By Ikeddy ISIGUZO
The ever-taciturn Abdul Samad Isyaku Rabiu CFR, CON, GCON, a billionaire worth over $14 billion, was the one who gave Nigerians an insider view of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Umrah, where Tinubu was supposedly in quiet piety supplicating for the good of Nigeria in Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
Rabiu was moved by the spiritual significance of being let into the inner Kabba, a privilege he said was rare. He prayed for Nigeria just like Tinubu who got an instant response to his prayer that he should continue leading.
Which voice spoke to Tinubu in this choreographed Umrah? He heard what he wanted to hear.
It seems that what was packaged as Umrah was a political meeting to mobilise votes for Tinubu across the North.
Tinubu would want you to believe that he had a dinner with the delegation on Sunday. Rabiu counted three presidential dinners. Nobody knows when he stopped counting. The austere setting for a prayer was absent. The setting appeared more tilted to debauchery and farming out whatever was still left of Nigeria in exchange for votes.
Rabiu said, “Today is actually the third dinner we’re having with His Excellency, Mr President”. What type of dinner is this that Rabiu had to preface his impressions of a religious event with the dinner?
The Dollar-ranked billionaire Chairman of BUA Group has had dinners across continents with Presidents and corporate icons. The Tinubu dinner must have been special for Rabiu to be so impressed.
“Since we came to Mecca on Thursday night or Friday morning, we discussed, and the discussion was one, to always continue to pray for Nigeria, for peace, for unity, and for Nigeria’s prosperity,” Rabiu listed the great prayer points that were silent on insecurity, poor governance, hunger in the land, and poverty.
Remarkably, Rabiu was the only Muslim businessman found worthy to be in Tinubu’s Umrah delegation, unless we count Wale Tinubu, reportedly a known relation of Tinubu, who could have attended as family. Again, Rabiu is from Kano in the huge votes-bearing North-West of Tinubu’s concern.
“We used the occasion to thank His Excellency for graciously inviting us to accompany him to Mecca, the sacred city, and to also have the opportunity to go and enter the Kaaba again. It has allowed us to pray not only for ourselves and for our families, but for Nigeria,” Rabiu said.
Rabiu gushed, “Mr President is very passionate about the country. He is doing everything; he is working very hard, and we will continue to support him”.
We, as Rabiu rendered it, meant that Corporate Nigeria will support Tinubu because he is working very hard, doing everything, and is passionate about the country, for the benefit of the likes of Rabiu and their businesses.
Rabiu is for Tinubu. He would willingly finance the campaign. He will get new business opportunities, exclusive share of some parts of the economy that delight him.
What are Rabiu’s thoughts about millions of Nigerians in the North-West, across Nigeria, who Tinubu has made so poor that they can no longer afford BUA products and the more people who are falling into Tinubu’s poverty loop?
Do they not matter? Their lives are worth only three dinners and discussions about Nigeria with Tinubu over prayers in the Holy City?
Tinubu talks glibly of a united Nigeria where nobody is behind. His Umrah was an opportunity to divide Muslims. When we insist that his mission in Makkah was a political strategic session for the 2027 election, they keep deceiving people that Tinubu was praying.
Makkah was a session to develop new lies wrapped in religion after the unsustainability of the Muslim-Muslim ticket of 2023. Religion won the election but the North has never been more sieged and troubled as it is today. The people want a better life and not a religion their leaders preach, stripped of any improvement in the lives of the people.
In Makkah, Tinubu held a political meeting with those he believed would fan votes his way. He prefers to deal with the Governors. Tinubu cannot face the people who have seen he has nothing to offer Nigerians except more empty promises.
How can an event conceived and executed in deceit, of all things, be called prayer? Tinubu’s eyes were on Northern Muslim votes.
Tinubu took six Governors, all Northerners, to Makkah. No Yoruba Muslim Governor qualified. Are Yorubas not Muslim enough? Will the prayers of Yoruba Muslim Governors be unacceptable to the Almighty Allah?
Yoruba States, Tinubu expects, will vote for him. How do Yoruba Muslims feel about the unconcealed slight which is another clear picture of Tinubu’s selfish? Tinubu does not care. He is all about winning a second term. With defeat staring him in the face, he can do anything. That is why he had no qualms throwing away the brotherhood the religion preaches to try to grab power again – for himself.
In the most recent Tinubu trip were:
• AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, Kwara State
Governor, and Nigeria Governors’ Forum Chairman, whose State witnesses regular terrorists attacks. Tinubu acts as if Kwara does not exist until if it is useful for 2027. After 170 Woro hostages were rescued in August, hostage-taking continues.
• Babagana Umara Zulum, Borno State Governor, where more Nigerian military and security agents have been killed in peace time, was there, looking very worn and seemed forced to attend. Why was he there? Vice-President Kashim Shettima has provided no value to the ticket, not for lack of trying – Tinubu wants Shettima to be like one of his Deputy Governors in Lagos. Zulum has influence. The same can’t be said of Shettima who Tinubu wanted out of the second term ticket.
• Uba Sani, Kaduna State Governor, a Tinubu lackey whose major use is to pepper Nasir el-Rufai, his predecessor, who has been in detention since February. El-Rufai was Tinubu’s northern star. Then things fell apart so rapidly after Tinubu did no nominate him as Minister.
• Mai Mala Buni, Yobe State Governor, almost too quiet that he is sometimes forgotten as a Governor. His inclusion is to enhance the votes grabbing in the North-East.
• Mohammed Namadi, Jigawa State Governor, one of three Governors from the North-West. The zone accounting for half of Governors in the delegation is a reflection of the importance Tinubu attaches to the 22.8 million voters that INEC says the zone has.
• Ahmed Aliyu, Sokoto State Governor, snatched the top prize for sycophancy and fled with it. The delegation had hardly unpacked its bags when Aliyu told the world, “Since we arrive in Makkah President Tinubu hardly sleeps. He is always praying for Nigeria”. Did that improve the price of petrol? Was Governor Aliyu’s role in Makkah to monitor Tinubu’s sleep? Did they share a room? How did he come by such information? People can still be in the Holy City of Makkah and would not bait an eye to knowingly utter lies to please Tinubu who only cares for himself.
“I believe in the love of the people, the commitment to the job, and the physical commitment to it,” Tinubu said in Makkah. He did not say he loved the people.
Welcome, Tinubu and his prayer warriors. Your actions, not your platitudinous interpretations of religion, would be best proof that the people matter to you.
Finally…
.TINUBU declared a national emergency on Ebola, released N10 billion to his Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila who immediately travelled with Tinubu to Umrah. Looks like Ebola has retreated. How did Gbajabiamila manage the Ebola emergency from Makkah?
.THUGS of the ruling party are disrupting political engagements of the opposition and the Inspector-General of Police Tunji Disu is addressing the matter with words. NDC has been attacked in Enugu, Delta and the latest was in Calabar. ADC was attacked in Sokoto. The police should not wait until people resort to self-help.
. THE absurdity that results in a federal high court sitting on appeal on the judgement of a court of concurrent jurisdiction is how the leadership of ADC is being distracted. The judiciary should be ashamed of itself.
. ANYONE who is not a lazy person, definitely he would have food on his table. – Senator Abdulaziz Yari, former Governor of Zamfara State, Tinubu’s campaign Director-General. Farmers in Zamfara, Katsina, Plateau, Benue, anx across Nigeria, who cannot access their farms because of banditry are lazy? Workers owed salaries because Tinubu are not paying contractors are lazy? Yari is reportedly so rich that he does not understand how anything works.
*ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues