One thing you can’t deny is that Remi Tinubu is a woman who wears her heart on her sleeves and she is often the channel for her husband’s true feelings.
From Mrs. Tinubu’s reaction to Ondo Governor Rotimi Akeredolu at the annual Colloquium organised in honour of Bola Tinubu, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress and former governor of Lagos State, it is obvious that the reported truce between Akeredolu and Tinubu is a farce.
According to SaharaReporters, Senator Remi Tinubu couldn’t hide her disgust for Governor Akeredolu, a senior advocate of Nigeria, as she pointed at him and “ordered him out of the front row” during a group photograph at the event which held on Wednesday, March 29, 2017 in Lagos.
“Several eyewitnesses at the event say that Mrs. Tinubu upon sighting Mr. Akeredolu at the front roll spontaneously snapped violently against the Ondo Governor and ordered him out of the front roll,” the online tabloid, popularly referred to as the “mouthpiece” of the APC, reported.
“Sources said that it took the intervention of the celebrant, Tinubu, and the Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akinolu before Mrs. Tinubu could be pacified.”
Governor Akeredolu, gentlemanly, moved to the back to “completely douse tension” the eyewitness accounts say.
Dignitaries at the front row, apart from the celebrant and his wife, were Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos, the representative of President Muhammadu Buhari, the interior minister, Abdulrahman Dambazau, Governor Akeredolu, and others.
Akeredolu undercut Tinubu’s influence in the last Ondo governorship poll when he ran against the APC founder’s chosen candidate and won the primary. The fact that the national party’s machinery was deployed in support of Akeredolu and against Tinubu’s candidate, Segun Abraham, irked the former Lagos governor. He wrote an open letter to the national chairman of the party, Chief John Oyegun-Odigie, threatening to leave the APC and denounce his unconstitutional title of “national leader”.
But, when Tinubu attended Akeredolu’s inauguration in February, 2017, reports began to emerge that the two men had settled their differences.
Mrs. Tinubu went into a nasty public spat with fellow Senator Dino Melaye, still on the matter of channeling her husband’s feelings on politicians who don’t agree with him. The fact that Senate President Bukola Saraki undercut Tinubu’s ploy to install a senate president was mentioned as the reason for the bad blood between Remi Tinubu and Melaye, who is a staunch supporter of Saraki.
She has also exhibited aggressive behaviour in the Senate, verbally assaulting Senator Musiliu Obanikoro during his ministerial confirmation hearing in 2014 and in 2015, wilfully taking the seat reserved from the Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu in protest of the fact that an opposition party member holds a key position in the Senate.
