FASHOLA CALLS TINUBU A PIG, SAYS HE WANTS TO DESTROY HIM?

When you wrestle with a pig, the pig gets happy and you get dirty." With that former Governor Babatunde Fashola identified and took a dig at his erstwhile political godfather and mentor in chief, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, insinuating that Tinubu is the pig who wants to destroy him, Fashola? Icheoku says although there is no smoking gun, conclusive evidence, directly pointing at Bola Tinubu as leading the current effort to destroy Governor Babatunde Fashola; but circumstantially it is very obvious who the man behind the mask is. 

A very strong suspicion points at the Lion of Bourdillon, who although not Cecil the lion with the black mane, but also has its own dark side as Babatunde Fashola is beginning to find out. Incrementally, Bola Tinubu is piling up on the former governor, one allegation after another and one accusation following another; all in an effort to rubbish Fashola and destroy whatever legacy he might be banking on. By this tactical outflanking, Bola Tinubu wants to turn Fashola into a much hated political pariah and peradventure force President Muhammadu Buhari into distancing himself from the former governor and if successful, will automatically abort whatever chances Fashola ever had of being named a minister in September. 

Icheoku says the treachery of men, especially the political class, is such that many decent people are always very reluctant to accept any gift of an office they will only live to regret someday. Like in Al-Pacino's Devil's Advocate, the movie, Keeanu Reeves found out the hard way that when the devil (Al-Pacino) bequeaths you a gift, the devil owns you. As expected therefore, Governor Babatunde Fashola having accepted the gift of Lagos State governorship from Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu should have known that there is nothing like a free lunch anywhere. He should have known that ultimate slavish-loyalty is expected of him and remained the loyal houseboy he was that made his governorship possible without more. He should have been bidding to whatever his overlord Tinubu orders or tells him to do; as well as first taking and obtaining express permission prior to whatever action or even any utterance he wants to make. 

But Fashola, the new renegade, wants to become an independent his own man; except that the man who made him thinks otherwise and is now primed to sending him politically deep six by rubbishing whatever Fashola thought was a resounding legacy he had left behind while he held sway at Alausa-Ikeja, Lagos. Fashola should have taken a lesson from the dethroned Jonathan of Otuoke that it is always futile and near suicidal to accept the gauntlet thrown by  your  godfather. Just like Jonathan of Otuoke continues to regret his ever calling Baba Iyabo a "motor park tout" which foreclosed any chance at a make-up; so also will Babatunde Fashola live to regret his now calling Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu a "pig". Icheoku says with this latest name-calling, Fashola has crossed the line; and the escalating bitter war between the two men can now only get worse and more asinine as no political roof in Nigeria will be wide enough to accommodate both of them, not after calling Tinubu a PIG. 

That being said, why does Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu want Babatunde Fashola completely decimated and rendered a political eunuch, one would ask? In answer, Icheoku says because two kings do not share a kingdom, period. Unlike the novitiate Jonathan of Otuoke who tolerated a co-presidency with then de-facto President Olusegun Obasanjo, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu understands that power allows nor admits of no competition whatsoever. Like the king of the jungle, before which every other creature must take flight or be driven off or eaten or simply killed and consigned to nothingness, Bola Tinubu cannot stand the rising profile and threatening political presence of Babatunde Fashola and fail to do something about it. Icheoku maintains that one of the quick sands that helped swallow the presidency of former President Goodluck Jonathan was his allowing Olusegun Obasanjo to freely roam the country as if he was a co-president in his presidency. 

No smart president ever makes such a costly mistake and Jonathan of Otuoke paid dearly for that. Former presidents either have their silent-loyalty firmly secured or are hounded out of town or clamped into prison and in some cases, even dispatched to the great beyond. That is how you wield power and that is how you secure power; but never to allow like Jonathan of Otuoke did, a pretender to the presidency to constitute himself into a threatening nuisance to your hold of the reins of power. That is what power purchases and only those who paid heavily for power truly knows what indeed they purchased; hence they do not take kindly to any meddlesome interloper trying to challenge their authority or who wants to put sand in their garri. Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu fully understands power and perceives Babatunde Fashola as a existential threat to his political authority in the Yoruba Southwest Nigeria. Therefore his well-informed decision not to have such rivalry around, hence his decision to destroy him and confine him into the heap of political garbage of a mere once was former governor of Lagos State only and nothing more?  

A strategic thinker and political operator extraordinaire, Ahmed Bola Tinubu has long since set his eyes on destroying Fashola. He started by forcing Fashola's hands to deport Igbos from Lagos and successfully branded him before Ndigbo as an intolerant Yoruba man Igbo-hater, in the mould of Obafemi Awolowo whose hatred for Ndigbo was rather legendary. The then houseboy-governor Fashola bit the bait, too afraid to say no to his master Bola Tinubu and went ahead to commit the worst political harakiri of his life which forever foreclosed his chances of ever winning any national office requiring Ndigbo's participation and votes. Icheoku says the damage inflicted to Fashola's rising political profile by the deportation of those fellow Nigerians from Nigeria's Lagos, is such that he cannot ever recover from. Just like Awolowo never recovered from his anti-Igbo identity until he took his last breath and is still hated even in death by every true nwa-afor Igbo, so is the fate being currently shared by Babatunde Fashola before Ndigbo. 

