The Head of Service, Mr. Yakub Balogun didn’t know how to start but he had to deliver the message BRF had sent him: “Dapo Thomas must go”! The Head of Service stuttered: ‘Mr. Thomas, why don’t you go and see Asiwaju…’ I didn’t let him finish before asking him: ‘For what’? He muttered again: ‘To talk to BRF about giving you a position in the government’.
For a man who just called me ‘the Governor’s right hand man’ two hours ago, that was a wicked errand by Fashola to me through a hapless old man. For a man who literally dragged me into the conference room believing that BRF and I were the best of friends, that was a disgraceful assignment given by Fashola to an innocent man. For a man who thought I was the closest person to Fashola in the whole of Alausa to be hired at the same time as a courier of “Dapo Thomas must go” message, was extremely impolitic. Anyway, that’s what you get if you lack the courage to speak truth to power. Both Fashola and Yakub Balogun would have saved themselves this kind of childish embarrassment if the HoS had summoned the courage to tell him what transpired between the two of us before we came to the conference room. One, I probably wouldn’t have known that the message came directly from Fashola. Two, I also wouldn’t have known that a whole Governor could condescend to the level of gossipping about me with his Head of Service for about 15 minutes at a state function.
Three, I also wouldn’t have known that Fashola’s agenda against a “Tinubu’s Boy” was so critical that he had to use such a forum for its execution. The HoS is an elderly man. I decided not to be rude to him. Besides, the man had to protect his job. Again, he is a civil servant, a top one for that matter, who must carry out the instructions of the “man at the top”.
I opted to talk to him with some dignified insolence. I told him: ‘HoS, I know you are doing your job. I saw you kneeling beside the Governor before the session started. Something told me it was all about me. Now, you have confirmed it. Let me tell you Sir, I don’t lobby for positions and I am sure you and I are so close that we must have discussed this before. Two, I am not jobless. I still have my job in LASU. I have never stopped teaching. I was teaching every weekend since 1999 when I joined Tinubu’s government. That was the arrangement I had with the university. I have not fully resumed because the regular students are writing their exams.
I am still here because the Governor himself told me: “Dapo, this is our government. We are going to do it together”. When he said that, I thought he wanted me to offer some assistance in the implementation of the document/blueprint that we gave him. If he knew he didn’t need my assistance in implementing the document, why did he tell me “it’s our government”? HoS, with what you said about the relationship between the two of us (the Governor and I) before we came in for the briefing and before he called you to come and kneel beside him in the conference room, can’t you see that one of us is not being sincere?
The same Asiwaju you want me to go and meet has a message for betrayers:
“I don’t feel bad when I am betrayed because it is the burden of my betrayer to explain to God why he has to repay my kindness with such perfidious act”‘.
I thought the HoS had finished delivering the message, not knowing that he had more: ‘I will advise you not to come in for the second session after the tea break’. I didn’t give him any reply because it was obvious that I wouldn’t come back to the room. I left and I never came back. That was how I became the first casualty of Fashola’s undisclosed agenda against Asiwaju and some of his boys that he couldn’t tolerate. I was happy with the outcome of my two months ignoble stay with Fashola because it showed how much he respected me and how much he dreaded me by failing to conjure the courage to tell me directly to leave his government after calling it “Our government”.
He had to send a helpless old man to do the dirty job for him simply because he had authority over him. That was unfair. Again, what kind of “friend” would be greeting you frenetically everyday for 60 plus days when he knew he didn’t want you around him? That was a dangerous hypocrisy. When we presume that in politics, betrayal is a condiment, does that mean people don’t feel haunted by their acts of perfidy?
I refused to go to Oga because I would be forced to tell him what happened between the two of us. Then, I could be called a Tinubu spy in the course of giving him the details of our face-off. I didn’t want anything like that. Two, under these circumstances, what would I be doing in BRF’s cabinet and how would I function effectively in a government where the head has the tendency to flourish in pettiness? Three, what if Oga had a part to play in this whole drama as a way of getting back at me for what I did during the send-off ceremony? My final decision was to keep away from the two of them and face my PhD thesis fully.
