With the Nigerian polity becoming increasingly active due to the forthcoming general elections in 2023, Nigerians should get ready to witness a lot of gimmicks in all ramifications; political, social, economic and what have you. The ensuing drama will be comical, thrilling and wonder-filled. Important issues will be made trivial and the trivial made important. Attacks will be done in proxy and points scored in proxy too.
A case in point is the recent question as to the bullion vans seen in Tinubu’s Bourdillon residence in Lagos on the eve of the 2019 general elections which returned President Buhari to power. At the time when these bullion vans were sited at Tinubu’s residence, it posed two possibilities; one is that they were filled with voting materials for the purpose of rigging the election, the other is that ithey were loaded with cash, still for the purpose of influencing the election.
Tinubu himself did not fail to answer the questions arising from the bullion vans at his residence at that time; he said he had the right to do whatever he wanted with his money, and jumping gun to put an end to further questions, he also said that he was not under any government agency nor had he received any contract from the federal government, in other words he was telling people to shut up and ask no further questions about the source of his wealth.
It is important to point at this junction that Tinubu is not the only politician in Nigeria who has enough cash to fit into two bullion vans and still not go broke. At most, how much cash can a bullion van take – maybe some billions of Naira, many senators and ‘common’ businessmen can also keep bullion vans stashed with cash in their homes. Maybe it will be right to say that no one had the guts which Tinubu had, the temerity and gambling power, to pull such feat as Tinubu did without being swallowed by the outpour of reactions. He threw caution to the wind and weathered the storm.
For the insights being sought in this piece we are not focusing on the question of how Tinubu got his money though it might be a valid question in a working society. Instead, we are going further to ask other questions with the hypothesis that MANY others like him and with same vested interests also have the financial means which the Jagaban possesses.
The bullion van incident highlights some very pertinent lessons on the person of Tinubu, especially if he becomes president, now that he has declared his intention. One thing for sure is that it portrays Tinubu as a strategic gambler who will go to any length to get what he wants. But what if the resources are not there to place the gamble in the first place, like going to a casino with an empty pocket?
Simply put, the message from the bullion van gives us two main possibilities;
One is that Tinubu is either a selfless politician who will work for the greater communal good even if it means ‘cutting off his arm’. On the surface he did it not for himself to sit at the Aso Villa but for another in the person of Buhari. Or was he trying to buy a major share in the government, at least subsequent events showed that this didn’t really go well for him at the federal level unlike in Lagos where he allegedly claimed to have the state in his pocket like a handkerchief or to say he is richer than Osun state.
The other point is that Tinubu is a shrewd businessman and so the vans where pure semi-capital investments. Probably he sensed a danger that power might leave his party if he had not intervened through the bullion vans and so knowing his ambition come 2023, he showed the Ace up his sleeve for the simple logic in the difficult of wrestling power from a ruling party; with his NADECO and ACN experiences to show.
Whichever of the two options, it spells good and bad for Nigeria, after all Nigeria is currently at the stage of the popular quote which says that “he who is down fears no fall”. So whether as a selfless politician or a shrewd businessman, if Tinubu becomes president he will go to any means to do that which he think is right; what Nigerians will hope is that whatever he thinks is right should be for the good of the country.
If he thinks having more bullion vans to himself is right, then we can imagine what will be of the country. The worst which can actually happen is that Nigeria will be milked dry and then everyone, elites and masses, will go home and rest.
If he thinks security; employment, rule of law, anti-corruption and other issues like these are right, then Nigerians can rest assured that yet again Tinubu will go to any length to enforce these RIGHTS.
