By Tunde Odesola
Dear god of Lagos,
I had vowed not to write about your presidential ambition yet. I was waiting for the time your protegee, Yemi Osinbajo, a pastor in the lush pasture of politics, would confirm his rife presidential ambition.
Honestly, I had patiently waited and hoped to show why both the lion and the lamb are misfits for the presidential villa located on the granite rock named Aso, derived from Asokoro, the name of the Abuja community.
C’mon, the heartless, hardness and stony imagery of the Aso Rock granite as a corollary to Nigeria’s political barrenness since 1991 when the nation’s capital was moved to Abuja never struck me until this very minute!
Seriously, I’ve never seen it this way before. I mean, I’ve never connected Nigeria’s leadership impotence to the rockiness of the Abuja seat of power. In light of the rocky consequences of Aso Rock, I ask two questions: Is it not a foolish nation that expects its fruitless leaders to germinate inside Aso Rock granitic edifice and produce bountiful harvests? Did the Son of God, Jesus Christ, not specifically warn against the futility of planting on rock?
I earnestly plead that the nation’s presidency should come down from the Asokoro Rock of barrenness and meet the masses on the plains of democratic deliverables, breaking away from the fruitless relocation of the seat of power by the bloody General Ibrahim Babangida, who ran up, tail between legs, to the rock 30 years ago.
Jagaban Borgu, National Leader, Kingmaker and Governor Emeritus, I greet you warmly once again, sir. As soon as 2023 politicking is airborne, I hope to remove the ideological caps worn by two contending Yoruba heads; shave the greyey head with a razor of words and paint the shiny skull with black tar.
However, there’s a matter of urgent national importance needing your quick attention at the moment, the great but waning Lion of Bourdillon, sir. It’s the issue of the Frankenstein monster which people say you bred as a self-preservation strategy. The monster is your son, Musiliu Akinsanya aka MC Oluomo, who has become terror by day and pestilence by night in the Oshodi community especially, and the whole of Lagos, in general.
Asiwaju, sir, I’ve seen many pictures of MC Oluomo hobnobbing with your esteemed self in a father-son relationship since your days as Lagos governor and governor of governors. So, I feel duty-bound to, as a patriotic duty, explain to Nigerians why the killings and violence perpetrated by the National Union of Road Transport Workers in Lagos make you a misfit for Nigeria’s presidency.
The god of Lagos, sir, you must have seen countless viral videos wherein MC Oluomo and his mob of roughnecks worship your holey name, showing off their closeness to the feet of the master, where crumbs fall, and vicious dogs wag their tails.
The closeness of the barbarian MC Oluomo mob to the Throne of Lagos located at 26 Bourdillon Road, Ikoyi, probably explains why the state government failed to prosecute NURTW hoodlums who opened gunfire when the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, kicked off his governorship campaign on January 8, 2019, at the Skypower field in Ikeja GRA.
Three journalists, Group Political Editor, The Nation newspapers, Emmanuel Oladesu; New Telegraph correspondent, Temitope Ogunbanke, and Ibile Television cameraman, Abiodun Yusuf, were hit by stray bullets fired by warring NURTW thugs at the campaign.
Three persons died during the gunfire which occurred in the presence of the Lagos APC leadership that included incumbent Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, his wife, Bolanle; Sanwo-Olu, APC deputy governorship candidate, Obafemi Hamzat; Lagos State APC Chairman, Tunde Balogun, among other party bigwigs. Stabbed a couple of times in the fracas, the fearless MC Oluomo fled like the Yoruba comedian, Papalolo, his heels touching the back of his head as he escaped death by the skin of his teeth.
Exactly one year after the gunfight at the APC rally, MC Oluomo celebrated his survival in a literary effusion that was clearly not his, saying: “Looking back at that fateful day and the subsequent happenings that followed, I cannot but appreciate a man of many parts that has genuinely taken me as a son. I am referring to no other person than His Excellency, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. My appreciation also goes to the entire members of Lagos State House of Assembly, APC Lagos State Executives and entire party members.”
Oh, how I breathed a sigh of relief along with your teeming supporters when the authorities of your alma mater, Chicago State University, finally confirmed a few days ago that you truly graduated from their citadel of knowledge with flying colours.
An MC Oluomo, who urged journalists to launch an ‘infestation’ instead of ‘investigation’ into a matter, cannot be the candidate Your Excellency would back for the post of Oba of Oshodi. Sir, if you, as it appears, back MC Oluomo for the post of Oshodi monarch, it means your purported antecedent to headhunt competent hands is a ruse, after all. And this action would confirm the allegation of your legendary penchant to pick and use people for selfish personal interests, and not for public good. After infecting the monarchy in Osun with two misfits, but prominent kings, should the APC, this time in Lagos, inflict royalty with a man of violence?
Like the generality of the Nigerian populace, Tinubu, Sanwo-Olu and the APC know that violence and bloodletting are second nature to the NURTW. Just a few days ago, two persons were reportedly killed during a gunfight between two Lagos Island factions of the union headed by Adekunle Lawal aka Kunle Poly and Mustapha Adekunle aka Sagoe. Businesses hurriedly shut down as workers fled to safety in order not to be caught in the crossfire at Idumota and its environs. The actual number of deaths, injuries, economic loss and damage suffered during the bloody crisis has yet to be determined. Sadly, no NURTW member belonging to the killer factions has ever been brought to book over the ceaseless bloodletting wrought across the state.
If violence breaks out in Oshodi with an MC Oluomo as king, who do the blood-thirsty factions report to? To a king who is the head of a ruthless state-backed mafia called transport union?
The enormity of the calamity the Tinubu-led APC has inflicted upon Lagos State through NURTW lawlessness was brought home in March 2018 when a confessed serial killer and member of NURTW, Adeola Williams aka Ade Lawyer, confessed to killing over 100 persons.
Ade Lawyer confessed he was hired by a former Chairman, Lagos NURTW, Akanni Olohunwa, to kill Kunle Poly for a bounty of N1.5m. The assassin said Olohunwa paid him N500,000 as the initial payment for Kunle Poly’s life. Olohunwa, who denied the allegation, said he paid Ade Lawyer N500,000 out of fear when he threatened to wipe him and the members of his household out. Olohunwa revealed that one day, Ade Lawyer opened fire and killed nine passengers in a bus in Lekki.
Ade Lawyer, who the police shamelessly lied was on their wanted list for five years, confessed he operated openly as a unit head of the NURTW in the Ajah axis of Lagos Island around 2001 and 2003 (when Tinubu was governor of Lagos State). He, however, later recanted the allegation of being sponsored by Olohunwa to kill Kunle Poly.
It’s the brazen manner of Ade Lawyer’s operations that showed Lagos State’s hand in NURTW’s lawlessness in the state. While speaking with journalists, Ade Lawyer mentioned the names of MC Oluomo, Sagoe and the immediate past NURTW Chairman in Lagos, Tajudeen Agbede, as NURTW chieftains he had worked with.
To be concluded...