A statement credited to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in which he advised former Head of State Gen Ibrahim Babangida (Rtd) and former President Olusegun Obasanjo to join the retiree’s club, has begun to generate reactions.
The first in the series was responded to by Gen Babangida’s aide Mallam Yemi Saka as contained in a mail sent to NATIONAL NEWSBEAM in the on Friday.
According to the statement, Saka said that some days ago, the media was awash with a widely syndicated reportage in which Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu said and I quote: “I don’t address those shadows. We should let our former presidents join retirees’ club and take pensions, but they can participate in our politics if they are interested.
It is a free world but this freedom is not served a la carte. They should allow us to move our country forward. It is a challenge to every Nigerian.”
I would have ignored the viewpoint expressed but I have to react because my Principal was mentioned and there is a need to halt a deliberate mischievous misinformation.
It is laughable that a man who is campaigning for the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari believes he has the high moral standing to advise some people to retire.
I am forced to assume the chaotic schedule of the former governor as head of the reconciliatory committee of the All Progressive Congress is responsible for memory loss in Senator Bola Tinubu. As a former Governor, he should realized the interventions and prominent roles of these two former leaders of this country is enshrined in the 1999 Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria and both men fought for the unity of this country.
As the Governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007, his attendance of meetings of members of Council of State should be a reminder.
I also consider it as the height of hypocrisy, moral bankruptcy and obvious shamelessness on the part of Senator Bola Tinubu in the face of prevailing circumstances.
This is a man whose party is running a government of old men.
President Muhammadu Buhari will be 76 years old and not 46 on his inauguration on May 29, 2019 if he his re-elected for another term in office. A man Tinubu and his co-travellers called out of retirement to become the President in 2015.
Abba Kyari, the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari is such a “young man” that there is no record of his birth and early childhood on the internet.
Chief Adebisi Akande is 79. He was the interim Chairman of the APC and was with Bola Tinubu when he made this statement.
Chief Ogbonaya Onu who is the honourable Minister of Science and Technology in the 21st century is 67 years old.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be 66 years old this year.
Tijjani Muhammed Bande who is the permanent representative of Nigeria to UN will be 61 in December 2018.
Sylvanus Nsofor is 82 years old and he is Nigeria’s ambassador to United States of America.
Lastly, George Adesola Oguntade who is Nigeria’s ambassador to Great Britain will be 78 years old in March 2018.
After making two unsuccessful attempts in 2007 and 2011 to become a democratically elected President of this country, my Principal; Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (Rtd) accepted the outcome of the process and made it known he was done seeking public office.
The same can never be said of Muhammadu Buhari who kept on rejecting results of elections he participated from 2003 to 2011.
The only result he accepted was that of 2015 which he was returned as the winner.
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007.
These two men have never hidden their non-partisan and advisory roles in our nation’s politics.
If there are people who need to join the retiree’s club, it is Senator Bola Tinubu and his gang.
It is Bola Tinubu and his Old Men’s Club. I mean the APC.
God Bless Nigeria.
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