Timipre Sylva - The Money, The Coup Madness, The Missing Man

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Timipre Sylva – The Money, The Coup Madness, The Missing Man

By Tayo Lawal

The Coup That Wasn’t – Argentina, Ambition, Ashes

The Same Playbook – Different Target, Same Desperation

Let me tell you a story that makes no sense.

His name Timipre Sylva.

Fifty-nine years old.

Has held more big titles than a village chief has titles.

Governor. Minister. Chairman. Pro-chancellor.

A man so rich that poverty is just a word he reads in newspapers.

Part of that tiny, tiny circle of Nigerians, like the famous ‘hungry man’ – Rotimi Amaechi – who have never once asked where their next meal is coming from.

This man allegedly set aside ₦40 billion.

For what?

You may ask, to sponsor a coup against President Bọla Ahmed Tinubu.

And the reason?

He wanted to ridiculously become Nigeria’s ambassador to Argentina.

Read that again.

Let it sit in your neocortex and your stomach.

A whopping forty billion naira?

For a job where the biggest challenge is deciding which wine to serve at a reception.

A job he could have simply requested from Tinubu as a loyal party man.

But he didn’t ask.

He plotted.

Which means the Argentina story is not the real story.

The real story is buried somewhere deeper than Sylva’s current hiding place, and right now, nobody knows where that hiding place is.

His battalion are in jail.

His forty-year old reputation is in ashes.

And village witches and wizards are nodding their heads saying,

“See? See wonders. Magic is real.”

But here is what I think: there was no magic. Only a war that has been burning for decades.

Let me walk you through it.

They stopped Obafemi Awolowo from ever tasting the Presidency.

They blocked Alex Ekwueme.

They buried MKO Abiọla and his mandate.

They made Goodluck Jonathan’s second term so hot that he abandoned it like a burning house.

Same method – create fear, spread panic, make the country ungovernable, unlivable until the man in power either bends or breaks.

Now they are trying the same medicine on Tinubu, the Jagaban of Afrika.

Why?

Because Tinubu is not like the others they have handled.

Ọbasanjọ took orders from them. In fact they boasted they single-handedly made him President.

They pointed, he ran kàtàkàtà.

But this Jagaban?

Nobody picked him.

He fought, scratched, crawled, and climbed into that seat by himself.

He does not wait for permission from any Sokoto Caliphate occupier, the so called Kaduna Mafia or Minna Top Hill of former Generals before making decisions.

He removed subsidy and watched their illegal bunkering business collapse like a wet cake.

He went after the currency thieves, the tax cheats, the pipeline vandals who filled their pockets without working.

He shut down their easy money machine.

And now they are choking and crying.

So what are they doing?

The exact same thing they did to Jonathan.

Dusting off an old faded script and changing the name.

They have formed a new coalition – ADC, they call it.

They have decided that their candidate must be Abubakar Atiku, not the lily-livered Peter Obi, who ran away again to NDC, not any other Southerner.

They have flooded the airwaves with paid commentators otherwise known as Obingos, Obidiots.

They have sponsored protests that wear the mask of hunger but carry the face of politics.

They have stirred up bandits and terrorists – their own pets – to make the country bleed and blame it on the President.

Their goal?

Simple.

Make Tinubu look useless.

Make Nigerians cry for change.

And then slip back into power to reopen the looting supermarkets.

Peter Tosh, like Wike the Lord of Abuja, once asked, “Where are you going to run to?”

Nigerians need to ask themselves that question.

Because the hardship we are feeling right now, the angry fuel prices, the exchange rate that makes you weep is not punishment.

It is the pain of a country going cold turkey.

We are withdrawing from the drugs of corruption and easy oil money.

And withdrawal always hurts.

But if we run back to the dealers, what happens?

The drugs return.

The cabal returns.

The old Nigeria returns.

The one where your vote is a piece of paper with no power.

The one where no Southerner can become President unless a few Northern families sign the permission slip.

Sikiru Ayinde Barrister once sang:

“Nigeria níbo là n lọ oõo… òṣèlú Nigeria níbo lẹ̀ mún wa rèè..”

You move ahead a little, then they pull you back.

That is exactly where we stand today.

If we allow them to remove Tinubu by coup rumours, by hunger protests, by ethnic blackmail, by religious tears, we will not simply lose one President.

We will lose the chance for an entire generation to ever break free.

We will tell every child born in the South that their destiny has a ceiling.

We will return to Egypt.

And the chains will be heavier than before.

So let me give you my position.

Take it or throw it away.

Tinubu is far from being that perfect man.

Yes, he carries a cross, mistakes that would make your grandmother sigh.

But between a flawed leader who is trying to cut the ropes that have tied Nigeria down for decades and a return to the old kingdom where power is inherited, not earned, the choice is not difficult.

Support the reforms.

Swallow the pain.

And in 2027, vote for him to complete what he started.

Not because he is a saint.

But because the alternative is a Nigeria where your President must first bow to the caliphate before he can govern.

That is the real battle.

That is the only question that matters.

Four years plus four years equals eight years.

Eight years of total freedom for you and me.

Let us bury the horses and the horse riders for once in this great country of ours.

Let Nigeria and her poor citizens breathe again.

Let us make Nigeria great again.