President Muhammad Buhari has canceled his planned two-day official trip to Lagos state billed to start on Monday over what some of his aides’ claimed was a disturbing “ear infection”. The President will be represented by the Vice President, Dr. Yemi Osinbajo. Osinbajo would represent the President at various official events scheduled for the two-day visit.
According to an unconfirmed report, Buhari doesn’t want to have any one-on-one interactions with some politicians in the state.
However, Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity, confirmed the cancellation on Sunday evening but offered a counter reason.
“The president will not be able to make it to Lagos for a two-day working visit due to other busy schedule. He will however be represented by Vice president Yemi Osinbajo.”
“The President is faced with scheduling difficulties and that is the reason for the postponement of the Visit. He needs more time for Lagos and for Edo which had earlier been stepped down.
“As a result of this, the visit has been scaled down and he is being represented by H. E the VP, who is going to Lagos to commission a few projects, leaving the rest for Mr President. The President will undertake these visits after the Ramadan,” Mr. Shehu said in a follow up statement.
Buhari’s visit, a first by a sitting president to the state in 15 years, was expected to be celebrated with much anticipation by the state Governor, Akinwumi Ambode.
He was scheduled to commission some roads built by the state and pay homage to the Oba of Lagos.
Tinubu, the ‘Lion’ that got tamed…
That Tinubu a.k.a Lion of Bourdillon, got tamed by Senator Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara’s brazen onslaught against his political machinery and wish of the ruling party is an open secret. What many people do not know is that Tinubu still smarts from his godsons, former Governors Fashola and Fayemi’s betrayal of his trust. He would however, need to suck it up and move on if he intends to weather the storms invoked by the duo ‘s betrayal and Senator Saraki’s camp’s rebellion against his might and influence within the APC.
There is no doubt Tinubu’s loyalists love to think of him as a hero but being a hero is about the shortest lived vocation on earth. Perhaps, because every hero becomes a bore at last. Staunch loyalists of the former governor of Lagos State love to imagine that he walks on wings and treads in the air. To his enemies, he is a dreaded factor, the untamable element of Nigerian politics. And that is because he arrived with an uncommon lust for change.
While that lust towers too imposingly, painting him as a power-drunk, insatiably-wrought control freak of sort, Tinubu camp sees in him that lust, his strength and a towering passion to serve country and the good of all.
Tinubu camp passionately argue that, it was only moral and in course with due process and deference to his might that the APC executive power structure and political machinery kowtow to his dictates, many within the party and pundits outside its circuits are of the opinion that Tinubu needs to go easy on his power ride.
According to concerned stalwarts of the party, Tinubu should reduce and tame his inclinations to lord it over everyone within the party. One tree hardly makes a forest; he is not solely responsible for the good fortunes and emergence to power of the party, it was a team work and Tinubu needs to show greater respect to his associates within the party, particularly his so-called godsons, according to the party stalwarts.
There is no gainsaying Tinubu contributed in no small measure to the success of the APC at the elections, they acknowledged, but the party’s success wasn’t due to his sole effort, Tinubu had help from several quarters and former Governors Fashola and Fayemi, Atiku, Saraki, to mention a few, were all instrumental to the party’s success.
Tinubu needs to show greater respect and acknowledgment of other party members’ efforts; he cannot lord it over everyone and always have his way, argued the stalwarts.
Perhaps the Lion of Bourdillion would learn from his recent shaming and humbling by alternate forces within the party and subsequently tone down his lust for power and alleged overbearing attitude to his associates on the APC project.
Let’s hope he evolves faster than imagine in politics and character; if he could manage to do so, he just might understand in due time that, in the long run, failure is the only thing that flowers predictably; like success, it has no fixed abode, it is a tide in the affairs of man that is alternately shared as the tyrant strokes of fate and circumstances dictate.
Whatever, shame or betrayal he has suffered in the hands of his godsons or political associates, the true measure of Bola Tinubu as a man, party leader and “Change” advocate will be his capacity to forgive old slights and perceived detractors within the party, for the sake of the party and the Nigeria of our dreams. And that will be the true measure of ‘Change.”
