TheCable

The inauguration is inevitable, and baring the rapture, Bola Ahmed Tinubu would be sworn in as our next president and commander in the chief of our Armed Forces, and his decline will begin.

I had once said that by 2015, Tinubu had achieved a position very few attain globally. He had reached a point where the presidency of a whole country like Nigeria and indeed most of Africa seemed like a step down.

He had not only worked assiduously for the candidacy of Buhari but had also played very critical roles in countries like Guinea and Ghana, amongst others

Immortality was beckoning and we would have been talking of the Tinubu era in Nigerian histroy the way we talk about Mansa Musa Era of the ancient Mali Empire.

We would have gotten a new Nigerian that would have founded a new era taking over from the trio of Ahmadu Bello, Zik, and Awo.

We would have had a new founder of modern Nigeria, the great Bola Ahmed Tinubu

But no. He had to soil his great adorned feet by throwing himself into the stomping ground of a presidential duel with all the baggage he was carrying.

At that point, it dawned on me that we’re not dealing with a statesman in the mould of Nyerere or Nkruma or Mandela but just a very brilliant journey man politician who had failed to rise to the great heights expected of him.

He threw himself into the pit and has been splattered with mud. Consequently, we would be inaugurating the weakest ever president produced from the most vilified electioneering process in our history.

If Tinubu and his teeming fans can’t see just how much this his ‘presidency’ has demystified him, then there is nothing else to say.

The campaign period threw a lot of issues up, and his team resorted to bullying and other under arm tactics, including even stoking the fires of bigotry to get to the coming May 29th ‘imposition’

What Tinubu fails to realise, however, is that the presidency can not be an end game but the last stretch in a long wielding legacy.

Abacha today is vilified for his actions as a despotic ruler with history forgetting everything he may have done from birth to the point he kicked out Shonekan.

The presidency is a high-powered stage that throws you up in a way that would either make or break you finally.

It is not a stage you climb at your weakest, and this is our Tinubu going on this stage at his weakest physically, with massive baggage and on an election that analysts have said is the worst ever

God will give him his eight years in peace, but it is this 8 years that his contributions and legacy will be edged on.

I don’t envy him as I would not pray to be on that platform with the kind of vehicle Tinubu has used to ascend.

His only hope is good governance, and this brings with it the inevitable implosion that I forsee.

So this is not Lagos, where he ruled like a maximum ruler surrounded by minions who would not dare to stare at him.

This is the center, Federal, where he had had to cut deals to get there and, as such, must as a matter of compulsion represent all these blocks in his government.

He would be sitting at a Federal Executive Council with people who are either beholden to forces outside of him or who are forces of their own.

With people like Gadunge, Akpabio, and other such Oligarchs seeking reward and influence in the government, they can claim direct ownership, Tinubu would need all of his wits to continue to build consensus and ensure alignment of interest.

Another tricky one will be the relatively young guns who remain rabidly ambitious and who have been his foot soldiers.

FFK my egbon is cerebral, vocal, well connected and fearless. Holding FFK down for 4 years is an impossibility. At some point, he will break out, and that would be mad.

BRF, Gbaja, Alake, Fayemi, El Rufai, all of these will come if age. They will begin to see a new Nigeria with them at the elms. A post Tinubu Nigeria, and you will see a struggle to either take over the structure or build a new one or most likely realign with another one.

Either way, a post Tinubu Nigeria is evolving and very fast. In fact, I think its birth would officially be May 29th as he is being sworn in.

Unlike Awo who made it clear that LKJ would most likely be his successor this one has not shown any very serious succession plan and with the push in the centre, the stream has been further muddied up by others who have not been brought up in the Tinubusque brand of policapitalism that has seen him run thru the country like a fox with its flame on fire.

Let’s keep watching as we are in for a very rough ride.

God bless Nigeria.