By Bunmi Adebayo
Some men would pawn their intelligence for a bottle of champagne; many more would cheerily shun the grey matter in their brain to engage in a dance of folly – particularly if they are fair weather politicians. Yes, there is no dignity in the life of a man living on a leash of another man’s cash. He will forever remain a sad excuse for man, a glorified errand boy whose lustre often extinguishes in the glitter of his benefactor’s wealth.
In fact, Tokunbo Afikuyomi is a pawn in the grand designs of some politicians to wrestle power from his benefactor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Tokunbo, to the consternation of Lagosians, chose to challenge the influence of Asiwaju by rebelling against him to sate his abject lust for power and political independence. How this would pan out in the long run remains to be seen considering Afikuyomi’s withering political influence in Lagos.
You couldn’t have forgotten so soon in the run-up to the 2007 governorship election, Afikuyomi threw his hat into the ring, but because Asiwaju Bola Tinubu had anointed Babatunde Raji Fashola as his successor, he sought a different platform to actualise his ambition. He defected from the Action Congress to the All Nigeria People’s Party, ANPP, on which platform he contested and lost the governorship poll.
Shamefacedly, he returned to the party and was appointed Commissioner for Tourism. If Nigerians saw the appointment as a demotion of sort– from senator, governorship candidate to commissioner – Afikuyomi didn’t see it that way. He saw it instead as a means to remain in a political office. After the uproar that greeted his involvement in the acquisition of the Sunborn Yacht Hotel, he was quietly eased out after Fashola’s first term. Thereafter, he headed to Osun and was a ‘Special Assistant’ to Governor Rauf Aregbesola. He didn’t stay long in Osun before relocating to London.
Tokunbo was totally forgotten and abandoned in his time of need. Nothing was heard of him again until when Tinubu came to his aid and restored him to political limelight.
However, according to a report doing the rounds, a forceful takeover of Lagos is a “consolation prize” being contemplated by the camp of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Atiku Abubakar after a crushing defeat by President Muhammadu Buhari in last Saturday’s presidential polls, it was learnt last night.
The move was one of the resolutions at an emergency strategy meeting held by the Atiku team when it became apparent that President Buhari had won by a wide margin, the first being a formal rejection of APC’s victory as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Even as the PDP flagbearer is still mulling his legal team to challenge Buhari at the tribunal, his strategists believe that taking over Lagos, the nation’s commercial never centre, will enable the opposition party become an effective countervailing force to APC controlling Abuja, the political headquarters.
A similar bid was launched for Lagos in April 2015 by the then President Goodluck Jonathan with the deployment of dollars to induce voters after the PDP lost the presidential poll to the APC. The bid failed.
“To actualise the new plot, we can confirm that a huge war-chest has been mobilised by Atiku’s camp to finance ahead of the March 9 state election a vicious smear campaign against the National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, believed to have coordinated PDP’s defeat as the Co-Chairman of the APC Presidential Campaign Council,” a source said last night.
The source went on: “Specifically, Atiku’s hatchetmen are to spread anti-Tinubu messages in the traditional media and social media, deploying any ‘means necessary’.
“The first leg of the strategy meeting, it was reliably gathered, held at highbrow Intercontinental Hotel on Kofo Abayomi, Victoria Island, Lagos Saturday night where the PDP governorship candidate in Lagos, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, met with Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi and a few others to perfect the plan to recruit a faction of Afenifere and willing human rights activists to create a facade that the anti-Tinubu campaign is the initiative of civil society organizations (CSOs).
“The support of the likes of Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, Mr. Yinka Odumakin has been secured in this connection.
“In fact, the inaugural press conference is to be addressed by Mr. Agbakoba and Odumakin, whose relentless media offensive against Buhari had failed to sway Yoruba votes to Atiku across the Southest last Saturday.
“Afikuyomi, described last night as a ‘Judas’ after benefitting politically from Tinubu in APC, was said to have been part of the ‘Dubai retreat’ hosted late last year by the Atiku camp after winning the PDP presidential ticket to draw up a ‘war plan’ against Buhari.
To evade public scrutiny or being accused of ‘anti-party activity’ by APC, Afikuyomi was said to have opted out of the Dubai-Abuja flight and rather adopted a decoy by flying to Lagos through Uganda.
“Interestingly, Afikuyomi had been the chief coordinator of the second term bid by the outgoing Governor Akinwumi Ambode of Lagos which crashed in the APC primaries held in October in 2018.
“Furthermore, the involvement of another Ambode’s core supporter, Mr. Wale Oluwo, in the latest plot against APC interest in Lagos set tongues wagging again last night.
“Oluwo, who resigned as the Lagos State Commissioner for Energy, has been described as commander in the anti-Tinubu plot, having superintended over the multi-billion Naira street lights projects exclusively under Ambode and has serially been fingered as the secret ‘emissary’ between Ambode and Agbaje.”
After his exit from the Lagos cabinet last October, Oluwo declared support for Agbaje’s governorship ambition.
But Governor Ambode has consistently denied any link whatsoever with the funding of Agbaje’s campaign.
Party elders, it was further learnt, were incensed following startling revelations of mouth-watering patronage Ambode had doled out to Afikuyomi even while most of them were shabbily treated.
“Among Ambode’s largesse to Afikuyomi is an eye-popping mansion located in the highbrow Ikeja GRA, the furnishing of which was said to have cost nothing less than N400 million”, the source claimed.- The Nation
