ASIWAJU: BETWEEN PARTISAN COMPENSATION AND A LEGACY AGENDA By Hashim Suleiman
The only reason why APC had to struggle to win the 2023 election in perhaps a controversial manner is entirely the result of the inability of the APC party to distinguish between how to manage mediocrity and criticality and obviously the former took precedence in the APC administration, and we are here today. You may read further on this from my article of 26th November 2016 titled ‘Between Setting a Stage for Compromise and Maintenance of Integrity’ and which can be read here:https://twitter.com/oneheartnaija/status/802446320833269760?s=46&t=NPC_NSLSH_jYKkXra1o8Bg.
From the foregoing, it is safe to conclude that President Buhari compromised too much for personal and partisan purposes at the detriment of his legacies, performance and integrity. Suffice it to say there is nothing wrong in compensating good gestures or contributions, but it becomes complex and complicated when that will be coming on a backdrop of an electoral victory that comes with baggage of expectations and entitlements.
The 2023 elections have come and gone, and the returning officer as enshrined in our laws has returned Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the President-Elect while all other offices have also been returned by the appropriate returning officers. Those who chose to not agree with the outcomes also have an inalienable democratic right to approach the tribunals to make their cases, in fact I for one encourages such democratic ideals so much because democracy becomes tasteless without them.
However, some of us who had warned severally about the mediocre nature of the members of APC that Buhari had nurtured for the 7 years in power and of which Tinubu had no option but to inherit. The performances of the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies is enough to vindicate the mediocre nature of majority of those that became the crux of the Buhari administration and the APC. Little wonder why there had to be several burst outs by Asiwaju penultimate the Primary Elections and the General Elections alike. There were not any critical strategies formulated by majority of the directorates in the PCC less making more enemies for the party and the then candidate because indeed you must know mediocre are lazy minded and find it difficult to formulate strategic mitigations so their only tool becomes insult and brigandage, for example, have you ever seen Fashola in those kinds of insult mood or chicanery?? Your answer will be as good as mine.
To set the records straight, it was the absence of the much-needed criticality in the APC as orchestrated by Buhari that made the campaigns and electoral victory so difficult for Asiwaju Tinubu and equally why there are still numerous controversies after victory and guess what, they are still not able to manage the post-election controversies optimally because they just don’t have it. The needed criticality is scarce in Nigeria, and one would have to look outside the readily available crowd.
In balance to these opinions, it is also important to emphasize that in a political party, it was important to manage all of the good, the bad and the ugly as deliberated in my 2015 article titled: https://www.abusidiqu.com/the-continuity-and-change-agents-within-the-apc-and-a-need-to-manage-all-by-suleiman-hashim/, but for the sake of the need for legacy and performance in governance, some of the sectors cannot afford to be jettisoned on the alter of partisan compensation and it was very important for these points to be echoed to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in order that the necessary mindset be set for excellence in governance in compliance with the Lagos template that formed the crux of the Asiwaju campaign.
This final paragraph would be of immense interest to Asiwaju, and his success and it is to the effect that those with the described ‘make it easy’ character as described above come from the part of the country that feels most entitled to his presidency, if you allow their mindset and methods to take precedence over excellence then failure is imminent. There are indeed sound minds amongst them too but trust me the management of these individuals and their level of participation would to a large extent determine Asiwaju’s legacies and likely re-election in 2027. The difference between Kwankwaso and Ganduje’s performances and acceptability in Kano and how Kwankwaso came back to sweep kano owing to excessive goodwill capital is a buttress to some of the points I have laid out here.
May Nigeria succeed through Asiwaju
Ramadan Kareem
Hashim Suleiman
oneheartnaija 