In one of my early school English textbooks, an interesting story I read still lingers in the memory. It was the story of Angazi, and I crave your indulgence as I adapt the story for the purpose of today’s discourse. It goes thus: A certain traveller found himself in a beautiful foreign city with amazing infrastructure and jaw-slacking edifices.
When he got to a truly avant garde skyscraper he turned to a man standing nearby and asked: “Who owns this mighty building?” “Angazi,” the man replied. “Wow! Angazi!”, the stranger exclaimed. In another section of the city, he saw a truly eye-goggling car zooming past so regally and he could not help wondering aloud: “Who on earth is the owner of this wonder on wheels?” To his shock, a woman standing close responded, “Angazi!”
The traveller gaped at the woman and exclaimed, “Angazi again! That man must be filthy rich!” Before the day ended, the tourist had seen hundreds of architectural and other money-made wonders – opulent shopping malls, theme parks, astounding cloverleaf-filled super highways, hotels etc – and each time he asked to know the owner, the response was the same: “Angazi!” As he returned to his hotel in a taxi, he got to a section where hoodlums were rioting and destroying property. Scared, he asked the taxi driver who could have caused the riot; and the frantic answer again was “Angazi!”
He was still wondering how pervasive was the riches and power, and even notoriety of this Angazi person when he saw a crowd of mourners conveying a dead soul in an expensive coffin to a cemetery. He then received the shock of his life when on asking to know the name of the person in the coffin the answer was again, “Angazi!” “What a life!” our tourist could not help exclaiming. “This Angazi owned virtually this whole city but alas, all he has now is that piece of grave and the expensive coffin! So what’s the usefulness of his money now?” Our tourist only realized his folly and abject ignorance later that night when he returned to his hotel. As an alien in a city where a different language is spoken and which he didn’t understand, this tourist did not know that “Angazi” was not a name but a sentence meaning, “I don’t know!” All the people he had spoken to had really told him nothing, but his ignorance betrayed him into making hasty conclusions!
This is akin to the case of Citizen Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the impression of legions of impressionable Nigerians about him. In our nation’s political history, I stand to be corrected if I asserted that no other Nigerian has attracted as much popularity – some would say ‘notoriety’ – in the mind of Nigerians as Tinubu. Such is the power of his personal influence in contemporary dispensation that anything that happens in today’s polity, real or imagined, good or bad, outlandish or ordinary, must have the magical Tinubu touch. Even the foreign press have been bitten by the fast metastasizing Tinubu bug.
If he’s not being called the Zvengali of Nigerian politics by prominent British newspapers now, he is being referred to as the Machiavelli of African politics by an American media giant then. Such is the immensity of the institutionalization of Tinubu’s might that anything befalling the nation, good or bad, is attributed to him. Indeed, in dissecting the architecture of this man’s near mythical influence one would find that easily. Tinubu has become the unwitting cannon fodder of most political events, good or bad. No one can deny Tinubu his status as a major architect of the present dispensation. Challenge me, but I can safely say that his adroit, brave and near-suicidal stand against the PDP behemoth of those days made the APC revolution possible.
Without the formidable structure he so generously availed the APC merger, the broom revolution that crumbled the seemingly invincible PDP would not have chanced. With such gigantic media might, coupled with near fanatical following in the key Southwest states and Edo, the union that birthed the APC largely owed its success to him. He thus deserved a high seat on the high table of the emergent order. However, like our fabled “Angazi”, Tinubu is tilting dangerously towards being credited with virtually anything that happens in the polity even when such attributes are blatantly erroneous. Tinubu must be wary of the incipient image of an unscrupulous power-grabber and ravenous money demon. Too often, he is being portrayed as a ravenous powerhungry cormorant which, on balance, is really not so.
That is why this man of the moment must watch it. Rather than the thesis of his influence leading to an antithesis and ensuing bitter jealousy turning his many admirers against him, he should assume a more statesmanlike role as this dispensation grapples the arduous challenges of change.
With an influence this colossal, I challenge Tinubu to assume his huge powers with more patriotic and statesmanlike zeal. It is clear that he can be a huge force in the making of a truly great Nigeria by transforming that power to more positive use. He can exploit the near-mythical image to inspire his party, the President and all Nigerians to overcome the nation’s nagging oddities.