By Jimanze Ego-Alowes
Give it to Bola Tinubu, he is a colossus. Whatever are the slips he has suffered he reminds us of the quip of Gibbon, a British historian. Even in its ruins, according to Gibbon, one can still glimpse something of the splendor and greatness of a fallen empire. Accordingly, one can hazard that even if Tinubu were to fall today, his name will run large in the nation’s annals.
But having said this, it is important that we remain chroniclers, not praise singers. The purpose is not to diminish him. The purpose is to give future statesmen a measure, around which they may push their ambitions.
Just the other day Tinubu clocked 66. And for such as he is, schedules of events were put together. And one of those was the assessment of the man Tinubu at Television Continental, by some journalists hanging in at the station.
Now the other details are as follows. In the course of our political science workshops, especially around the east, there was often a Tinubu contradistinction. It was repeatedly mentioned that Tinubu started with just one state, Lagos. And from such small beginnings he was able to Messi or dribble his way to controlling the entire south west or substantial parts thereof. That is Lagos, Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Ekiti, and lately Edo.
But these are the inertial facts. Stated glibly, they explain nothing. We generally left matters at the levels of the canvasser’s unsophisticated grasp of matters. You cannot argue with a mob, not even a mob of one.
But on the Television Continental, I saw rather seasoned journalists repeat the same surface grasp of an inner essence. It was alarming.
Now the rite of how Tinubu was able to turn the political waters of one state, into the wine keg of several states is as follows. First, those who state the bare facts of one state to five are correct, but not prescriptively so. What they are saying is arithmetically correct, but geometrically wrong, as it were.
To understand what happened, the following is perhaps indicated. In secondary school mathematics there is something called B.O.D.M.A.S, Brackets, Of, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction. What it means, I am told, is that if you are given a set of mathematical operations that required these procedures, it must be order-dependent. That is, to get it right, you must follow B.O.D.M.A.S.
The moral is that life in most instances follows mathematical laws. And in this Tinubu affair it does. Without B.O.D.M.A.S no one can understand the prevalence of Tinubu. And to test the case, let us do ourselves a query. If we reversed the order [Bodmas] of political operations, the following is indicated. If Tinubu was the governor of any of the other states – say Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Ekiti or Edo – would he have succeeded in his magic of reconsolidating the political corridor into one contiguous electoral zone for himself?
The answer is no. The fact of it does not rub anything from Tinubu. But the facts and truths of it are more important than the reputation of a Tinubu, or any hero.
So a question is suggested. Why is it that Tinubu, granted his genius, cannot reconstitute the same political corridor starting from any bloc other than Lagos. The answer is money. As the financial historian Naill Ferguson has pointed out – hegemony is the same thing as hege-money. That is to say, imperialism even of the most benign kind is a money game and a money-fuel guzzler.
Now recall our good old George Orwell. All animals are equal but some are more equal than others. The fact of this is even truer with municipalities and states. On paper, Lagos and Bornu are the equals of one another. However, operationally Lagos is really bigger than several whole West African countries in socio-economic terms. And Bornu is also classed as one of the poorest reaches in the world. We are quoting Emir of Kano, Sanusi, on this. And he should know.
Even more, Lagos has a fantastic cash-flow, certainly the best of the states in Nigeria. While the big oil states like Akwa Ibom and Rivers may look forward to monthly allocations – Lagos tax revenue faucet gushes liquidity eternally. All a Tinubu needed was to show up with a bowl to collect his fill. And this is not to forget that as it is said, ”the most important word in the world of money is cash flow. The second most important word is leverage.” Robert Kiyosaki
And Tinubu got them all. Of leverage, that explains why Jim Ovia, Chairman of Zenith Bank, endured all the sweat and boredom to sit out the 66th birthday colloquium. Sometimes the uninitiated peoples naively say Eko is for show. No, Eko is for money. And the bankers are in the mix. To start with, Tinubu is/was their landlord. And the import of landlordism has been publicly hinted.
DSTV cable TV providers were once charged with discriminatory listing-in of local Nigerian TV stations on their menu. And Lagos State Television (LSTV) was specifically mentioned amongst others. The DSTV spokesman explained things. A key part of it was that LSTV was included because Lagos is their landlord state.
So it is clear that a Tinubu as a pan-zonal hegemon would not have fared well if he began his life as a regional governor of any state other than Lagos. It is clear that the treasury of any of those states would have failed to fund his ambitions, cash for cash, funds flow for votes, as Lagos did.
Those states just would not have been able to fund his wizardry or hegemony ambitions if he had them. Yes, it is true men can transcend their time and place but only by drawing for strength and nourishment from their roots. It is just like it is of trees. The branches may only rise as high as the roots sink deep. This is an iron lore. And it can’t be broken because a Tinubu is at work and play.
In other words, Political BODMAS decrees that if you start from Lagos, you may capture and consolidate the other states. If, however, you start with any other state you cannot capture and consolidate Lagos and remnant zonal states. In other words, one can conjecture that given the same circumstance an Abiola Ajimobi [an immense and bright strategist] might be as good a political wizard as a Tinubu. But as the teacher says, ‘time and chance’ have not happened to him. Meanwhile, we say Happy Birthday to Bola Tinubu.
History is not what happened, history is what is proved to have happened
Was writing invented by accountants? Ok, this: I am a The Browser addict. The Browser, by the way, is an e-site. The Browser site curates, culls and republishes the best English language articles from all over the world. And they are so excellent at the job. The articles are really well informed and cutting edge. The Brower home page always comes with a quote corner. Today 30-03-18, they ran a quote: Writing was invented by accountants. Philip Hensher
That sounds great, but we hold objections. The details are as follows. First, users are often not the inventors. Also inventors need not be members of the given industry. The cognate example of double entry accounting is instructive. Luca Pacioli was a mathematician amongst other things. And of these things none of it was being an accountant. Yet he invented the central tool of modern accounting – the double entry format or tool. That explains why a Dangote is able to keep track of his business and thus why he is rich at all.
What are we saying? It is that there is no proof that a group of accountants or one of them, invented writing. There is only proof that writing was first used by accountants, to record business transactions. That is to say that writing was either invented for accountants aka Luca Pacioli and the double entry framework, or was invented by accountants themselves.
However, it is and will be historically presumptive to gift the accountants what we are not sure is theirs. This is especially so with our history of double entry and several other inventions. Yes most inventions come from within the discipline. But this is especially so if the discipline is a primary one, like mathematics, like philosophy, philology, physics etc. However there is sufficient evidence to suggest that most inventions, especially fundamental inventions, used in industries and professions are invented by thinkers and practitioners from outside their professions and realms.
The example of axial age is perhaps suggested. It was invented by a philosopher Karl Jaspers. Now it is essentially a historical metric tool. Assuming Jaspers lived in an age where writing wasn’t much around, or his works were lost as has happened in and of ancient Greece, perhaps axial framework would have been said to have been invented by historians. Today axial classifications are an entire historical procedure. And we can all easily remember Sun Tzu and his masterpiece, The Art of War. Today, The Art of War is a world famous business primer. Sun Tzu was never a businessman.
To summarize, writing is too fundamental a tool to have been invented by accountants. It is clear that up to our own age accountants have been marginal professionals if not peoples. It is a historical given that the best brains of an age gravitate to the top disciplines and professions of that age.
Accountancy only came of age if it ever did in the days of pre-Enron collapse. Even today accountancy is not yet as hot as snow. The top brains don’t go there. And lest you think I am beefing other guys and or being partisan I can tell this. I am really an accountant myself. Am I a top brain? No by trade and profession. But I confess, I will be glad to queue behind my superiors. Ahiazuwa.