Looking up close to President Bola Tinubu with former VP Atiku Abubakar, are both not situated on a crucial intersection between political adventurism and self-aggrandizement on Nigeria’s political chessboard?
Apparently, what simultaneously unites and divides them is a thin line separating state capture (a type of political system in which private interests significantly influence a state’s decision-making processes to their own advantage) with crony capitalism (a pejorative term used in political discourse to describe a situation in which businesses profit from a close relationship with state power, either through anti-competitive regulatory environment, direct government largesse and or corruption) with either the Chagoury or Vaswani brothers as the case may be.
But this may be carrying speculation too far.
Undoubtedly though, Asiwaju and Waziri are two sides of the same coin.
One side as Laswell defined politics in 1936, “Who gets what, when, how.”
The other Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) eminently describing, “A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”
Perhaps no Nigerian can really understand nor fully decode the dynamics between Asiwaju and Waziri without carefully reviewing how the duo’s separate political careers variously intersect with that of another pair - Generals Shehu Musa Yar’adua (1943-1997) and Muhammadu Buhari.
The former first brought them together under the aegis of a Jos presidential primaries ahead of the June 12, 1993 polls. The latter is chiefly instrumental in creating the current enabling environment of the ongoing zero-sum game in Nigeria.
Two of a kind regardless
Beyond the recurrent grandstanding and frequent acts of political ambush against Asiwaju by Waziri ranging from issues around the Lagos-Calabar coastal superhighway project to the parlous state of the Nigerian economy including recent headlines screaming in rebuttal, “Atiku jealous of Tinubu’s achievements,” there is actually more that ideologically unites than divides those deep pockets as earlier mentioned.
Every society has its elites, “by elite, we mean a small number of individuals who, in each sphere of activity, have succeeded and arrived at a higher echelon in their chosen professional hierarchy.”
Asiwaju and Waziri belong to the same gentrified class essentially, “a judicious mixture of lions and foxes, of men capable of decisive and forceful action and of others who are imaginative, innovative and unscrupulous.”
Over the decades our pair of accomplished plutocrats have deeply entrenched themselves as political decimals par excellence, warts and all, constantly juggling humongous resources, shifting alliances and various acronyms as special purpose vehicles for their continued relevance.
A quintessential hybrid of foxes and lions, these highly motivated and extremely capable political titans have not only over time shown a common propensity for prebendalism but proclivity for primitive accumulation.
They are both well known to demand blind loyalty from battalions of acolytes and hordes of hangers-on including online and even offline bullies of different hues.
Revolving door of power in Nigeria
Tinubu’s political trajectory was catapulted by the grandiloquent Bashorun MKO Abiola (1937-1998) a tempestuous friend, political associate and serial business partner of Yar’adua who a Royal Military Academy instructor had reportedly told point blank, “You are either going to be killed in battle or become a general at a very young age.”
Lt. Buhari who had been Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon’s initial choice as ADC before he was sworn-in as Head of State on August 1, 1966 was nominated by former General Obasanjo as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters after the power vacuum created by generalissimo Murtala Mohammed’s demise.
Army chief TY Danjuma would have none of it insisting that the said officer was not politically flexible enough for the role. That was how Yar’adua instead got elevated to become Nigeria’s Number Two between 1976-79.
Waziri’s political ladder was later constructed by the same gifted schemer and uplifted political carpenter.
There are threads of many colours that weave these aforementioned personalities into an intricate tapestry of converging webs of influence and divergent circles of friendship.
This spans military solidarity, business relations and even a tangential old school network ranging from Tin Can Island that first brought the Tafida and Waziri together, Habib Bank that joined Yar’adua and Abiola in the first instance through a Pakistani Command and Staff College colleague of the former, Lt. Colonel Ali Kuli-Khan.
Meanwhile, the Chagoury brothers are a longstanding common denominator between General Danjuma and President Tinubu.
Then, there is an aristocratic connection involving two emirs decades apart.
According to former President Buhari in his own words, “The emir of Kano (Sanusi I) told us (through Yar’adua) if soldiers could overthrow a line of kings (1958 in Iraq) it could happen anywhere. So, we should go and join the army.”
Similarly, in his own words, President Tinubu explains how he eventually became a staunch political ally with his immediate predecessor in office;
“It was that small clique (of Adamu Adamu and Babachir David Lawal) that succeeded in persuading Buhari that they could make a political marriage work between him and myself, and had enlisted the support of our mutual friend, the late emir of Borgu, Haliru Dantoro, who became the father of the merger.”
Interestingly, it was Lt. Colonel (later Major General) George Innih (1938-2002) then military governor of the old Kwara State that had first introduced Dantoro to Yar’adua thus the Buhari link.
Innih (who had served directly under Obasanjo 1968/69) and Yar’adua were at Sandhurst together. Dantoro and Tinubu had become senator pals during the Third Republic.
Kitoro III of the ruling house of Gbemusu in Borgu would eventually confer the honorific, Jagaban on his Lagos friend which soon translated politically as “national leader” much to the widely reported consternation of “Maigaskiya” back in the day.
Therefore, on the inherent nature and character of “elite circulation” in Nigeria;
“Changes of regime occur not when rulers are overthrown from below, but when one elite replaces another. The role of the ordinary people in such transformation is not that of initiators or principal actors but as followers and supporters of one elite or another.”
According to the Russian-American complexity scientist, Peter Valentinovich Turchin (b.1957) who interprets historical dynamics using mathematical models “elite overproduction” is the chief cause of instability, “when a society is producing too many elite members relative to its ability to absorb them into the power structure. Those left out feel aggrieved.”
If so, how does Mr. Peter Obi fit into the fray against the background of the political “hatred” between Asiwaju and Waziri?
“Over time, the established elite naturally degenerates, becoming insensitive to the material conditions of the forgotten and left behind. As the elite accumulate more wealth at the expense of the masses, their power and ease of life triggers decay.
There arises an unscrupulous opportunist ready to address the concerns of the ordinary people. Not only do they voice the just concerns of the people, they also deliberately and falsely mimic the prejudices and anger of the dispossessed just to gain power.
Again, it all sounds so familiar.”
Conclusion
Beyond their carefully crafted profiles enhanced by glossy and mint public relations burnishing as political oligarchs and business moguls, neither Asiwaju nor Waziri would voluntarily commit class suicide on behalf of Nigeria.
This is because these main issues in mercenary politics are not monoliths of patriotic fervour.
Meaning, devoid of all pretentiousness, their main power bases are respectively supported by strong primordial pillars. Stripped to bare essentials, they are another set of presumptive gladiators and free market gunslingers merely representing rival hegemonic blocs in the political food chain.
Both as bourgeoisie pawns of international capital, none is ideological enough to possess a truly egalitarian blueprint to reposition Nigeria away from continuously being a trading-post and rent-seeking economy.
I humbly stand to be corrected.
References:
Yar’adua: A Life of Service (2004) edited by Jacqueline Farris and Mohammed Bomoi
Soldiers of Fortune (2013) by Max Siollun
Against the Run of Play (2017) by Olusegun Adeniyi
Theory of Regime Change (1936) by Vilfredo Pareto
Elites, Foxes, and Lions (2017) by Terry Jones
Blame Rich, Overeducated Elites as Society Frays (2016) by Peter Turchin
Tags
Opinion