My Problems With Tinubu – Gani Adams
How did your relationship with Tinubu get to this point?
Nobody was close to Tinubu than I was. I used to stay with Tinubu and I would be the last man standing with him. We ate on many occasions around 3am on the same table. Most of my meetings with him were during the wee hours. I know Tinubu very well and Governor Aregbesola of Osun State.
My take is that you cannot continue to enslave me. I am a breadwinner of my family. I am a stakeholder in my State and my community. My followers also want freedom. We give them various opportunities to make a living and they are happy with what they get.
I cannot continue to donate my resources to somebody who do not want to empower me. Politics is about interest. It may interest you to know that about seven to eight months to the election, the president sent some people to consult me in Lagos on his intention to run and seek my support. I immediately debriefed the National Co-ordinating Council on the issue, we deliberated on it and we agreed to support him.
We met about three years ago when Aregbesola tried to broker peace but Tinubu was not ready to reconcile with me. His response that day proved that he was not ready for reconciliation. He justified his position that he had assisted me on several occasions and saved me from possible death. I tried to make some comments but Aregbesola stopped me, asking me to accept everything Tinubu said for peace and I obliged. But, Tinubu himself truncated the peace move.
During my 43rd birthday celebration, I was advised to meet him and I went to him, gave him an invitation letter. I waited at the reception for about three hours. I couldn’t have waited like that to see Jonathan. When I eventually saw him, he called one of his aides and said: “Dare, give him N1million” Then, I said, it is not about money, but your presence or you send a representative.
Then, he said, he would send a woman to the ceremony. But surprisingly, nobody came. The Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola also did the same on my 40th birthday. I called him severally to the wee hours of the day of the programme. He assured me of his presence, but he later disappointed me. My investigations showed that he was instructed by his boss not to honour my occasion.
The Speaker of Lagos State, Ikuforiji also did the same. His was very surprising because, he had already sent his advance team to the occasion, an indication that he would come, but he did not show up and his advance team left suddenly before the end of the programme. It was only the then Governor Gbenga Daniel that attended that occasion. As a Yoruba man, we value recognition more than money.
Another scenario was during the burial ceremony of his mother. I was offered a seat by one of the honorable members but I decided to go and greet him (Tinubu). To my greatest surprise, his head of task-force, Bayo Lawal stopped me while Tinubu watched. I was surprised to see Tinubu behave as if nothing had happened. I walked out of the place immediately.
It is not in my character to hero-worship. If I don’t have enough money on me, I swallow my pride and stay at home. There are other issues that I cannot tell on the pages of newspapers for now so that, people will not think I am being petty. As Yoruba, we should strive to lift one another.
Tinubu was assisted by Afenifere and within one and half years that he got into power, he kicked them out. Within two years, he impeached the main Afenifere product, Kofoworola Bucknor. He used three deputy governors during his tenure because of his intolerance.
The only people Tinubu wants are boot- lickers, paupers and people without conscience. The Yoruba race is being misrepresented by those who profess to be Yoruba leaders. I am a long runner and a trained fighter, you can’t rubbish me. I have more than 20 means to fight my enemy, not with weapons but with different strategies. I have the structures on ground and I will use them to the letter.
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