It is a tale of two families, the Tinubu and Abubakar. The story made headlines when Atiku Abubakar’s son, Abba, decamped from father to sup with his adversary, Tinubu. Never in our presidential history has that happened. Just as the news hit that the ADC presidential candidate cannot or does not pay his immediate staff, his son is telling the world that his father is not worth the company. He is not worth the office.
This is in contrast with the Tinubus. His wife, Senator Oluremi, has been making a difference for decades in her political doings. As the first lady of Lagos State, she transformed many lives, especially in turning idle hands into vocations of profit. As Nigeria’s first lady, no one since independence can hold a candle to her feats, from food hubs, to medical help and to educational support across the country. What has touched this essayist is the provision of sanitary towels to millions of young girls, a quiet scourge of poverty in society.
Tinubu’s son Seyi is also becoming a political presence for his father, especially with the City Boy Movement. The contrast between Tinubu and son and Atiku and son evokes two ancient stories. When Alexander the Great was a boy, he performed an act deemed impossible with his father’s horse.
His father Philip of Macedon praised the son and said he would conquer territories he never imagined. A father-son bond during his preteen. The other was King Darius of Persia and his son Xerxes. The father had to lament his son as the play The Persians, by Aeschylus, dramatizes.
Today a father, Atiku, is weeping Haba for his son Abba. Another father, President Tinubu, is embracing his Seyi
