CoolFreeday:
God bless my President

Opinionated:
By Abdulkabir Olatunji

Lagos, the centre of excellence is playing host to President Muhammadu Buhari and as expected there is a lot of chatter about this visit.

having taken time to closely follow this historic visit, these are my top 10 takeaways from the visit:

1. President Buhari is Likely to be Reelected for a 2nd Term

Regardless of your political inclination you should learn to read strategic political moves and if you understand how the president got elected in 2015 you will appreciate that he managed to galvanize majority of the power brokers that got him elected yesterday at the 10t h Bola Tinubu Colloquium. They are now firmly behind him and he looks unstoppable for 2019 barring any miracle of humungous proportions.

2. Bola Tinubu is the Most Influential Politician in Nigeria
It is almost useless to try to list who was present yesterday at the colloquium because anybody who is anybody was there bar a very small handful of people mainly former Heads of State and Presidents, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, APC Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun who seems to be losing out in the All Progressives Congress (APC) internal power struggle. Outside of these major players, practically everybody else who matters was there from traditional leaders to governors to the captains of Industry. They were all there to celebrate the man that President Buhari described as a ‘strategist’. No doubt, he is the leading political strategist of our time in Nigeria.

3. President Yemi Osinbajo is intent on Prosecuting Former President Goodluck Jonathan

Nigeria’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo seems intent on exposing the alleged corruption of the former President, Goodluck Jonathan and some of his cronies. He again attacked the former president for looting the treasury.

Read some of his words at the event:

“And when we say that this same government that spent N139 Billion only on all of Agric, Power, Works and Housing, Transport, etc; spent between January 2015 and the elections, the sum of a N100 Billion in cash and 289 million dollars, altogether about a 100 Billion in cash, was released and spent, shared.

“This sum of money was in excess of the amount of money that was spent on Power, Works and Housing. And this is the point we are making, that there is no country in the world, and we must know this; there is no country in the world that would allow its resources to be plundered in the way our own resources were plundered and expect to be economically viable; it is not possible.

“Nigeria is unlike any other country because of the level of corruption that was perpetrated. We must stop that corruption and that is why we are so committed.

“When you fight corruption the way we are fighting it, corruption is going to fight back. The system would fight back. You will find that the fight-back is taking place everywhere, it is taking place on social media, it is taking place everywhere. But we are determined.”

How far he and the administration are determined to go, we shall see in the future.

4. Governor Ambode will stop at Nothing to Please his Political Benefactor

Governor Akinwunmi Ambode is a direct product of the Tinubu brand of politics and it is obvious to see that he is taking every measure to honour the President who is obviously a key ally of his political benefactor; from declaring a work-free day for civil servants, to closing major roads to the extent that the president felt compelled to overrule some of the restrictions. The Ikeja computer village at was shut and the Ikeja branch of the Nigerian Bar Association felt the full weight of the government’s instruments of coercion over its planned protest over the new Land Use Charge rates which have become a source of conflict in Lagos. Security agents were deployed to the branch’s office and its chairman, Adeshina Ogunlana, confirmed the development to press stating:

“The police have invaded my secretariat, there are about 50 of them who are armed, and they are saying that they don’t want the protest tomorrow (Thursday, 29th March, 2018).

5. Tinubu Does Not Appreciate Obasanjo’s Letter Writing

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu took a dig at former President Obasanjo over his letter-writing, tagging his letter ‘bad-belle’ writer wondering if the latter “had not been there before”. The former president has in recent months tried to position himself as the de facto leader of the opposition to President Buhari. Tinubu is definitely not impressed.

Read what he said: “I remember my grandmother used to send me to a letter writer in the post office of those days and near the magistrate court. So somebody is writing letters these days, a letter of politics, as if they’ve never been there before. Bad belle letters.”

6. Saraki and Dogara are in the Political Wilderness

Senate President, Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara have not managed to get themselves back into the mainstream of the APC after they partnered with opposition PDP lawmakers to get elected as the presiding officers of the 2 chambers of the National Assembly. Their absence at the Bola Tinubu Colloquium shows that they feel ostracized enough from the Buhari-Tinubu axis of power within the party to stay away altogether. It will be interesting to see what moves they will make as 2019 approaches.

7. Chief John Odigie-Oyegun’s Days as APC Chairman Look to be Ending Soon
Certain events are indicative of the state of political relationships and who is actually in power and those out of it. If Chief Oyegun could not find his way to the Colloquium of his party’s strongman, which event will he now attend? Deciding to miss the event was a big political blunder on the APC Chairman’s part. He should have learnt from Tinubu who continued to work with President Buhari even when they seemed to have diverged politically when the latter got sworn-in as president and started pandering to other interests.

8. Lagos, Sorry, Bourdillon is now the Political ‘Capital’ of Nigeria
Now that President Buhari has shown that he is firmly in Tinubu’s camp, practically every other politician who wants to achieve their political dreams through the APC will try at the very least to be in the good books of the ‘Lion of Bourdillon’ who has definitely found his roar back. You can be sure that many politicians who had been developing anti-Tinubu tendencies in the last 3 years will be finding ways to retrace their steps. Tinubu is a believer in ‘the more, the merrier’. He is likely to accept them.

9. The Opposition will have a tough Time Regaining Power in 2019

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu himself has said it: “that party (PDP), should forget it, they are not coming back”. A large part of the opposition’s calculations thus far had been premised on the perceived rift between President Buhari and Tinubu. Now that we all know the rift is gone, what is the opposition left with? Not much, except by some miraculous means they manage to wrest power from the APC in 2019.

10.Shutting Down Eko Hotel is Becoming Stale

It was Olamide the Nigerian rap champion of the moment who bragged about “shutting down Eko Hotel” (the convention centre). However, the place was packed to the rafters yesterday to the point of overflowing which points to the fact that, Lagos needs a bigger indoor events centre that is not owned by a religious organization. The Buhari-Tinubu shutdown of Lagos points to this and many in Nigeria and beyond would have taken note.

[b]Source: [/b]http://www.opinions.ng/top-10-takeaways-president-buharis-visit-lagos/

dancewith:
This is the most rubbish drivel I have read here. Some people's penchant for sychophancy is unprecedented

mamdanju:
Very correct. Baba will retired some retired generals permanently from politics after 2019 but more importantly fix our infrastructure, improve revenue generation, and reduce corruption. May he also succeed in finding solution to the herdsmen and Farmer crisis

joenor:
Nice one.