Furthering his downsize Fashola agenda, when Fashola wanted to nominate his successor governor, a fast thinking-ahead Bola Tinubu said no to him and instead imposed his own chosen candidate on the party and now on Lagos State. Again, Fashola wanted to run for the senate but Bola Tinubu said no to him. When President Muhammadu Buhari took interest in Fashola and wanted to draw him closer to his government, Bola Tinubu intervened to force President Buhari into beating a retreat and to the extent that the president tremblingly dropped Fashola from the list of his last presidential delegation to Washington DC. Now even Fashola's prospective ministerial slot is in jeopardy as the all or nothing, take no prisoner Bola Tinubu, is once again standing in the way. Bola Tinubu is against anything that will add an inch to the once growing high political profile of Babatunde Fashola, which apparently has suddenly now become stunted by reasons of Bola Tinubu's machinations.

So it is very easy to see why the piling up on Babatunde Fashola is taking place - just to cut him on the knees; and the source of it all, Bourdillon. The other time it was leaked that Fashola left Lagos State in a great financial ruins with huge unnecessary debts, many of which were rather of questionable origin and purpose? Next was that Fashola  awarded over-valued contracts to his cronies and friends and subsequently made out like bandit in a reverse collection of gratuities as payback, all on the back of Lagos State taxpayers? Next was that Fashola lavished a whopping sum of Lagos State's 78 million Naira just to "upgrade" his personal website? Now the latest of the smear is that Fashola had several dalliances which resulted in his fathering children outside wedlock? 

Icheoku says who knows the nature of the next ton of bricks waiting to be unloaded on poor Fashola; all in an attempt to stop him, cut him to size and/or even permanently consign him into political irrelevance and oblivion.  Without any scintilla of doubt, no other person is behind this current Fashola travails than the man who owns and single-handedly runs Yorubaland politics with his operational headquarters located on Bourdillon Drive Ikoyi Lagos. That Ahmed Bola Tinubu is also spending "large amounts of money, paying agents including CACOL to bear false witness against Fashola" is a disclosure that was made by Fashola himself. All Icheoku merely does is to report and analyze what was spoken or said or acted out or upon. It is equally on records that an incensed Fashola has even told Bola Tinubu to shove any intended prospective ministerial appointment of him, Fashola, into his you know where; as according to Fashola, he is not looking for a job? 

However Icheoku takes umbrage at Fashola for suddenly realizing that "allegations of wrong doing are not resolved without evidence, neither are they resolved in press conferences." Babatunde Fashola never gave Jonathan of Otuoke any such benefit of doubt when he was doing the hatchet job for his mentor and his APC party; alleging all manner of unprintable that helped in bringing Jonathan down and out of Aso Rock. Now Fashola can understand how Jonathan of Otuoke must have felt, being wrongly accused by the Fasholas of APC of things he did not do nor ever thought of doing. Icheoku says if only karma timorously visits traducers as it is now visiting Babatunde Fashola, what a wonderful world it would be.  Icheoku prays that  Babatunde Fashola never survives from the ongoing political lynching against him as being orchestrated and directed by Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, his former godfather. In any event, may Babatunde Fashola be permanently bruised bloody from inside out as a result. It is always good to once in a while serve doctors with their medicine, so that they can taste the tanginess of what they ask their patients to take. It is also not a bad idea at all, starting this reverse prescription with Babatunde Fashola as he doubly-deserves whatever is currently coming at him. An erudite young man and a lawyer preferred a very old semi-illiterate despot to a fellow young man PhD as president and you wonder what came over him?

Finally whether Fashola says Bola Tinubu wants to remain in the mud or that Bola Tinubu should look in the mirror or that Bola Tinubu is throwing mud at him or that Bola Tinubu should look at his own hands; and irrespective whether or not Fashola has moved on or supposedly done his job, all are irrelevant. The crux of the matter is that Fashola is being damaged by Team Bola Tinubu and they are doing a yeoman's good job at it. The mud they are throwing at Fashola is sticking and making Fashola dirty and even very pig-dirty indeed. This is Team Bola Tinubu's primary objective, this is the task at their hands and unfortunately for Babatunde Fashola, they are succeeding. The essence of Team Bola Tinubu's mission is to cause the perception of a dishonest Fashola to stick in Nigerians' minds and not necessarily to establish a veracity thereof. Babatunde Fashola should therefore be resolved that he will soon be politically damaged beyond repair, if not already. Icheoku says, just another lesson on how not to pick fight with your god or as the incomparable China Achebe would succinctly and appositely put it, in his classicus 'Things Fall Apart", no one picks a fight with his CHI and gets away scot-free with it. Salute.