I am peering at the viral video of the naked young man inside the banking hall as I write this. His manhood dangles like the pendulum of the Grandfather Clock of colonial Nigeria. He is totally naked, even as he shouts that he needs to withdraw cash from the bank. I am aghast and disillusioned at the same time. I do not know what to think. My mouth is wide open, saliva gliding majestically as it drooled off my lower lip. Before now, I saw a similar video. It was that of a semi-naked young lady.
One day in 1974, after repeated trials, she agrees to meet the psychiatrist in the Qanatir Prison. She had heard of her infamous renown from the prison doctor who talked about an awaiting-death murderess who totally delinked herself from everybody in prison. She tells the psychiatrist to close the window, sit down and listen to her life story as, according to her, she will be executed that evening. Then she begins to narrate the story.
Tinubu himself, on Friday in Ekiti State, reified this theory that the twin of fuel scarcity and acute shortage of Naira notes were weaponized to willingly breed chaos in Nigeria. Since the campaign began, Tinubu has been accused of going the way of parasites and like them, deploying his proboscis to feed on the pain of the people. You would think he had always been on the side of the suffering poor.
Having gone to this extent of belling the cat, El-Rufai’s bravery or bravado then stopped. He struggled frenetically to exonerate Buhari from the “evil plan.” He thinks that the cabal was exploiting Buhari’s goodness and desire to have things done the right way. Whether this was pun or euphemism, what El-Rufai manifested in that interview was the image of a Smart Alec and who was trying to be clever by half.
Now, there are many strands of issues woven into that charge to Yoruba. The first question to ask is, how Yoruba is Tinubu himself? Or, put differently, how Yoruba-empathetic has he been, especially since he helped bring the Buhari affliction on Nigeria in general and his people in particular? First is that he sits on a Lagos State that has shown repeated disdain for the Oodua conglomerate, one of the bequeathals of Chief Obafemi Awolowo.