Ruga: Tinubu’s Silence Pitches Him Against Afenifere, Others

By Uche Mbah

The conspiratorial silence of the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress Party, APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is raising eyebrows within the Yoruba nation and its intelligentsia, who fear that he has no interest of the race at heart beyond his parochial personal ambition of clinching the presidency in 2023.

Already, in deft political moves, he has succeeded in installing his loyalists at the National Assembly after a second attempt. He had tried to install Ahmed Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila as both the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2015, but his plans met a brick-wall in the deft moves of former Senate President, Bukola Saraki. Now, he is busy strategizing for the Presidency.

But his stratagems run afoul of the position gradually being taken by the Yoruba elite against what a commentator described as the lame duck and clannish regime of Muhammadu Buhari.

He has created his own faction of Afenifere, the Yoruba Socio-cultural group. Only recently, while Afenifere was having a security summit, he took his own faction on a solidarity visit to the presidency, thereby rekindling the war of words between him and Yinka Odumakin, the Afenifere spokesperson.

He has been silent since the Ruga controversy started.

Pundits interpret his  silence as a strategic move not to annoy the North that he may eventually use as step ladder to the presidency. The North has, however, in several fora, been stating unequivocally that there is no vacancy in Aso Rock for any southerner come 2023.

His position appears to be weakening his influence in the South west. Apart from his political godchildren, the majority of south west elite appear to be getting tired of his antics. This may have resulted in a subtle shift in allegiance of foreign missions. Only recently, representatives of the United states were on ground to met Ganiyu Adams, the Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland,  on Ruga and the Security situation in Nigeria. This in itself is a bold statement.

Even Kayode Fayemi, another person rumored to have presidential ambition, has come out openly against Ruga. Babajide Sanwolu, Tinubu’s protégé in Lagos government house, has also kept mute as the Ruga controversy rages.

It is not clear what role Tinubu has been playing in the various security and town hall meetings of the Yoruba nation, but one thing is clear, “the rug is no longer guaranteed to be squarely under his feet”, as a Yoruba elder put it recently.