Society Gists

***Says speaker desperate, personally selling the narrative

***Warns ex-Lagos gov can’t battle legitimacy, credibility crises at once

A pro-Bola Tinubu presidency support group, Renewed Hope Advocates (RHA), yesterday, said a recent report that the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, had considered the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, as his chief of staff was false and kite-flying, because there was no such consideration on the card at the time of the said report.

The group, in a statement by his Director-General, Olufemi-Daniels Agbaoku, said the speaker, whom he claimed had become “inexplicably desperate” about the job, was the one selling the narrative, with a view to being favoured for the job by Tinubu, over and above anyone else.

Agbaoku, therefore, advised Tinubu to ignore the pressure being mounted by Gbajabiamila and his cronies and go for a more competent hand with the right temperament, mindset and credibility for the job, because the president-elect could not be struggling with the legitimacy of his mandate at the moment and still battled credibility crisis of his chief of staff.

According to the man, whose group claimed to have played a critical part in the emergence of Tinubu at their level without seeking financial help from anyone except that they believed in his ability to change the tide, it was bad enough that Gbajabiamila became speaker despite reservations about him globally, but argued that the office of the president could not be traded on such “pedestrian altar of man knows man.”

His words: “We have it on good authority that the president-elect has yet to make any such commitment, but Gbajabiamila and his allies are the ones selling the narrative to intimidate other alternatives, who might be better than him. It is so bad that he is said to have been dispensing unbelievable favours to people around the president-elect just to emerge the chief of staff.

“A man, who lacks rudimentary credibility and has begun to exhibit corrupt tendencies cannot be entrusted with such office as the chief of staff to the president. Tinubu, regardless of misgivings, worked hard for his victory and is believed by a majority of us that he would do well as president. He is actually the change that Nigeria has been itching for and he has to do everything to live this collective dream, starting with personal examples at all times.

“Although the appointment is personal, he has a responsibility to discourage the impression that Gbajabiamila is creating now amongst the people, especially the assumption that he is going to get it because he has money and has been doling out favours to everyone, including the president-elect himself. That would be starting on a wrong footing.

“While we hate to talk about his alleged misdemeanor in the United States, he has also not come out for once to discuss it, assuming it would blow away. That is one issue that speaks to gross credibility question and assuming it amounts to nothing is setting off the Tinubu presidency on a wrong premise.

“We believe the president-elect knows better and would do just what is right at the appropriate time, even though we also believe he should have since named his chief of staff, among such other related appointments to give a clear indication he would hit the ground running. But if hurriedly appointing Gbajabiamila is the option before him now, he can as well wait till he can do better,” Agbaoku added.

Aside the credibility question, which he claimed could not be compromised, he also reiterated that the speaker did not have the requisite temperament for the job, including the depth and circumspection of the man befitting of that office, because “that is the clearing house and the president de facto as we now know it modern presidency.”