Tinubu’s quandary

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is in a quandary. In fact, the President is in three quandaries at this point in his presidency. The first is reputational: What kind of President is Bola Tinubu? What kind will he be? The second is programmatic: What exactly is Tinubu here to do? What will he do? And the third, well, is about 2027: What will Tinubu take into the next round of elections?

Now, let’s take the first in detail. A presidency is by definition a statement, a message, and a lasting word on the world. What is Tinubu’s word to Nigerians? What will it be? The President has two words: ‘Renewed Hope’. But not many will agree there is much flesh or life to them. More importantly, a presidential reputation is not formed by words alone, however high-sounding they may be, but also by bits of actions and decisions—as well as inactions and indecisions—a leader takes, which, soon enough, form the broad impression of who he is as a leader in the eyes and minds of appointees and citizens alike.

Obasanjo had the reputation of being vengeful and vindictive, but also for being a no-nonsense man who would seek out good people wherever they came from, and give them the protection to do their jobs, a hallmark of a good leader. Yar’adua was quiet—and extremely steely. Because he didn’t say much, he was easily underrated by those who thought themselves his better. But as he also read, heard and saw everything in his government, he handily humbled them all. Few could have handled a retiring but far from tiring Obasanjo and his yes-men better than Yar’adua did post-2007. Soon enough, the signal was clear: ‘Thank you all for everything, but I am my own man now’, acting it without saying it.

This was where he diverged significantly from his successor, Jonathan. Like Yar’adua, Jonathan is ‘a good man’. And for that, many Nigerians saw him on the pages of their Bible when they read about human goodness. But he was also not always his own man as President, a reputation that clearly informed the calculations of those who schemed to bring him back to power last year.

Buhari’s reputation as a purist had been formed to the voting population long before he assumed office, unlike his predecessors who, by and large, established their reputations on the job. While that personal reputation remains largely untainted, Buhari did not match his Puritan discipline with sufficient political awareness and personal effectiveness to provide oversight over the affairs of his government, leaving the impression of never really being in charge. “I will not touch your money, and I will not allow anyone to touch it” now rings rather hollow among those who know. If the first was true, the second was far from it.

What about Tinubu? The current president has not established a firm reputation for himself as a leader, which he must because everything else rests on it. If Tinubu is to see a better horizon for Nigeria and lead the country towards it, then he must cut through the unwanted reputation swirling around him and establish something more positive for himself and his government, now that he is free.

To be fair, there has been an attempt. Removing fuel subsidies, floating the naira, and signing off a raft of executive orders and laws in just about the first week without first having sufficient facts about the real situation of the country were, in retrospect, rather foolhardy. Yet, the boldness to act is significant for a new leader. After all, even presidents must be allowed room for mistakes. Tinubu has also been quite swift in appointing people to positions, even if not everyone is happy with those appointed, and has demonstrated a readiness to soften down or reverse some of his decisions in the face of public dismay about them.

Bold, swift, and empathetic: these are offshoots of what could become a positive presidential reputation, even if they also have their perils. The problem is that they have not yet taken root in the public mind about Tinubu, and worse, they have been stymied by other reputations forming for him. The first of these I have previously called “Tinubu’s first things last”. That is the initial tendency to act first and think later, as plainly demonstrated not just by his decisions on fuel subsidy and the naira without all the facts about the full implications of these policies, but also by that Niger Republic coup debacle.

The gaps of understanding created for Tinubu by his response to that situation may have been papered over, but they cannot be fully mended merely by sending marabouts northwards. For the President to establish the reputation of a serious regional leader, there must be a proper plan to regain the confidence lost among various publics in Nigeria, Niger and the wider subregion.

The second is a fast-growing reputation for profligacy in government, which Nigerians do not forgive in their leaders. The news that the President will spend billions of naira on a luxury boat for himself, to retouch the houses in Aso Rock, to buy a fleet of cars for his wife, and then top these off with expensive SUVs for federal lawmakers, all in a single supplementary budget, is a remarkable story of profligacy. Even if some of these expenses are routine, the timing could not be more unfortunate, as it gives Tinubu an impression of a lavish prophet preaching austerity, a terrible thing to take to the next election, regardless of the facts.

The third is the impression of nepotistic or politically expedient appointments to high positions. From the north to the south, whole swathes of people feel aggrieved that Yorubas are having a field day at their expense. Muslims are particularly aggrieved that he favours Christians, despite their voting commitments to his “Muslim-Muslim ticket” which the Christians opposed. I am not much invested in such matters, but the “sense” of the Muslim-Muslim ticket, as distinct from the potentially discriminatory realities of it that some feared, was very instrumental to Tinubu’s victory and cannot be abandoned. For the sake of the near future, that sense must be adroitly kept alive while assuaging its fears by others at the same time.

And then, there is the small matter of the recent political communications war mounted by Tinubu’s main rival, former Vice President Atiku. Tinubu and his people must agree that the President came off very badly hit by Atiku’s fishing expedition to Chicago. The Nigerian media, always in a hurry to miss to the point, saw the case mostly as a legal tussle between Tinubu and Atiku. It was not.

Once the Registrar of a university testifies under oath that a person attended their university, the legal case is as good as closed because an educational qualification earned cannot also be forged at the same time. So, it was no legal case at all. This was a naked political fight in the town square, and sometimes lawyers work to win public opinion even without a realistic chance of winning on the law. Tinubu’s people, and much of the country, misdiagnosed this, leaving the field open for Atiku to win the public case hands down. The case has now been struck out of the court but it sticks in the public mind. And its day may well come.

But the greater damage to Tinubu was in its timing, happening precisely at the moment when Tinubu’s profile among his peers on the global scene was beginning to rise: hobnobbing other world leaders at the G20 meeting in India, in UAE for important bilateral issues, and then a General Murtala-like speech at the UN Assembly on behalf of Africa. Yet all of that blossoming positivity was blown off by damage from Chicago. Getting back on track will thus require first actively repairing the damage done, which in turn, will require more than just attending other international events. But then again, we are still in quandary land.