When a columnist runs amock

An ordinarily intelligent and perceptive Ijeoma Nwogwugwu ran absurdly amock in her absolutely reckless and irrational attack on the former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in her column on the back page of the Monday, 28th February, edition of THIS DAY. Titled “Tinubu’s God Complex”, Ijeoma submits without the slightest logically demonstrable proof that “Clearly, Tinubu is exhibiting signs of someone suffering for (sic) a case of the god complex – a state of mind in which a person believes that they have supernatural powers or god-like abilities and generally believes they are above the rules of society and should be given special consideration.”

Now, what do we make of this kind of kindergatten drivel? Our columnist does not cite one single instance of how Tinubu ‘believes’ he has supernatural powers or is a god. Ijeoma does not tell her readers what ‘special consideration’ Tinubu has asked to be given or what specific rules of the society he considers himself above. This sort of erratic reasoning is an abuse of the priviledge of writing a column. It insults and takes the reader’s intelligence for granted.

Ijeoma takes exception to Tinubu’s call on the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) to sack the striking Lagos state medical doctors if they remain recalcitrant. Like some mischievous sections of the press, she calls the statement an ‘order’ even though Tinubu only expressed an opinion. I do not want to believe that Ijeoma is too intellectually challenged not to know that a former governor cannot ‘order’ his successor to do anything. He can only offer advice.  

Speaking at a gathering of Christian leaders, Tinubu had expressed disgust that the doctors remain adamant even though their demands have been substantially met. Now, Tinubu spoke in anger on that occasion and he publicly said so. But was his anger unjustified given what Ijeoma herself describes as “the irrational medical personnel in Lagos who have been coddled and pampered by the state government and are currently being paid wages that millions of professionals in Nigeria would jump at”?  

Probably if Tinubu was thinking about politics and the next election, he would not have called for the doctors’ sack. He would not have voiced his sincere opinion but would have opted to play to the gallery for political reasons. Tinubu spoke with passion and from the heart. He spoke out of compassion for the hundreds of patients that are in pain and those that have lost their lives simply because of the utter irresponsibility of a group of professionals. As Funke Egbemode rightly said in her column in last Sunday’s edition of The Sun newspaper, such deaths occassioned by the strike are irreversible losses. 

Tinubu’s point is simple. Government has met at least 80% of the doctors’ demands. No party goes to the negotiating table asking that its demands be met 100%. Dispute resolution is about making compromises to facilitate amicable solutions. If the government yields to blackmail and submits to the doctors’ demands against the best interest of the state, it must be ready for spirals of strikes from other unions who will believe that government will always succumb to their will. Of course, Tinubu was also speaking from experience that an impulsive arm chair analyst may not appreciate.

At the inception of his administration in 1999, Tinubu was confronted with a protracted worker’s strike in Lagos State. The OBJ administration had arbitrarily increased the wages of workers nation wide without consulting the states or providing the funds for them to meet the additional responsibility. Tinubu insisted that the proposed salary structure was not only unsustainable but that implementing it would deprive the state of funds to meet the development challenges of a mega city of at least 10 million people at that time. He promised that as the Internally Generated Revenue of the state improved, his administration would systematically improve workers’ pay. 

I was present at a meeting where Tinubu passionately begged the union leaders to call off the strike to enable him travel abroad the following day for a crucial meeting with the World Bank towards the establishment of the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (LAMATA) that has planned and is overseeing the implementation of an integrated transportation master plan for Lagos. The workers bluntly refused. In the final analysis, the government had no choice but to retrench staff and the workers returned to work. But at the end of Tinubu’s tenure in 2007, the workers held an emotional farewell ceremony for him at the auditorium of the Alausa secretariat. Not only had their pay been gradually improved over time as Tinubu promised, the state had also been able to achieve considerable success in diverse sectors.

Ijeoma is unhappy with the use of the pronoun “we” by Tinubu when he said “we have provided a conducive environment for them to work and yet they are still not satisfied…”. Is he still in government she asks? Now, this is simply silly. Tinubu is the immediate past governor of Lagos State. His administration commenced the transformation of the health sector that Fashola is so admirably continuing. The Tinubu administration expended N8 billion to make the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital one of the most modern and best equipped in the country. He rehabilitated and expanded existing General Hospitals in Lagos, Gbagada, Epe, Isolo, Ikorodu, Badagry and the Island Maternity ‘baby factory’. His administration built and equipped new General Hospitals at Mushin, Shomolu, Ibeju Lekki, and Isheri-Iba while upgrading existing Health Centres at Ijede, Ketu, Agbowa and Agege to full fledged hospitals. He was perfectly right in using the word “we” in the context in which he spoke.

Did Tinubu have the authorization of his party to make his statement on the doctors, Ijeoma asks? First, he did not claim to be speaking for the party and second, does he require the permission of his party to express an opinion? Our columnist believes that “…the responsibility on how to handle the striking doctors in Lagos reside with the state ministries of Health and Establishment and the governor”. She does not realize that critical stake holders and opinion moulders in society can assist government in mediating disputes. In any case, why was she silent in the past when Tinubu successfully helped in mediating disputes between the government and aggrieved groups?

Ijeoma’s second major grouse against Tinubu is his alleged “declaration that Fashola has no business appointing commissioners in the state he administers”. Although she does not disclose the source of this story, she quotes Tinubu as saying that “many trusted people campaigned for the governor on the field and hence should be rewarded.” According to her “even if they are rogues, incompetent, and complete imbeciles, they should be rewarded with appointments into the cabinet…”. In the first place, it is simply true that a party will always have some input into the composition of the cabinet of a governor elected on its platform. Secondly, Tinubu is reputed to have had the brightest and best executive council members as governor. Fashola is a product of that cabinet. Tinubu does not have a record of appointing “rogues and imbeciles” into government.

“Contrary to the popular perception”,Ijeoma writes, “Tinubu really had no choice but to endorse and support Fashola’s re-election bid as the ACN governorship candidate in Lagos State for the April polls…realistically the ACN strong man knew that the governor was too popular to discard and would have had a riot on his hands had he done so”. Yet, in the same breath she claims that “Fashola had to beg and kow-tow to get Tinubu’s blessing”. Isn’t there a contradiction here? In any case, if Tinubu suffers from what Ijeoma calls the god complex that makes him believe he has supernatural powers and god-like abilities, would the popular perception matter to him? Shouldn’t he then believe that he can impose anybody on Lagos with his alleged supernatural powers? Is there not a problem of logic here? Does his sensitivity to public opinion not suggest a democratic mind-set rather than the Middle East dictator Ijeoma tries to portray?     

On why the talks between the ACN and CPC collapsed, Ijeoma chose to believe the version of Buhari and Attahiru Bafarawa rather than Asiwaju. Of course, that is her right. But it is strange to believe that a party with such experienced and accomplished men as Chief Bisi Akande, Chief Tom Ikimi, Chief Audu Ogbeh, Dr. Usman Bugaje, Dr. Chris Ngige, Chief Olusegun Osoba among several others will leave inter-party negotiations to just one man. It is most unlikely.