2023: Tinubu’s SWAGA is not the South-West agenda
By Olu Fasan
LET me be clear from the outset. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State and a leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, is constitutionally eligible to run for president of Nigeria. Eligibility, however, does not mean suitability. But that’s a subject for future columns if he formally decides to run for president in 2023. Of immediate interest, however, is the big falsehood being peddled by those fronting the campaign for his yet-undeclared presidential ambition.
Falsehood? Yes, because under the banner of SWAGA, acronym for “South-West Agenda for Asiwaju”, Tinubu’s acolytes are touring the length and breadth of the South-West, telling Yoruba leaders and traditional rulers that a Tinubu presidency would advance the collective interests of the Yoruba, or the South-West agenda.
To be sure, the South-West agenda is the Yoruba’s long-standing call for political restructuring. From demand for sovereign national conference under President Olusegun Obasanjo and advocacy for national conference under President Goodluck Jonathan to current clamour for restructuring under President Muhammadu Buhari, the Yoruba have been at the forefront of agitations for restructuring, for genuine federalism.
But ahead of the 2015 general election, APC wanted the votes of the South-West people, for whom restructuring was a key demand. So, the party made the following commitment in its manifesto. “We will initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to the states and local governments to entrench true federalism and the federal spirit”.
During the presidential campaign in 2015, Tinubu and other South-West APC leaders played up the political-reform and power-devolution pledge to sell Buhari’s candidacy to their people, and Buhari went along with the campaign vow.Yet, more than six and a half years in power, with barely 18 months left, President Buhari has done nothing to keep that key manifesto promise, and Tinubu rarely says anything beyond the perfunctory or platitudinous on the issue. He can’t bring himself to challenge Buhari’s adamantine opposition to restructuring; he even ignores the report of his own party’s committee on restructuring, led by Nasir El-Rufai, governor of Kaduna State.
One must wonder: Why has Tinubu not pushed hard for the fulfilment of a commitment that his party made in its Constitution and Manifesto, which it described as “Honest Contract” with Nigeria? Tinubu is called “The National Leader” of APC, the definite article “the” suggesting significant influence. Yet, in truth, when it comes to President Buhari and the North’s powerful interests opposed to restructuring, Tinubu has zilch influence.