Sunday Igboho: The real Asiwaju of the Yorubas

By Bolaji Akinyemi

Arguably, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the most creative Nigeria politician living today. A man of no mean political entrepreneurship and acumen whose profit in political investment doesn’t come to him in “Ghana must go” bags, but driven in bullion vans.

This business cum professional politician has deliberately built the control system in such a way that nothing happens without his knowledge. Particularly in the South West, hirelings he has everywhere in place of Shepherd’s. Dents to his image are so easily panel beaten because of this control system. The media is awash with his men and women, gatekeepers who filter news to ensure what we hear are never to the detriment of their paymaster.

When the article, “Bola Ahmed Tinubu: The Fall Of An Emperor At Lekki Toll Gate” written by me and published by Sahara Reporters, one of his men, Steve Ayorinde (Phd), was the one to whom duty called. He began his assignment by letting us know he read my article in the company of his principal and that midway into their reading they discovered that the article wasn’t written by Bolaji Akinyemi, the respected professor of International Relations, the former and one of the best to have supervised the Nigerian Ministry of External Affairs. The duo of master and servant were so enraged by the article they couldn’t conclude reading before a call was put across to the Prof, who probably informed them he was not the writer. What a relief! Steve took a swipe at the messenger without addressing any of the issues raised by the message.

Ayorinde revealed his frustration at searching for an unknown Bolaji Akinyemi, a search that ended with a farmer with little or no education but had wit enough to write an article which himself, a Phd holder and his season political grandmaster mistook for something from the pen of an erudite scholar, until their call asaauged their worries.

There were calls from different quarters on the need for me to do a rejoinder on the emptiness of his writing if only to defend his claim that I have little or no education. Can you beat that! Those who filled the media space to defend Muhammadu Buhari’s lack of certificate and concluded that the constitution only required the ability to read and write for the President, are asking for my Phd thesis, to substantiate my audacity for expressing my views. The honour done me by institutions who appreciate our content was called to question by  these confused individuals whose lack of priority and greed for filthy lucre is the reason they have brought our Nation to its knees in the hands of an incompetent leader.

They would stop at nothing to keep their business running! Prof. was compelled to do a video dissociating himself from the write-up informing Nigerians that he is Akinwande Bolaji Akinyemi and that anything from him will be signed off as Akinwande B. Akinyemi. What an honour, leaving me with the name Bolaji O. Akinyemi! Do you see how God works? There is one Dr Bolaji O. Akinyemi in the public space and that is me. The other will like to be known as AKINWANDE B. (Bolaji) AKINYEMI, a Professor who has been one since my Secondary School days. And my intellectual idol was made to drop the name he so earned, a name a little known uneducated farmer like me had cherished to share with him over the years.

That digression was needful. It was meant to be a bouncing castle of another gatekeeper kept at the Presidency, who like many toddlers need to excite himself of how “tall” and visible he can be when propelled up into the air. But failed to realise the castle is a deception that throws one into the air but can’t hold one up in the air. “Won ti gbagbe pe lala won to re oke ile lo bo”. Forgetting that whatever goes up must come down.

This time, Femi Ojudu is the one to whom duty beckons to rise to the occasion and, the occasion is a thug serving the interest of PDP. That is the narrative he is possibly paid to fix so that there can be a reengineering of public opinion to their advantage.

In his article titled; “Sunday Igboho You Didn’t Know”, Ojodu tried frantically to let us see Sunday Igboho as they would want us to see him, but forgetting; the Yoruba adage that says, “tori were ita la se ni were ile” meaning,  it’s because of the mad man on the streets another mad man is needed at home to ward of possible attack from the one from the streets.

Ojudu began his story by telling us “it was in 2009. The Appeal Court sitting in Ilorin ordered a rerun in a number of polling units in the election between Segun Oni of PDP and Kayode Fayemi of ACN.

Oni had in the main election and the election petition tribunal that followed been declared winner of the gubernatorial contest. Our party, ACN contested this, hence the declaration of a rerun.

The election which came three months after the Appeal Court judgement was like war. The PDP ruling at the Federal level did not want to lose Ekiti while the opposition ACN led and financed by Bola Ahmed Tinubu wanted to take Ekiti by all means”.

Did you read between the lines like I did? “The opposition ACN led and FINANCED by Tinubu wanted to take Ekiti BY ALL MEANS? Ojodu didn’t tell us about, “gburu to fa Igbo ti Kotu fi pase ki won tun ibo di”, meaning he was silent about, the, “by all means” that ordered the rerun for which the by all means must supervise in favour of Asiwaju Political Company.

Ojudu went further in his attempt to keep us seated in the moonlight. “A few days to the election, we got an intelligence report that the PDP big wigs had perfected a plan to unleash thugs recruited from across Yoruba land on Ekiti. The plan was to kill and maim as many as possible, snatch ballot boxes and win by any means possible.

Tinubu summoned me to Lagos and said Femi, ‘I have conducted a scientific opinion poll. You people can win this election. The only snag however is they are deploying state security as well as thugs against you. State security men we can handle (and he did creatively handled them) but how do you handle thugs?’

“I then suggested we dissuade them by engagement and inducements. After all they are in the business only for the money and not for ideological reasons.”

“We reached out to both Ade Basket in Akure and Fada Geri in Ondo. Both were dreaded in political circles. We had a series of meetings with them and were able to squeeze an agreement with them that they would not make themselves available to PDP for hire. I got them to even sign documents for me that they were going to stay off Ekiti elections”.

