By Akin Osuntokun
Since the infamous pronouncement of the “Emilokan” principle by the presidential candidate of the APC, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria has been subjected to the full measure of utter selfishness and duplicity inherent in this concept. Leading the pack are the presidential candidate and his roaring proxy, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State.
Regardless of the merits or demerits of the currency redesign policy, Tinubu has done us the favour of intimating us of how he intends to “snatch the ballot boxes”. The only logical inference from this self-identification is that more than any other competitor, he had planned to outrightly purchase voters at the presidential election-as you buy a goat at the cattle market. In a follow up action and set on a treasonable trajectory, the general officer commanding, GOC, the emilokan troops, El-Rufai. the diminutive virtually declared the Republic of Kaduna State.
“For the avoidance of doubt, all the old and new notes shall remain in use as legal tender in Kaduna State until the Supreme Court of Nigeria decides otherwise. I therefore appeal to all residents of Kaduna State to continue to use the old and new notes side by side without any fear. The Kaduna State Government and its agencies shall seal any facility that refuses to accept the old notes as legal tender and prosecute the owners. If need be, we shall take further consequential actions according to the law” Hell hath no fury than a Nigerian politician deprived the weaponisation of his financial loot.
If he had responded with a minuscule measure of the alacrity (he has demonstrated on the potential inability to subvert the oncoming elections with cash) to these prior inter-ethnic sectarian crisis, thousands of lives would have been saved. Rather he was busy radicalising and stoking the fire of bigotry and parochial chauvinism. If you have a president who violated the constition, what you do is initiate impeachment proceedings at the National Assembly, not embark on internal insurrection and rebellion. We urge the Nigerian public to shine their eyes very well and not allowed themselves to be used as cannon folders by duplicitous politicians lest they become unwitting victims of sham populism and rank opportunism. Here is a refresher of the hew from which the Kaduna governor is cut
On April 6, 2016, he said “Here in Kaduna we have a significant Muslim majority, 70 percent and 30 percent Christian minority”? At the height of the devastation of Southern Kaduna by the fulani militia, his arbitration was that “tell them that there is a new governor who is Fulani like them and has no problem paying compensations for lives lost”.
Of late the Nigerian public has been rendered stupefied at theatre of the absurd in the tragic drama of supremacist struggle within the APC. If any Nigerian has not made up his or her mind on the patriotic duty of expelled this sorry caste from government, here then is the clincher. What more should God do to rub it on our faces that these guys are a misfit and constitute a present danger to the peace and stability of Nigeria?
Meanwhile the open secret is that El Rufai’s implacable affectation of Tinubu fanatic is a false trail.
That said, I leave it to your imagination who his real candidate is.
▪︎ Balogun Osuntokun, the Director General (DG) of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, delivered this address at a press conference on Monday, 20th February, 2023.
