I dont want to sound cliche but nothing describes what I wish to opine here better than to note that in politics, there are no permanent enemies nor friends, but interests. We may also need to accept that it is also a game of numbers.
Tinubu is a professional politician and knows the game very well. Someone’s villain is actually someone’s hero and Tinubu knows this.
If Abacha were to be alive, his opinions would also be sought after in a democracy because he would have a community of people who follow him.
IBB is still a lord in Minna and there are communities of people who will do anything he says and if my guess is right, those are the people a good politician would be courting. And what better way to achieve this than to take pictures with their messiah?
Also recall that in 2006, when he made known his intention to run for president, the SW was equally divided in support and against him before he withdrew. This means, whether we like it or not, there are many Yoruba people who would never see any evil in the man regardless of what others think. Those are also the people Tinubu may be targeting to win over.
In the last few years, Tinubu has been controlling what happened in Nigerian political space by sitting down. But now that he is the candidate, Asiwaju is showing this generation, especially people like us who are the Twitter generation, how to play the game and learn from where our forebears made mistakes. We need to sit back, take our writing materials and start learning from the master as Tinubu is not your typical politician.
My conclusion is that Tinubu’s visitation to the former dictator is just for the optics and the use of ‘blessings’ is political because that is the only language that would resonate well with an average Northerner on the streets.
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