Fellow Nigerians, this has been another week of political brouhaha in Nigeria as the owners of the long knives moved in and cut the dagger’s man, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, into shreds. SLS, as he’s fondly called by friends and foes, had committed one of those commonest mistakes in warfare, and it is a useful lesson for all. A good student of military strategy would have known you don’t pull a gun if you are not ready to fire. History is replete with tales of such calamitous and fatal errors. I had expected a man as voluble and volatile as SLS to appreciate that truism. For allowing President Goodluck Jonathan to fire the first shot, Sanusi now has to fight from a defensive position when he should have been the aggressor. But I won’t write him off.
By singing like a canary against the government he was serving, he should have known that he had grabbed a tiger by the tail and been ready for a battle royale. He should have made the first move by resigning honourably to create the time and space for unbridled pugilism. He would have made it impossible for his assailants to dictate the pace and tempo of the war. In fact, he would have thrown their camp into total confusion and disarray. From outside, it would have been easier to fire from all cylinders. But SLS allowed a rambunctious ego to get the better of him and lost the initiative from that moment. Once the President, who is the boss of all bosses, called him and asked him to resign, he should have known the contest had started and he could no longer relax in the dressing room.
