The former governor of Lagos State and National Leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been described the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, as suffering from what they termed as ‘Mugabe syndrome’, after the sit-tight Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe.
The PDP said this in a statement in which they reacted to the rumored plan of Tinubu to install his daughter as the new Iyaloja of Lagos and President-General of Nigerian Market Men and Women after his mother who last held the position, Alhaja Abibatu Mogaji died last week at the ripe old age of 96.
In the words of the party, “the attempt by Tinubu to impose his daughter as the new Iyaloja on Lagosians portends a great danger to Nigeria’s democracy. Instead, the new Iyaloja should be selected through a transparent, credible and liberal process.”
The statement also said, “Tinubu is obviously plagued by the Mugabe Complex, in which former leaders are unable to walk away when they complete their tenure, preferring to create enough problems so that we can always look back wistfully at their tenure. They cannot even stand successors who outshine them in performance. They will do anything, as long as it gives them continued relevance and help them exhibit a sense of patriarchal proprietary over their constituencies.
They pointed to the 2011 elections in which Tinubu presented his wife as a senatorial candidate and his son-in-law as House of Representatives candidate as evidence of his desire to entrench himself as the number-one godfather in the South-West. They also alleged that the candidates won only because the ACN was in control of the state.
Lagos State is one of the only three states, besides Yobe and Borno States that the PDP is yet to win a governorship election in, and has set it firmly in its sights as among the 23 states it intends winning in the 2015 elections.
However, it is also the crown jewel among the ACN-controlled states, and as such, the ACN would not let it go without a fight.
The post of the Iyaloja, though not a government position is important, especially considering how traditional market systems are a vital component of our existence.
A scholar, Manthia Diawara, pointed out that the traditional market system poses the greatest obstacle to modernity in Africa and should be coopted into efforts made at building modern societies. The traditional market system forms a significant part of cultural life that we cannot divorce from our corporate-contemporary existence. They are important gateways to trade and globalisation. Markets, anthropologically considered, represent interwoven strands of primitiveness and modernity in our societies. How far our country will go can be determined from the dynamics of these markets. In Nigeria where manufacturing efforts are low, what constitutes our economy owes a lot to the markets.
Meanwhile, the ACN has neither refuted nor confirmed the story that their national leader is planning to install his daughter as the Iyaloja to succeed her grandmother, who held the post with an iron grip even up to the age of 96, when it was clear she was not strong enough to discharge her duties efficiently.