After taking a deserving rest from politics, I went to Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi’s house in Ikeja. He had accorded me the privilege to use his well-stocked library for my research with a promise to take care of my breakfast or lunch. What an offer!! The first day I went, it was in the afternoon, Akpan, his Chef, served me poundo with Afang soup and nice chicken. It was a delicious lunch that inspired an uninterrupted flow of ideas from the heavens. Before I left that day, I read like magpie. Food and creativity are like Siamese twins.
I really enjoyed myself and my reading. The second day, I was there at about 10 am. Akpan served me a delicious breakfast of four slices of bread, two boiled eggs and a cup of coffee. In less than two hours, I was hungry again. Meanwhile, I was entitled to just one meal per day. I had to manage the turbulence of hunger for the rest of the day. Since that very day, I started resuming by Noon to avoid “Board members meal”.
That kind of meal was good for Prof. who was used to light meals as a member and chairman of so many Boards. I was doing research and writing a PhD thesis. I needed to eat well packaged swallows that could sustain the stress of mental excavation.
Aside from Akinyemi’s intellectual profundity which you can easily notice in most of his media interviews, the other thing you would notice about him when you get to his house is his culinary magnanimity. Concerning my Doctoral thesis: ‘The Political Economy of Asymmetric Relations Between Nigeria and the United States of America’, we had very engaging discussion sessions that brought out the best in him. The series of interviews I had with him on the topic were elucidating and edifying. The quality of his responses to my research questions was of professorial excellence.
The standard of the discourse was high and the analysis was profound. I spent almost six months in his house devouring most of his books that were relevant to the thesis. I was able to complete my post-field presentation, which had been elusive for some years .
All the while, I was struggling everyday with racing thoughts about Oga, wondering if my decision to stay away from him was correct. As his Special Assistant, walking away from him for one year seemed unwise to me. It was looking like a fair-weather kind of relationship.
I wasn’t feeling comfortable any longer with the whole “stay away” idea. Besides, one or two of our guys in Bourdillon (where Tinubu’s home is located) who were doing part-time programmes in LASU had been talking to me about some disquieting developments within the the Tinubu political family, of which I was a stakeholder. When I could no longer convince myself that it was proper to continue to stay away from Oga, on 20 September 2008, I put a call through to some of our guys in Bourdillon to know if Oga was available.
Fortunately, he was available but it was not a convenient availability because if I couldn’t get to Bourdillon in the next hour, I would have to go and meet him in London. I found my way to Bourdillon in 40 minutes. In actual fact, the two of us were at the door at the same time. I was about going in, he was on his way out. Immediately he saw me, he said: ‘Dapo, where have you been all this time’? I was trying to look for an excuse when he called Benson Akintola.
‘Where is the Ikoyi Club invitation? Give it to Dapo Thomas to represent me at the event’. He turned to me: ‘Ikoyi Club will be doing their 70th anniversary. They want me to grace the occasion but I am on my way to London now. Write a speech and go and read it on my behalf. You can scan it to me when you finish writing it. But if you can’t, there is no problem. Just make sure you are there on that day’.
My return was good for the BAT Boys. They were happy to see me return after almost a year of French leave. We had time to gist and gossip. We had been seeing signs of cracks in the house but I was made to understand that Oga didn’t think there was any cause for alarm. Some of the Tinubu boys in Fashola’s government had been complaining of marginalisation. Our party, ACN had technically formed the government as well as the opposition. There were murmurings but Oga still regarded BRF as a good boy. He didn’t want excalation of hearsays and “dirty gutter” narratives. We played along with him until ordinary bangers became magnified grenades. Cabals chasing cabals for remnants of power.
