absolute faith in the propaganda of falsehood. They had confidence in their ability to lie facetiously. They trusted in their appalling ability to twist facts. They are so assured of the efficacy of their ability to intimidate and blackmail others. They bank on the amnesia of others to forget their trajectory in the Nigerian space – the destruction of the Nigerian project ab initio; their murder of the leaders of other constituent units; their ceaseless desire to dominate others; their greed of lunatic genre; their ingratitude to those who have been kind to them and accommodated them and their diabolical sense of victimhood.
In their anti-Tinubu craze, they awakened all Nigerians. They have manifested their true colours. They have shown exactly what they are all about. They have shown that they are clogs in the wheels of progress and peace. They have convinced others that they are allergic to peaceful co-existence, except where they dominate. They have shown why other countries of the world have been wary of them. China, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, UAE, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana, Benin Republic, and many others.
Going forward, things would continue to “fall apart” for them. Things would no longer be at ease for and with them. Their hidden hands have been made manifest. Nigerians have seen them for what they are. It is obvious that many things they are blinded to. Many things they know not. They would soon find out that money, whether drug money or not, has its limitations.
Their efforts against Tinubu and Yoruba have amounted to nothing. They are futile. They are forlorn. They have been in vain. They have been barren. And sterile. May 29, 2023, is here. And Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. His wife, Madam Oluremi Tinubu is our First Lady. Ain’t nothing they gonna be able to do about it.