Atiku vs Tinubu: Dance of Naked Emperors ENGAGEMENTS BY Chidi Amuta What began as a promising campaign season is about to end up as a roving circus of political emperors and their minions.
What began as a promising campaign season is about to end up as a roving circus of political emperors and their minions. As the campaigns for next month’s elections wind down, we probably now have a convenient summation of the surreal experience. We might as well call it ‘the Lost Campaign’. The over six months window which INEC allowed us for campaigns was greeted as time enough for exhaustive issues- related campaigns by the political parties.
Nearer home and more recently, other hazy accusations against Mr. Tinubu include countless unsubstantiated charges that he may have fleeced the Lagos treasury during and after his tenure as governor through sweet heart contracts, consultancies and commissions. We have heard all these repeatedly before. Nothing has been conclusively proven or legally sustained neither has much been convincingly repudiated.
From the Atiku side, there have been more colourful displays spearheaded by Dino Melaye, the familiar Senator of colour, bombast and a gifted performing artist. On the campaign trail, Dino Melaye has occasionally mimicked Tinubu’s infirm swoons by deliberately and foolishly falling off the campaign podium to audience applause.
These diversionary antics are not accidental. They are generic in the tradition of politics that has produced both Mr. Atiku and Mr. Tinubu. They are playing typical African ‘Big Man’ and ‘African Chief’ politics. This politics is not about the people or the nation. It is about the political gladiators as totems of power. This is a dying but nonetheless still potent political tradition.
At similar party campaign events in Owerri, Enugu and Onitsha respectively, an arrogant Atiku insisted that he will ensure that the much talked about Igbo president comes only after his reign as imperial president. He would make it happen by political fiat! It is only after his presidential tenure that he would graciously pay heed to the legitimate right of Igbos as citizens to vie for and expect to be elected president in a country they call theirs.
The elements of imperial personality cult politics are complete in the tone of the two campaigns. The language of both sides is predictably combative, arrogant and belligerent with frequent grandstanding as in warfare. Mr. Tinubu’s people have hectored the media as in their quarrel with Arise Television over his failed town hall appearances. Mr.
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