If you are a reader of mine, you know that I hold strong objections to Bola Tinubu. I have observed him since he was the governor of Lagos State and a chieftain of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), the party which controlled Nigeria’s South West in 1999.
Curiously, as the February 2003 elections approached, AD decided that it would field no presidential candidate, mumbling about “the overall interest of our nation and the sustenance of our hard-won democracy.”
Instead, it said, it would pursue “a meaningful and well-calculated alliance” with any of the other 29 political parties that share its “political and philosophical stance on national issues” towards adopting that party’s candidate.
That was the heyday of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which held sway everywhere but the southwest, and Nigeria was in the hands of President Olusegun Obasanjo, himself a Yoruba man who was embarrassed that in 1999, he had lost the region to AD.
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It was clear that AD had the PDP and President Obasanjo in mind, an embrace I knew it could not survive.
In an article I called “Alliance For Disappearance” (The Guardian, February 23, 2003), I described AD as “stripping down to its loincloth like a cheap prostitute on a Victoria Island street corner,” and choosing the strategy of procuring a long spoon.
“You would remember that it is the weapon of choice when you fete, or are feted by, the devil,” I wrote. “The length of the spoon is not so that you would eat more than your more versatile dinner companion. It is not for you to have something to ram down his throat in an unfair fight. It is not even to enable you some opportunity to attempt an escape should things go awry. The long spoon is so you can pretend that you have never even set eyes on the devil in your entire life. The tragedy here, unfortunately, is that greed sometimes leads to blindness. Unraveling before our very eyes, the AD has set a historic table that can only lead to one thing: eternal nightmares of its being eaten alive by the devil.”
I was right: in the elections, the devil had a full meal, consuming most of the governorships AD had amassed in 1999, with only Tinubu remaining in place. Desperate ahead of the 2007 electoral cycle, some of those former governors even considered supporting the projected presidential candidature of former military leader Ibrahim Babangida (IBB).
In “Alliance for (Final) Disappearance” (September 21, 2003), I questioned the character of the Yoruba politician: “The answer to the AD quandary is obvious: to go back and rebuild the party. That is a lot of work, but it is the answer. Every other quick fix would only quickly fix the AD. If the PDP is one of those reptiles that would sting its quarry and watch it die, IBB is the barracuda that swallows its prey live.”
The AD never recovered from the political miscalculations of 2003, requiring tortured metamorphoses until, as a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015, it produced the president for the first time, with Tinubu—who transited into the Senate following two terms as governor—as National Leader.
In all those years, Tinubu flourished as a “very rich” man, by Nigerian standards, but with no visible justification for that wealth, as he maintained personal control over the political estate known as Lagos, with a lot of rumours swirling about him.
In 2023 as he chased the presidency, far more devastating revelations about him emerged. They include David Hundeyin’s authoritative video documentary, “Bola Ahmed Tinubu: From Drug Lord to Presidential Candidate;” a first person, four-part account by the late Yinka Odumakin, “Portrait of the Tiger Ambode Rode,” and “Nigerian President’s CSU Diploma is a Fake,” by J. Coyden Palmer, a journalist and former Chicago State University student.
The point is that Tinubu has begun life as Nigeria’s leader not simply as an unpopular person, but also as a man being held in considerable international contempt and perhaps the worst character profile in the history of elected leadership.
Few have assumed officer with the character slate of deep dishonesty, certificate forgery, a drug baron with a record of forfeiting nearly half a billion dollars to the United States government, and a kleptocrat, given that his wealth allegedly tied to his stranglehold on the Lagos state government.
By these antecedents, he was expected to lead a government of the worst persons, known as a kakistocracy. However, he was not expected to advance the disastrous nepotism of his predecessor, the fake anti-corruption ruler Muhammadu Buhari; sadly, he has achieved that infamy already, appearing to appoint cronies and friends to positions important and not-so-important as long as they answer a Yoruba name.
He assumed duty by committing two direct economic assaults against the people. The first was his abrupt Inauguration Day termination of the petroleum subsidy policy, a desirable measure but one he appeared to have given no actual policy preparation. The Nigerian economy therefore began a freefall on his first day in office, and has continued to see deep and widespread economic hardship, a collapsing naira, double-digit inflation, foreign currency shortages, and greater borrowing.
Tinubu’s next limitation arrived in the form of a supplementary budget in which he demonstrated very clearly that he is in office not to serve but to be served, prioritizing over $38 million for the presidential air fleet, bulletproof SUVs, a yacht, and making even more luxurious (an activity he calls “renovation) not only the residential quarters of the president and the vice-president in Abuja and Lagos. He is spending billions more on various EFCC-recovered properties in the Federal Capital Territory not as schools or libraries, but as State House annexes. He also budgeted billions to acquire SUVs for the office of the president’s wife (an office that is alien to the constitution).
Coming at a time that federal lawmakers are also spending an over-priced $150,000 per person for SUVs—an amount capable of transforming lives in some local government councils—the worst fears of observers have become real: the Tinubu era could be the most disastrous for Nigerians.
But perhaps not. Nigeria can pull back from the brink on which it is perched, but on one condition: Tinubu committing to integrity as a mechanism for rebuilding trust in government. The problem is that given what the entire world now knows, the idea of such a Tinubu is a contradiction in terms.
Is Tinubu man enough? Can he summon the strength and wisdom to lead by example instead of merely preaching it? Will Tinubu apologise for the political blindness and self-serving recklessness demonstrated by his supplementary budget or merely continue to ask Nigerians to make sacrifices as an investment in the future while he basks in needless luxury?
It is the only chance for Nigeria and the only way out. Otherwise, Tinubu, as president, will only certify that he is exactly who his critics say he is. He can change this by proudly declaring his assets publicly and making this—not cynicism or quackery—the new standard.
This time calls for a man.
