Handshake, By Femi Ogunsanwo

To be successful in political terrain you need to extend a warm handshake and build bridges across the length and breadth of Nigeria. As a Yoruba man sitting and having a bowl of tuwo shinkafa with miyan kuka with a Fulani man from Katsina should be second nature to you. Rolling garri in your fist with ofe nsala or ofe Owerri with an Ibo friend from Orlu should be effortless. Eating starch and banga soup with a man from Warri should be a special delight anyday.

In our clime political elites are very smart, very brilliant and knows what it takes to be successful in politics, they mastered this already. Unfortunately, the followers are dumb and mere expendables who serves as mere cannon fodders in every election cycles, trumpeting silly narratives and stoking ethnic tensions here and there with their silliness and obdurate partisanship but when election season is over everything returns to normalcy until another election period.

Let me cite one good example of that handshake. President-Elect Bola Tinubu trusted a man like Ben Akabueze on anything related to Budget and Planning. This man served as Commissioner for Budget and Planning in Lagos State from 2007-2015. Currently, he is the Director General Budget Office of the Federation and also Special Adviser National Planning to the President from 2016 till date, which means he is a member of the Federal Executive Cabinet. Guess who nominated him to this administration? Bola Tinubu of course. Why did you think he did? The man is brilliant, unarguably one of the best in his chosen field in the country, he is RCCG Pastor while his principal is a Muslim but religion will never come in between them same way their ethnicity.

I have a senior friend (he will read this piece surely). Met Bola Tinubu way back in 2000 when he served as Governor, till date they are close associates. The man is an Ibo man but when they discuss the language is in Yoruba, same man will sit with northern political elites and will converse in Hausa fluently, a fantastic polyglot, dont even know how many languages he can speak. At some point, I know he is chummy with close to about 10 Governors both serving or former in the country, whether from the north or south because of special service he rendered on political affairs. Hope you can see that political elites are together and one unlike you followers.

So if the President-Elect is picking his team tomorrow, these gentlemen are the ones he will want very close to him, not you lot who are rabid Yoruba “Neshon” clowns stoking ethnic tensions all over the internet and social media. The most pathetic are folks who relocated abroad, you live in foreign lands, integrated easily and fully accepted by your hosts but you will not accept other ethnic groups in your own land, you write copiously that you are Yoruba First, tuale akobi Oduduwa and cousin Orunmila, “owo meji loke fęnikan”. The political elites you are supporting will read all the crap you are writing and shake their heads in disbelief that a grown ass adult can be this dumb and will be so amused with the level of your ignorance.

Anyway folks like you can never thrive in national politics, maybe you lot cannot see the silliness you are displaying is obvious to every discerning minds. When some of you even get to national stage and be in Abuja you will find out that its a place where you have to reason with others, collaborate, extend a warm handshake, accept everyone as they are, be respectful, achieve cordial relationships, by so doing that is the only path to becoming successful in politics and not through brainless and unintelligent obduracy.