By Eric Elezuo
The Director of Strategic Communications of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council, Chief Dele Momodu, has called out the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, saying that he personally supervised the decimation of the Pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere. This is after the group had given him all the support he needed when he returned from exile in 1998 to eventually become the governor of Lagos State in 1999.
Momodu made the remarks in an article titled Festus Keyamo and his Erratic Vituperation while responding to the APC spokesperson’s attack on his person when he said he was doing hatchet man job for Atiku and the PDP when he dismissed Tinubu’s manifesto as ‘copy and paste’ from Chief MKO Abiola’s 1993 manifesto. He explained that Keyamo is a mere ‘figurehead’ in his job as Minister of State for Labour and Productivity as well as a ‘certified nuisance’ whose incompetence is so glaring that it is only a Bola Tinubu that could offer him a spokesperson job, and therefore, used the opportunity to further present the person of Tinubu to the public.
“There is no doubt that I love Tinubu the Man but I disagree vehemently with Tinubu the Politician. This is not the first time I will say it publicly. Since I now have the opportunity of presenting the bones of my disagreement with Tinubu, courtesy of Festus Keyamo, I will lay them bare,” Momodu began while insisting that Keyamo and his team were busy quoting a 2019 article he wrote without a mind to frame theirs.
He went ahead to narrate how Tinubu frustrated, used and dumped supposed friends of his including the Afenifere, which gave him a soft landing when he returned from exile in 1998.
“Tinubu has declined in the last few years. I used to see him as a man of his people but no supposed generalissimo would ever abandon his people in the days of trouble and tribulation. None of the people around him could tell him the truth for pecuniary reasons. He knows it himself but he desperately wants to be President of Nigeria, by fire by force, after he has lost most of his formidable foot soldiers, and now relying on outsiders to activate and actualize his lifelong ambition for him, which is his legitimate right. But Nigerians have the right to scrutinise his action plans,” Momodu said.
The veteran journalist, who runs Ovation Media Group, listed friends that have fallen out with Tinubu over his dictatorial tendencies to include “Musiliu Obanikoro, Ambode, Muiz Banire, Opeyemi Bamidele, Rauf Aregbesola, Fuad Oki, Yemi Osinbajo, Adenrele Adeniran-Ogunsanya, Babafemi Ojudu, Rahman Owokoniran, Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, Aminu Tambuwal, Yakubu Dogara, Nasir El Rufai, Babachir Lawal, Rotimi Akeredolu, Kayode Fayemi, Aro Lambo, Adeseye Ogunlewe, Jimi Agbaje, Ibikunle Amosun, Femi Pedro, Gbenga Daniel, Kofo Akerele Bucknor. Remi Adikwu Bakare, Tunji Abayomi, Tokunbo Ajasin, Mulikat Akande. Chief Dapo Sarumi, Amos Akingba, Bolaji Akinyemi, Mojisola Akinfenwa, John Oyegun, Godwin Obaseki, Yinka Odumakin, Papa Ayo Adebanjo, Papa Abraham Adesanya, Dupe Adelaja, Toyin Fagbayi, Papa Olanihun Ajayi, Prince Dipo Eludoyin, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who seems to be aloof to Tinubu’s campaign, and so many others, even if some of them have since reconciled due to political expediency”.
Momodu had followed up his writeup with a live interview with Channel TV’s Politics Today to further dismiss the APC candidate as a ‘potential dictator’, stressing that he was one governor who had two deputy governors who he constantly fought with during his tenure.