By BAMIDELE JOHNSON
When genuinely big names grow older, they become like snowballs: rolling downhill, but getting bigger still. Chief Bode George, ex-this and ex-that, does not look to be getting bigger. His non-stop shrieking about Tinubu is making him shrink, almost to the point of becoming cartoonish.
He was one of the first to declare interest in the presidency and the only reason he gave for wanting to be president was to stop Tinubu, who has since declared. His one cardinal programme (halting Tinubu), he must think, is on the same level as the defunct UPN’s. Credit where due, all the same.
George, despite being 78 years old, has pushed his agenda with vigour; go-for-it street gusto, if you wish. His interviews across media platforms are, without fail, Tinubu-centric. Those on video show him straining every sinew and strand of his greying moustache. The surprise is that, given his exertions, his roomy nostrils have not started belching fumes like the exhaust pipes of a car.
Baba has reasons to be sore about Tinubu. I do, too. I am just not willing to suffer paralysis on account of his presidential ambition. George probably does. Who can blame him? He sees himself as some big hitter in Lagos politics, a view the electoral outcomes since 1999 have declined to support. Every time he’s tested himself against his bete noire, he’s got pissed on. I don’t know if he deploys other strategies beyond his near-lachrymal stories about Tinubu that almost everybody is familiar with.
Woke up to see another video of his interview in which he said he’d leave Nigeria should Tinubu become president. A similar threat was issued in 2015 and it was about Buhari. Chief George did not make good the threat. That a man of his age and experience is unaware that not carrying out such a widely publicised threat entitles him to derision is surprising.
Baba’s star has plummeted and I think he knows it. He’s desperate to shore up his fortunes, so he’s sunk his teeth into Tinubu and he’s unlikely to let go. Ukraine may appeal to Baba if his bid to stop Tinubu fails.