A friend of mine, a politician in Ekiti State who tried many times to become Governor, and then many times a Senator without success, told me one day that if you really wanted to succeed in politics, you must be willing and prepared to go to your bank, withdraw all your money, sell some of your property, especially houses, borrow more from friends and family, put the money together in front of your house, set it on fire in the presence of a cheering crowd, and still be ready to dance and dance and be happy like nothing happened.
Another egbon from Osun told me that on the same day that Oyinlola was announced as the winner of the Osun governorship election in 2003, against whom he contested on another party, and lost all - money and means, a guy from one of the towns in the State, who also had apparently heard the result of the election, called him gleefully to inform him that his wife had just been admitted into the labour ward and he needed money to pay hospital bills and for naming ceremony. My egbon asked him if he had heard the result of the election and the announced winner, to which he answered in the affirmative. The egbon simply cursed the man and banged the phone on him.
One day in the run up to the 2011 Presidential election, a respected Nigerian hosted a very high-level group of those we described as arrowheads, from different parts of the country. The arrowhead idea was mooted during a discussion that I was a part of in Dubai. In our view then, any of these individuals could have been a good material for the President of Nigeria. Most of them had served in President Obasanjo's government at very senior levels with degrees of success. A few others were also identified including a sitting Governor who was then demonstrating very strong capacity in governance.
The goal of the meeting was for the individuals to discuss and agree among themselves a single individual that they would all push forward as President and give their full support. During the meeting, individual and diverse ambitions showed up on the table, and all that made discussion very difficult. It was then obvious that they all wanted to become either the President or the VP, and none was willing to step down for the other and got so bad that there was no consensus on anything. There was no basis for further engagements. The meeting ended and everyone went about prosecuting their individual ambitions.
In 2015 after President Buhari won the election, a few friends of mine who were very concerned about the success of the new man, got very apprehensive about the kind of characters who were showing up around the yet-to-be-sworn-in winner. They mentioned one flamboyant politician in particular, now late. One of them called me to talk about the issue. She complained vehemently about the situation, and asked me to reach out to some of the people close to the General, to let Buhari know that such people should not be seen around him. Of course I spoke to a senior member of the party who played a big role in the election of the President to convey the concerns of my friends. The gentleman simply asked me to advise my friends to drop their garb of idealism. He asked: "so because Buhari has now won the election, he should stop interacting with those who worked hard to give him the votes? Do your friends know how Buhari got the huge number of votes that he got from the man's state?" I couldn't continue with my well-prepared argument.
Get ready for the game. Get very prepared. Politics no be 'yam'. Politics na 'long thing'.
