I read Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s article about of my friend Mallam Nasir El-Rufai with amusement (”Sanusi Lamido On El Rufai” on this same site @ Omojuwa.com) and I have to say that I was pleased with the fact that he wrote it. I am glad that he has reiterated his love for Nasir and expressed his tremendous respect for him. He has also spoken very well about Mallam Nuhu Ribadu who is also a good friend of mine and he has said that anyone that is their enemy is his enemy too. I am happy for him and when it comes to both Nasir and Nuhu most people know that these are precisely my sentiments as well. As I have always said these are the two people that gave me hope that we could have a united Nigeria again where northerners and southerners could live and work together.

I cannot say the same about Sanusi Lamido Sanusi whom I have always found a little bit more complicated ever since I have known him in the days of the Progressive Acion Movement in 2001. We were both members of that vibrant political association and we often clashed in terms of our world viiew and our vision of what Nigeria should be. I remember those days with fondness and we have both come a long way since then. At that time,as he quite rightly said in his essay, I was a a regionalist and Yoruba nationalist who did not believe in a united Nigeria anymore simply due to what the Abacha administration had put our people through and due to the June 12th annulment.

I was also a hardline foot soldier of NADECO and I reflected the thinking of every self-respecting yoruba man at that time. I believed then, and I still belive today, that if we cannot have a Nigeria where all people are treated as equals regardless of tribe or faith then we should not have a Nigeria at all. People like Sanusi opposed that view and they believed, and possibly still do, that some Nigerians were born to rule and that some faiths are greater than others. And yes, at that time, my views about President Olusegun Obasanjo were precisely what Sanusi said. I, together with virtually every other self-respecting yoruba man at the time, regarded him as a tool of the north and that he was brought in to serve their interests in 1999 and as a pawn to stop the yorubas from breaking away. That is what we all believed and that is why Obasanjo was overwhelmingly rejected by his people in the 1999 Presidential election.

It was after my brother Chief Akin Osuntokun took me for a series of meetings with Obasanjo and after Uncle Bola Ige, his Attorney General and my mentor and leader, encouraged me to get closer to him that I knew that Obasanjo had changed and that his intention was to serve all Nigerians and not just the north. This was precisely why I joined his government and after serving him for three years as his spokesman he, thankfully, promoted me to the position of a Federal Minister in two separate Ministries which is a position that Sanusi is yet to achieve.

Now to the point of this contribution. What I find curious about Sanusi’s article is the following. He expresses so much love for El-Rufai and Ribadu yet he so gladly served a government that tried to kill and discredit them both and that drove them into exile and yet he said nothing in their defence publicly at that time. I see that as a contradiction but then that may just be his way.



People have different ways of manifesting their loyalty to their friends so let me give Sanusi the benefit of the doubt here and assume that he was not playing a double game of deceit and subterfuge. My own style and approach to friendship is very different. When I give my friendship or enmity I give it totally but I am always uncomfortable with those that swim with the tide. And I am loyal to a fault to my friends, followers and leaders unless and until they give me a cause not to be, continue OMOJUWA.com >> blog