21/01/2022
A Lagos Original - In Touch
Sam Omatseye
The Nation newspaper 17/01/2022
He is rich. He is powerful. He has influence. He has changed lives. He transformed a city. Made men and women. Yet he attracts quite a few adversaries. They deny him the right to be human. When he is sick, some wish him dead or eternally crippled. When he is not seen, some conjure his ghost as a dead soul. When he reappears, they won’t even credit him as a revenant, a man who came back from the dead. Rather, they wait for another date with the grave – in their imagination.
When he makes a mistake, they raise the stakes of sin and he becomes Satan. When he does a saintly thing, they turn either blind or amnesiac. When they are around him, they flatter and lick his boots. A minute after they leave his ken, they snarl and huff.
His traducers are like the characters in the proverb that says, “Haters don’t really hate you, they hate themselves because you are a reflection of what they want to be.”
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu knows this. Hence, he has never had an enemy in politics. Rather he has rivals. He can joust, even if he may not be just. He has had many, some over money charges, often on matters where he is just. But he has never maligned nor spat malice. Hence when some of his associates left, he has often welcomed them back and elevated them, causing those who are at home to feel left behind. He has done it in public. Before him, Jesus had dispensed the parable of the prodigal son who overtook the homeboy. Tinubu has never abandoned a prodigal. He understands the human conscience, the tendency to fall and faint, and he is ready to embrace and give an opportunity for rebirth. I have seen a few bow before him for pardon after shooting him with bows and arrows.
Few in politics have this gift. They know it is one of his cardinal staying privileges and virtues. They hate him and try to tell a story of original lies about this Nigerian original.
They won’t tell the story that he was the one who fought for this democracy when they were galivanting with soldiers in the military era, when June 12 fumed. They hid in shadows and fear. They say he is rich, so he must be a crook.