If you still have any honour left for men so dishonourable, as we progress towards 2023 then you are on your own.

Ojudu didn’t stop without making a confession; “The biggest headache for us then was Sunday Igboho who we learnt has been hired and paid by a Senator from Osun to come and cause mayhem in Ekiti. Tinubu instructed we must get him at all cost.”

“Six days to the election we began our search for him. Eventually we met someone who had his number. I put a call through to him and he agreed to meet with me in Ibadan. We scheduled an appointment and had a meeting at a small hotel not far from Premier Hotel.

Tinubu, I told him, has sent me to him that he will like to have a meeting with him. He said he will love to meet him as he has heard a lot of good things  about him too. The problem he said is he is PDP and not ACN. I said that precisely is the reason why he wanted to meet with him. He asked if I could keep this a secret, I said why not. Papa Adedibu , and our Osun Senator, he said must not learn about his meeting with Tinubu. I told him there is no way they will know except it leaks from his side”.

Igboho was their headache, it was treated then, but came back now a migraine. What Ojodu made Igboho to sign for and he promised to keep a secret he is right in the open vomiting like a glutton who ate above the capacity of his stomach.

We know, that the interest of President Muhammadu Buhari’s people, the Fulani herdsmen, are far more important to both Tinubu and Ojudu looking forward to 2023. This has been proven times without numbe. Do I need to reflect our minds on how the Fulani herdsmen were exonerated by Tinubu over the killing of the prominent daughter of Oodua who apparently was the daughter of our leader without allowing investigation to commence. Tinubu concluded the killer were not Fulani and even threw a conspiracy theory at the Nigerian police to make them look for the killers from Evan’s the kidnappers tribe. How cruel!

Ojudu was not done with the brush of his pen. Painting Igboho with water paint is a task that must be accomplished. But unfortunately in the torrential rain that Fulani hostility has become to their hosts in the South West Yoruba nation, who are by now desperate to have a place to hide.

He said further. “He agreed to a meeting on Thursday preceding the election. I reported back to Tinubu who then relocated from his base in Lagos to Sunview Hotel in Akure. Igboho drove down alone at about 10.00 pm. I and Tinubu had a dialogue with him.

“Igboho,”! Tinubu said, “I have heard a lot about your bravery. The Ekiti people have suffered too long under the rule of PDP. They are looking for change. I learnt you have been hired to make this impossible. I have invited you to plead with you to allow the poll to be conducted peacefully. If after that the PDP wins fine. If the ACN wins, all well and good”.

Tinubu went on and on lecturing him on the beauty of democracy and unencumbered electoral process. By the time Tinubu finished with him, he became sober and contrite. “Baba”, he said, “I have heard you and I am pleased with what you have said. Whatever you want me to do I will do even though I have collected money from the other side”.

“This was the extent Tinubu went to secure Ekiti for his party, ACN. Most of this the candidate, Fayemi, himself was not even aware of.”

“Tinubu then beckoned me to follow him to the bedroom of the suit he occupied in the hotel.“

‘Femi this guy appears sincere. It does appear we have dissuaded him.’

Even in his insincerity, Tinubu affirmed the sincerity of Igboho, “he does appear we have dissuaded him”. That is their stock in trade, using subject of interest to Yoruba nation at deceiving us.

The Yoruba nation has been at war since we were all “dissuaded” in 2015 to follow their greed for power under the deception of calling for change.

“Asiwaju Ogun ko gbodo kehin ogun” he that should be at the frontline of the battle must not be at back of it. But our own Asiwaju has gone hidden when the battle of the herdsmen were fierce against our people. The Jephtah so named by Pastor Tunde Bakare in the Citadel couldn’t be found when duty called. But then, God stepped on the scene and from no where appointed His on Jephtah for the Yoruba nation and the situation conferred on the one that defended the Yoruba against Fulani supremacy, to which Femi Adesina once advised us to make a choice between our ancestral land and our lives, the Asiwaju of the Yoruba nation.

Ojudu would want us to know of their characteristics golden handshakes; their magic wand against a people so impoverished to maintain the control, but the table has turned. There is a new Asiwaju whose sincerity Bola Tinubu confirmed will lead the Yoruba nation as a tribe to the Table of national discourse on the way towards 2023. And if the discussion goes beyond stand up and sit down, I volunteer myself to be Sunday Adeyemo’s interpreter but never again shall sincere men be traded for the not sincere. Not for money nor for education or certificate.

In a working country, Ojudu by now should have been declared wanted for impersonating an AIG. But what do we have? Adeyemo is the enemy of Tinubu who is eyeing the Presidency at the expense of our collective interests as the Yoruba nation, is the one the IGP is after. The forces that did so much to gain control of Ekiti, should be asked how much more is being done to be President at all cost.

The Yoruba nation should ask Ojudu if the desire to have control of Ekiti that made them pay billions for all the Hotel in the State that brought INEC begging for where to stay is not playing out with the  arson on Adeyemo’s house on Monday the 25th of January 2021, when his house was burnt down in the middle of the night? Such measures can only be carried out by those who would want to prune down the popularity that Igboho is gaining. Do I need remind him and his cohorts of the the Yoruba adage that says, “ile Oba to jo, ewa lo bukun.” By this singular act the coronation of Adeyemo as the Asiwaju of Yoruba nation is finally sealed. An Emperor indeed fell at Lekki toll gate, never to rise again.

Bolaji O. Akinyemi is a human right activist, an evangelist and President of PVC-Naija_

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