Early Sunday morning, I went looking for trouble. In APC’s internal political family affairs.
Like Portable, the controversial musician would shout, “wahala, wahala, wahala”. But I was beyond caring. The feud between these two APC staunch supporters on the Facebook page of one of them was too interesting and amusing for me to ignore and not poke my nose into, not minding what could be the backlash.
These two gentlemen, one of them a former Senior Special Assistant, (I think), on agriculture, in the office of the former Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osibanjo, and the other, a veteran journalist who has worked for various national news publications, including The Nation newspaper, and who was all over the place, promoting and defending the candidacy and personality of President Tinubu during the election campaigns leading to the last general elections, were virtually at each other’s throats, tearing down the policies of their two principals, former APC President, Mùhámádù Buhari, and present APC President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
I was amused to no end. So, I jumped into the fray, hoping to calm these two APC family members’ frayed nerves.
Me: “D.B. and O.O.” (their initials), “See me here, sitting back and eating my popcorn, enjoying this your movie: ‘Buhari APC Supporters Club vs Tinubu APC Supporters Club – Two Sides of The Same Coin.’ This is quite hilarious – APC government in power versus APC opposition in power, a.k.a ‘Change’ versus ‘Renewed Hope'”
I continued, “Are we still going to get the APC ‘Change’ you guys promised us in 2015, and can we bank on the APC ‘Renewed Hope’ you assured us of three months ago? Or, should we simply continue praying for ‘Another’?”
O.O., obviously amused by the uninvited intrusion into their family matters, replied, “Ayo Lijadu, you can clearly see sir, that the differences may be because of differences in the names of the two APC Presidents and the different ways they choose to do things”.
What? Really?!!
I fired back . “O.O., whether APC northern President o, or APC southern President o, omi èkọ́, èkọ́ ní, (àkàmú water, remains àkàmú). We have experienced APC calamitous governance under Buhari for eight agonizing years. Tinubu’s barely three months’ old reign in the saddle has been no less agonizing, and, as they say, ‘morning shows the day’.
“If you have the ears of Mr. President, or the ears of those who have the ears of the ones who have his ears, we plead that you tell your principal, (Nigeria’s C-in-C), not to drag us into a senseless war that may be the inglorious crowning point of his three months old calamitous government, under which a hapless people are already groaning.
“This kind of war he wants to champion ( ECOWAS versus Niger Republic), is unlike the one he allegedly single-handedly led, (like you his doting admirers always bragged), as a NADECO war General, and routed out that rascal Sanni Abacha from power, thereby making him the ‘undisputed national hero of Nigeria’s modern day democracy’, lol. Just like you guys also love to tout him as the ‘Chief Architect and Founder of modern day Lagos’. 😅 🤣 😅
“Tinubu versus Abacha will not be the same thing as Tinubu versus Niger Republic o. Please shout it very hard into his ears o, per adventure he has also inherited his predecessor’s ear problems”
I am not in the habit of interfering in other people’s family affairs but our President’s seemingly hungry disposition to embark on a war of misadventure, (along with his fellow clueless brother ECOWAS Heads of State), against our fellow brothers in Niger Republic, can no longer be considered a solely APC family affair.
This obviously very dumb ass decision to plunge the West African sub-region into another theatre of war, instigated and egged on by the Western powers who are standing by to sell us their firearms, (for us to kill ourselves), while they plunder our mineral resources, should be seen exactly for what it is: an absolutely dumb ass decision.
Every right-thinking and level-headed Nigerian adult should speak up, and loudly too, against the quest of our shallow-thinking leaders to murder their citizens in a war that is a consequence of the internal issues of another country that do not threaten our own national interests in any way.
After putting in place obnoxious economic policies that are steadily strangulating their citizens, impoverishing the populace, and driving people to their untimely death through extreme hunger and suicides, is it their plan to quicken the elimination process by plunging us into a senseless war?
This is no longer a solely APC’s family affair but one that concerns us all. Let everyone, therefore, raise their voices and continue to shout to the highest heavens so that even the one who has ear problems can hear:
WE DON’T WANT WAR!!!
Ayo Lijadu is a veteran actor, former Presidential aspirant, and later Senatorial candidate of Kowa Party for Lagos East senatorial district in the 2019 General Elections. He features regularly in the daily TV soap, Tinsel, and writes from Lagos.
