By Bayo Onanuga
Aminu Waziri Tambuwal was praised by PDP chairman as the hero of the party’s convention for swinging votes to Atiku Abubakar at the convention, making it possible for Abubakar to win.
I do not think Ayu got it right.
In my view, Tambuwal has destroyed his future chances of being a Nigerian leader or a future president, for what he proved at the convention was that he is a hegemonist.
His action prevented his longtime friend and supporter in the 2019 primary, Nyesom Wike, from winning. Although Wike was to blame fellow southern governors for his debacle, Tambuwal was the real culprit. His action showed that he only wanted power to remain up north, despite the campaign of power shift southwards in 2023.
Tambuwal will in the future find it hard to defend his action, having been a beneficiary of a Pan-Nigerian support for his speakership in 2011, at the time the position was zoned to the South West.
In 2015, he reduced himself to a hegemonist, when he backed Yakubu Dogara for speakership against Gbajabiamila who had supported him in 2011. In 2022, he has revealed himself again as a tribal jingoist, a political hegemonist. With this latest action, he should just say goodbye to any national aspiration in the future. The best he can hope for is to remain an ethnic champion.
In 2011, Rt. Hon. Hakeem Gbajabiamila begged Senator Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to support Aminu Waziri Tambuwal for Speakership against the PDP’s choice of Hon. M. Akande, whom Hon. Abike Dabiri Erewa had already appealed to Senator Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to support.