Let’s cut Tinubu some slack, by Ikechukwu Amaechi,
Last week, I lamented that President Bola Tinubu has hollowed out Nigeria’s democracy. The article generated interested reactions. A regular reader of this column accused me of Tinubuphobia. How is it that you don’t see anything good in Tinubu, he asked. Another sent me a cryptically worded text: “Sour grapes from name-calling!”
Some kindred spirits, nonetheless, wondered why I still bother. In fact, one of them asserted that the only thing that can separate Tinubu from victory in the 2027 polls is death. “As long as he is alive, even if he is on a wheel chair, incapacitated, nobody can take away the presidency from him,” he asserted.
But I found one of the responses which came as a question particularly interesting: “How was Tinubu able to achieve this unprecedented political feat of total state capture? Are we all compromised or hypnotised?” That, for me, is the crux of the matter.
What is unfolding is the total domination of the entire socio-political and economic landscape by one man. Tinubu’s dominance of the polity is so total that if he so desires tomorrow, as President Olusegun Obasanjo once did, to seek a third term or, indeed, life presidency, the National Assembly as presently constituted will oblige him. After all, is it not on his mandate that they all stand? And hasn’t Senate President Godwill Akpabio, who doubles as the Chairman of the National Assembly, vowed, unapologetically, for the umpteenth time to do the president’s bidding?
The opposition has been so played out of the game that many seek divine intervention. Whenever you speak with them, they tell tales of how General Sani Abacha dominated the polity so much so that five political parties, which the late Chief Bola Ige christened ‘five fingers of the same leprous hand,’ adopted him as their sole presidential candidate. Abacha was at the cusp of transmuting into a democratically elected president until God intervened on June 8, 1998, they reminiscence.
The same way the five political parties – United Nigeria Congress Party, UNCP; Congress for National Consensus, CNC; National Centre Party of Nigeria, NCPN; Democratic Party of Nigeria, DPN; and Grassroots Democratic Movement, GDM – registered to participate in the Abacha-inspired political transition programme between 1993 and 1998 conspired against democracy and opted for autocracy is afoot today.
The genuinely aggrieved few who have decided to hitch a ride in the Bola Ige-styled “Siddon Look Movement” wagon are praying for God’s intervention. They may well be waiting for Godot because as Canadian filmmaker James Cameron famously stated: “Hope is not a strategy, luck is not a factor and fear is not an option.” Besides, who says that God is still interested in Nigeria’s case? So, why would He take away Tinubu as He presumably did to Abacha? And assuming He does, who would He be taking away Tinubu to create room for? After all, God “took away” Abacha and we ended up where we are today. So, what difference did it make to Nigerians that He intervened, assuming that He, in fact, did?
Besides, why would anyone assume that God loves Tinubu less, so much so that He would decide to take him out? What if Tinubu is also His beloved son in whom He is well pleased? After all, his wife, Oluremi, has been an ordained pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, since 2018. And the Christian brethren, led by Pastor Enoch Adeboye, continually pray for his success. Not only that, some of those who will be dislodged if God decides to take the president out of the scene will be people like Akpabio, who has a chapel for spiritual devotion in his private residence. This month, he, with First Lady, also commissioned the first Christian Chapel in the National Assembly because he is the will of God. Or, have we forgotten?
The point here is that God will not come down from heaven to do for Nigerians what He has given us the power to do for ourselves. It is the responsibility of citizens to do away with bad leadership. Outsourcing that responsibility to God is the height of naivety.
Truth be told, Tinubu has got away with far more than any other Nigerian leader – civilian or military. And that is rather surprising. Nobody ever gave him the chance. In fact, in the early days of his presidency, the popular refrain was that “Nigeria no be Lagos.” But less than three years in office, Nigerians are now wondering what hit them. The man is simply having a walk in the park. That reality says a lot about who we are.
Tinubu has done more to impoverish Nigerians than all his predecessors put together. Under his watch, life has become meaningless, yet he is junketing around the world. A day after 23 people were killed and hundreds injured in a series of suicide bombings in Maiduguri, he jetted out of the country on a two-day state visit to the United Kingdom accompanied by Akpabio, a retinue of governors, and at least nine ministers, including the Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa (rtd), National Security Adviser, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, and Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ambassador Mohammed Mohammed.
And you wonder, who is left at a time the country is so troubled? Some have argued that it could have been a diplomatic disaster for Nigeria to cancel or postpone the trip at the eleventh hour. Maybe! Many other countries faced with same tragedy would have cancelled, anyway, and Britain would have understood. But when a country is a client state as Nigeria is right now, there is little or no room for diplomatic manoeuvring. But even if the president is excused, what are General Musa, Ribadu and Mohammdu doing in London? Who is coordinating the war against insecurity?
Here is a president, who tweeted on September 9, 2014, during the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, that “the festering Boko Haram attacks on the North-East and massacre of innocent citizens is concrete proof that Nigeria has no government.” Nigerians agreed and threw Jonathan out of Aso Rock. The situation is worse today and opposition leaders are wringing their hands, praying for divine intervention.
Tinubu made an unequivocal campaign promise in 2022: “If I do not provide steady electricity in my first four years, do not vote for me for a second term.” Today, the situation is worse, yet Nigerians are waiting on God to deliver them from Tinubu’s snare.
How did Tinubu become so powerful that in the manner of King Louis XIV of France, who, in epitomising absolute monarchy, declared, L’État, c’est moi – I am the state? He has effortlessly consolidated power to make all political, military, and economic decisions, effectively merging his person with the Nigerian state.
His adversaries who are throwing stones from a very safe distance accuse him of blackmailing the opposition, including governors, hence the mass defection to the APC which has created, literally, a one-party state. Fingers of blame point at Ribadu who they accuse of being the chief enforcer that reportedly keeps a dossier on alleged corrupt politicians in order to keep them off Tinubu’s back. But Nigerian politicians have always been corrupt. So, why didn’t this strategy work in the past?
Few months to the 2027 elections, there is no arrowhead for the opposition. They are not allowed to hold meetings, carry out membership registration exercise or even welcome new members into their fold. Yoruba irredentists are warning that anyone opposed to Tinubu’s ambition should steer clear of the Southwest.
Yet, no whimper of protest. A once vibrant political nation has been hypnotised. Nigerian politicians have been castrated. Men of yesterday have suddenly become political eunuchs. Tinubu surely knows something that most Nigerians don’t. Let us cut him some slack. His talisman is potent and whoever his juju man is surely packs more punch than Chidozie Nwangwu, the Akwa Okuko Tiwara Aki of Anambra State. If only he is using this unprecedented power for public good.
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Last week, I lamented that President Bola Tinubu has hollowed out Nigeria’s democracy. The article generated interested reactions. A regular reader of this column accused me of Tinubuphobia. How is it that you don’t see anything good in Tinubu, he asked. Another sent me a cryptically worded text: “Sour grapes from name-calling!” Some kindred spirits, nonetheless, […]
The post Let’s cut Tinubu some slack, by Ikechukwu Amaechi appeared first on Vanguard News.
, , Emmanuel Okogba, {authorlink},, , Vanguard News, March 19, 2026, 12:36 am