Caucuses struggling for the carcasses of what was left of power. BRF was losing control of the cabals he nurtured. Some of his boys were going gaga hauling insults at Oga at public places and event locations. BAT was watching the spectacle from the lion’s den thinking of how to tame the tigers of conflict and crisis investors. They (the cabals) started harassing and embarrassing BAT on behalf of BRF, as if the two initials (BAT and BRF) were the same forgetting that one has a vowel while the other lacked a vowel. When it was time to show the difference, BRF lost it. By 2010, when it was time to prepare for second term, BAT showed BRF and his boys that the vowel “A” connotes _agbara_ (power in Yoruba) by withdrawing his support for BRF. I never believed that a Governor could lobby for his position. BRF began jumping from one palace to the other lobbying the Obas to besiege BAT for clemency. In addition, the friends of the Governor, the likes of Pius Akinyelure, Prince Eludoyin and Egbon Salami, were also mobilised for entreaties.
I decided to intervene. I had studied the situation in town and I had interacted with the dregs and the mighty of Lagos. I refused to be moved by emotions and sentiments. It was a delicate call. Some were for BAT, some were for BRF. Fashola knew the people were on his side but in the short time he had been in politics, he had come to realise that the people can be for you, but the votes will be for your opponent. He didn’t want to take chances.
All he wanted was one more term. It would be enough for him to stabilise his game plan. I wrote an intervention piece titled: “Tinubu-Fashola: Crossroads, not Dead-End”. As usual, it was syndicated in most of the newspapers in Nigeria. In the piece, I said this in favour of Fashola: ‘The issue for now should not be about replacement but about making progress. In Lagos State, we must move on. Fashola has shown that he is a worthy son capable of wearing the big shoe that Tinubu once wore and, with this, Tinubu should feel satisfied and fulfilled that his legacy in Lagos is being sustained.
The people of the state and history will always acknowledge him as the architect and builder of the foundation of what is going on in the state… Tinubu himself assured Lagosians when explaining why he chose Fashola in 2007 that he knew Fashola would perform and even surpass his own achievements. And this has come to pass. So, what would now be his excuse for removing a winning and performing Governor whose achievements today are incomparable’.
Then, I wrote this about Tinubu in the same piece: ‘As a leader, Tinubu should forgive his political son and consider whatever he must have done as one of those things godfathers suffer when their godsons are under pressure from parasitic praise singers to liberate themselves and ignore the past and the circumstances of their rise’.
For three reasons I had to show this piece to Oga before it was sent for publication. One, I didn’t want to be seen to be playing to the gallery. Two, I didn’t want to be identified as disagreeing publicly with my Oga”s position. Three, I did not want Fashola and his cabal to think that I was patronising them. If, for any reason, Oga objected to its being published, that would be the end of it because publishing it wouldn’t serve any constructive purpose since the one that would take the decision had disagreed with it.
When I showed it to Oga, he asked me some salient questions which I answered. We discussed it extensively. The moment he told me to go ahead with it and even told me to publish it in *TheNEWS* (23 August 2010), I knew immediately that Fashola would get a second term. I made sure I didn’t discuss this with anybody till date. I was happy when Oga finally nominated him for a second term. I was happy because I saw victory in playing a positive role in the elevation of an adversary who was plotting my own downfall.
Before the governorship election on 26 April 2011, I wrote two articles titled: “Ribadu-BRF Ticket: Why it Must Work”, and another one: “BRF: An Evolving Ideology”. The first one was written when it was being speculated that the ACN was contemplating a joint ticket for both Nuhu Ribadu and BRF. The idea was discountenanced eventually.
The second one was written some days (13) before the election with the aim of marketing Fashola to the electorate. At the end of the election, BRF defeated his closest rival, Ade Dosunmu of the PDP. Fashola scored 1,509,113, while the PDP candidate scored 300,450.
After my post-field seminar, which was successful, I was in UI to perfect some registration documents when my phone rang. It was from Dele Alake. He said he had gotten me a big job. At that time, they were putting the Commissioners’ list together. Alake said that…
