Senate v. President. Both Are Guilty.

My silence over this issue is informed by the lack of surprise in the whole saga. A cooperation between the two arms would have been the news. The President and the APC are paying for the sin of SAK - a Hausa acronym for "APC all-through". The President was asking Nigerians to vote for APC from head to toe regardless of the record of the contestants. When some of us said it was a mistake for only God and his Messenger could be SAK, nobodylistened. Now everybody is learning the hard way.

Put philosophically, in the build up to 2015 elections, the President had a choice between power in alliance with the corrupt on the one hand and continuing to abide by the principle of going with people of like minds on the other - a choice between Machiavelli and Malam Aminu Kano, if you like. He chose power in collaboration with the corrupt after he was tired of the principle that did not yield the result he needed in three previous elections.

Everybody knows who these characters were. However, for political expedience, a deaf ear was turned against their terribly corrupt records. They were embraced, given their potential to match the then ruling party evil for evil. The blood money that they had could not be resisted either. It was needed to fund the APC campaigns. In return they were given party tickets for governorship and National Assembly positions.

Is it now that Nigerians know they can betray them, forgetting that they have betrayed the party that made them governors earlier? Is it now that we know they are corrupt after enjoying their financial contributions during the campaigns? Come on! Let us tell the truth.

The Hausa in their usual eloquence have summarized similar situations in one proverb: kowa ya sai rariya, ya san za ta zub da ruwa.

My advice to the President is that he should embrace the reality that these guys are the co-travelers he knowingly chose to partner with on his journey to the Presidency. He cannot disown them after reaching his destination. So he must learn to tolerate them and their actions for the country to move forward. They are the devils he chose to dine with.

I hope next time the President will have cause to examine his Machiavellian philosophy of SAK.

Bakina alaikum.

Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
4/4/17