His anger was palpable. The invectives and arrogance he filled his mouth with traversed the landscape causing some form of trepidation amongst chicken hearted Nigerians.
As soon as it was announced that Bola Ahmed Tinubu had picked Kashim Shettima as his running mate, the former Secretary to the government of the federation, Babachir Lawan (the grasscutter) lost his cool and went gaga, promising to teach the APC a lesson.
His grouse was that the Muslim/Muslim ticket had altered his bigoted and self serving thinking, and as such, he will lead the Christian population of the North in particular and their brethren in other parts of the country in general to torpedo whatever success the sorry was angling to get.
He was joined by former speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara in quitting the APC and pledging to teach the party a lesson. True to their promise, the two men went ahead to openly organize all manner of meetings during which they mobilized their brothers – all in an attempt to incite the Christian population to reject the Muslim/Muslim ticket, by which they intend to prove to Nigerians that a single faith ticket could just not fly in Nigeria. While at it, Babachir was unapologetic in his crusade to prove a point, that what the APC had done was dead on arrival. He went about it spicing his speeches with hates and tantrums, promising to bring down the roof on the whole country.
He voyaged into the Labor party while his brother Yakubu Dogara found his way into the PDP, in a clear deliberate plan not to put their eggs in one basket.
As the indices are currently showing, their plans have come to naught and gone up in smoke. The pack of religious cards they bandied about came crashing down before their very eyes, as they are being forced to learn the lessons of their lives the hard way. Instead of fulfilling their promise of teaching the APC a lesson, they are now running around like rain beaten chickens and with their tails in between their legs, cocooning their faces in the shame of their lives.
They have been taught a lesson, that the numbers they think they have are merely in their jaundiced imagination. They have now learnt that they are inconsequential in the political calculus of Nigeria. They have been forced to perish that naughty and arrogant feeling that they have any power to force political parties to pet them and covet their support. They now know that, whatever consideration or patronage they used to enjoy in the past, was merely out of the desire to spread goodies and not because they are, by political strength, deserving of them. Unfortunately, Babachir thought that his appointment as SGF by President Muhammadu Buhari was due to some clout and relevance of his place of birth, his religion and the indispensability of his contributions in attaining political victory.
Babachir deceived himself and sadly cajoled some likeminded fools to follow him blindfold into a ditch of infamy and irrelevance.
And until they retrace their misguided steps by reading the compass without sentiment, they have successfully boxed themselves into a very tight corner. From thence on, Babachir and his bigoted ilk will become lepers and out of reckoning for life.
