Godfatherism: Muiz Banire’s Paternity and Academic Qualification Need Proper Scrutiny

By Wole Arisekola

It is your attitude, more than your aptitude, that will determine the height of your achievement in life.

Many people think that luck plays a major role in the lives of  successful people. I don’t think so. I believe awareness, information and company of people you interact often than not determine the level of your success.

Take for example, people living in villages. They never dream of buying an aeroplane. Most of them have never entered a car in their lives let alone, fly in a plane. So they don’t have the ambition of owning a plane.

If you are in Europe, your first contact will determine how you will end up in life. The people you associate with will determine the type of job and career you are likely to end up with.

I remember when Senator Ganiyu Solomon brought Barrister Muiz Banire to Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu in the year 2003 , some of us were not happy because we preferred Dr. Kadiri Obafemi Hamzat.

Hamzat graduated from University  of Ibadan and was a strong member of the Muslim Student Union. Very reliable and intelligent.  Banire comes from the same Mushin axis with Dr Hamzat. He was made commissioner for 12 years and later legal adviser to the All Progressives Congress (APC) national by Asiwaju Tinubu.

Banire was the youngest among us all. I was looking for an opportunity to become a commissioner under the late Lam Adesina administration at that time but I was told by Baba Bisi Akande that Aare Arisekola was pro-North and their party AD is anti-North.

And beside that, I was too young to serve under Baba Lam Adesina.  So he directed me to go back to Ibadan and collect a written letter from Aare that he wanted me to join their party  AD. So, the opportunity that  Muiz Banire had in Lagos was not available in Oyo.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not place embargo on age limit , we did not have that in Oyo.

Majority of Asiwaju’s kitchen cabinet then was filled with young and intelligent guys.  Last week, when I read it in the papers , that Banire was asking an unintelligent question of how to defeat godfather in Lagos , I wasn’t surprise because, he was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.

Some of us who he met in politics are still struggling till today. He was introduced to national politics by the same godfather who he is now thinking of defeating.  What an irony!

But I think some of us are always overrating people above their intellectual capacity.

When a Senior Advocate of Nigeria from the South  West now needs someone like Nasir Elrufai to lecture him on how to defeat a godfather in the South West, it becomes doubtful if that SAN has any intellectual ability.
In fact, this is awkward.

Banire’s paternity and academic qualification need proper scrutiny. I doubt his Yoruba lineage.

There is a popular proverb in Ibadan that it is easy to take people out of Mushin but very difficult to take Mushin out  of them.

Banire is just showing the Mushin part of him. Simple.

Aare Wole Arisekola writes from Ibadan.