BABACHIR LAWAL: AN APOSTATE OF FIDELITY? By Santos Akinloye

When Lauren Conrad wrote that some people are willing to betray years of friendship just to get a little bit of the spotlight, it didn’t make meaning to me at first. But, when I look through the acts and dispositions of Engineer Babachir David Lawal in the last 6/7 weeks, I became wary of friends who never get tired of putting make up on two faces every morning.

Friends are essential part of life and they are what makes life worth living. True friends are trustworthy, supportive, emotional available, consistent, they are good listener, faithful and they stay with you through toughness.

Yoruba proverb says ‘it’s during tough times that true friends are known. True friends are loyal and they are always with you in tough situations, no matter what happens. They firmly stand as your defender and allies.

But, can the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir Lawal be considered as a friend adorned with the virtues of faithfulness, fidelity and loyalty or as a deceptive, two-faced talebearer?

Few days back, the Kwambia village, Hong LGA, Adamawa born politico took a swipe at his so called friend, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, when he openly lambasted and ferociously threw him under the bus – for his friend daring to pick the former Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima, who is of the same faith like him, as his running mate for the February 2023 presidential election.

In his venomous writeup, the disgraced SGF, still maintained that, ‘Tinubu remained a very good man, great listener, humble and very generous in both cash and kind, especially where it could advance his political interest… I thought I will be able to avoid commenting on this disastrous error by my good friend. I will be last person to stand in the way of my very good friend, Tinubu’s path to the presidency’.

Could these groundless and excessive kind of words have emanated from a friend who wants the best for you and he’s non judgmental or from a backstabber, a quisling that is readily available to sell- down- the- river?

The scripture indeed says that ‘open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed’, but ‘a fool is touted wise when he hold his peace’. And, above all, ‘wisdom is better than rubies’.

When you said that you have a good friend, who is a good listener, humble, generous and you avowed that you will not stand on his path to be president, why making his journey difficult with bumps and peels? Even, if he had indeed committed a disastrous error, is it by slaughtering him the only way to correct the mistake?

I now believed the words of Christian Nevell Bovee when he said that ‘false friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us when we cross into the shade’.

What on earth could have driven someone who vehemently claimed to be a friend to say to his purported friend that ‘…those whom the god want to destroy they first make mad. It appears the gods want to destroy the APC and its presidential candidate (Tinubu)’

No wonder the wise King Solomon declared in his book of Proverbs that ‘Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man’. This is an apostasy of fidelity! A total betrayal of friendship. And, the most pain in the world goes beyond the physical. Even further beyond any other emotional pain one can feel; it is the betrayal of a friend.

It was the same Babachir David Lawal that came out again to shackle the presidential wheel of progress of his purported friend just few hours to the primaries.

Just a couple of days to the collegiate day, the now APC presidential candidate had poured out his mind to the Ogun state governor and the party delegates in Abeokuta, in a never seen before.

And, few hours after the controversial down-to-earth speech, it was the same talebearer who asked the gods to destroy his friend, that came to town with the statement that the North has taken his outburst as a personal attack on President Buhari.

‘The outburst has jeopardized his chances… sometimes, it is very difficult to support a Yoruba person in national politics if you are not one. They have a way of making you regret your support because they eventually make you seem like a traitor to your own people” Babachir Lawal had fumed. What manner of friend is Babachir Lawal?

Despite the snitching statement from the 57 year old politician, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu went on to win the party ticket in a landslide victory.

Richard Weissbound says difference and disagreement are heathy and necessary for a thriving democracy. But, friendship and families are actually too precious to throw away for transient reasons.

However, its only when a friendship is built on a solid foundation of mutual trust, respect, staunchness and openness that it can likely endure political differences.

Is it not apparently visible that Engr Babachir Lawal self acclaimed friendship with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is never erected on mutual respect, fidelity, faithfulness, loyalty and trust?

And, trust is a fragile thing when earned, and it affords us tremendous freedom. However, once trust is lost, it can be challenging to recover. But, the truth is that we can never tell whom we can trust, because even those closest to us can end up betraying us.

Truly, life is not about who is genuine in front of your face, but about who is really at your back. Also, we must be wary of the people who specializes in saying wrong things about us at the wrong time and to the bad people. Which in essence is the life pattern of a backstabber.

Malcolm X said that ‘death can be conceived, but betrayal can never be conceived. Because, betrayal is worse than death’.

And, as I paused on this piece, I remember the biblical Isaiah when he declare that, ‘Woe to you who plunder, though you have not been plundered; And you deal treacherously, though they have not dealt treacherously with you! When you cease plundering, you will be plundered; When you make an end of dealing treacherously, They will deal treacherousl