FORMER Vice Presidents Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Namadi Sambo visited Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in his Ilesa country home enroute the coronation of the new Owa Obokun Adimula of Ijesaland, Oba Clement Adesuyi Haastrup, Ajimoko III, on Friday May 23, 2025. Since then, I have received a couple of opinion articles from the usual suspects, fulminating the lyrics of betrayal and ingratitude to a benefactor. These were directed at Ogbeni Aregbesola as he’s being castigated for going to bed with Alhaji Abubakar, seen as the political opponent of President Bola Tinubu. To be clear, the visit of Abubakar to Aregbesola was purely a courtesy call. It was not political. There was no talk of Aregbesola being in the coalition he’s building to unseat President Tinubu. As is common in political circles, when politicians visit a community, they often make courtesy calls on the monarch and the political leader in the place. When politicians hold such meetings, it is often secluded in Dubai or London, not in the full glare of the public.

More importantly, Alhaji Abubakar is not a stranger to any of them as they have been political allies in and out and often play political cat and mouse. You will recall that during the second term of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, 2003-2007, Abubakar fell out with his principal, the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, and his strongest political ally then was Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos. Abubakar was effectively muscled out of PDP and he found accommodation in Action Congress (AC), which the Alliance for Democracy (AD) had morphed to. The plan then was for him to pair with Tinubu for the 2007 presidential election. it didn’t quite work out as Atiku picked Ben Obi as his running mate. This was their first falling out as Tinubu returned to Lagos to lick his wounds. Abubakar became politically peripatetic as he went back to PDP and then again joined the APC and pulled forces with Tinubu to be part of the coalition that brought Muhammadu Buhari to power in 2015. Then, again, he went back to PDP, under whose banner he contested the 2019 presidential election. Alhaji Abubakar therefore is a mutual political ally.

But this is not about Abubakar. The hounds were out to get the scalp of Aregbesola for not walking on all four to beg for a piece of the action since his falling out with President Tinubu as most people in his shoes would have pragmatically done. Aregbesola, many would swear that he was Tinubu’s right hand man and most trusted ally. But given what we have seen now, these assumptions are false. It was a marriage of convenience and a mutually beneficial relationship. Both of them grew together politically and assisted themselves on the way to their present political heights. Tinubu began as a neophyte in the politics of Lagos, after he left Mobil, to become Senator, Governor and now President while Aregbesola became a two-term commissioner, two term governor and served as minister. The authors of these write-ups projecting Aregbesola as ungrateful appear concerned and disturbed and feigned acting in his best interest. But their message is the same – vilify Aregbesola and bring him to ridicule as an unfaithful person. 

They use the same lines of argument and their conclusions are the same. This is the classic media orchestration by ghost writers whose names are unknown and unheard of. They are handed the same dossier and their outlook is predictable. First, Aregbesola did not betray anyone. Rather, he thought he was being loyal, only to find that the rug has been pulled from under his feet, as he was being simultaneously deplatformed in Lagos and Osun by his boss. That was his moment of epiphany. Still, he struggled hard to salvage the situation as he naively insisted there was no rift between him and his leader, even as Governor Oyetola, his successor, was busy dismantling his legacy in Osun, with his political structure and allies in Lagos were being pushed through the furnace. Worse still, he was expelled by Osun APC four times before he called it quits with the party in 2024, while his leader did not lift a finger and spurned all the efforts to reconcile them. This brings us to the second issue. If you had sent him out of your party, would it mean he can no longer participate in politics or choose new friends? Assuming without conceding that his meeting with Atiku was political, on what legal, moral or political basis would he be barred from associating with another politician if the cord between him and Tinubu has been severed, as it now is?

 PDP labels Tinubu’s two years a ‘nightmare’

No matter how closely intertwined a couple might be, the moment they are divorced, they are free of any obligation towards each other. You can no longer determine for your ex-partner on who not to befriend after your separation. You cannot even ask him or her not to date your sister or brother or best friend. It will be absurd to do so. Once you are separated, you are free to associate with anyone you want. This is the cold truth about politics. It is easy joiner and easy exit. If you are afraid your political allies might join your opponent, then enlightened self interest dictates that you should do everything possible to keep them. Once they are out of your grasp, you have lost any control over them. It is clear the authors of this silly illogic are not acting in the interest of truth or reason, but their fallacy resonates with a sizeable number because, for most part, we bring the logics of monarchy and fascism into democracy.

In a democracy, the president or political leader is not a king. He wields influence and exercises charismatic authority, nay influence, but he’s not an absolute king. We are not in any way beholden to the president. We do not owe him to like him. What I owe the state is my civic obligations in obeying the law and being a good citizen. If he wants my love and loyalty, he would have to earn it and I may not still give him, with his most strident effort. These hack writers should therefore get off this silly horse of eternal political loyalty to those to whom you are no longer politically associated with.