In 1984, the American politician Mario Cuomo famously observed that politicians “campaign in poetry; they govern in prose.” The logic was simple, winning power requires soaring idealism, grand metaphors, and emotional resonance. Exercising power, however, demands the dry, meticulous grammar of policymaking; budgets, legislative functions, and bureaucratic compromises.
Today, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is staging a fascinating, high-stakes rebellion against Cuomo’s maxim. He did not merely campaign in punchy, highly rhythmic idioms; he is actively attempting to govern a complex, deeply fractured nation using the language of a parabolic storyteller.
To look closely at the Tinubu presidency is to witness a leader who routinely discards the sanitized, heavily vetted scripts of his speechwriters. Instead, he reaches into a deep mental well of cultural proverbs, imagery, and grand literary archetypes. Yet, this highly aesthetic approach to leadership creates an intense friction. In a nation grappling with unprecedented economic hardship, a profound disconnect emerges when a leader’s soaring poetry clashes with the citizenry’s desperate demand for clear literal prose.
For example, his response to the question on the abducted children was largely seen as mere gibberish, but on a closer look, he was speaking from the depth of the sacredness of childhood all over the world. He linked it to the season (it was Sallah at the time) by reminding the public that Issac was not sacrificed. He was speaking in codes, especially to parties involved in insecurity that children should not be victims or pawns in the ‘game’ of insecurity.
This is just one of many examples. The truth is he has more often than not been on track in his speeches, but must refrain from always speaking in the esoteric, something he did a lot during campaign.
Tinubu’s public addresses are rarely characterized by dense policy breakdowns or statistical triumphs, instead, his linguistic peaks occur when he uses colorful, vivid metaphors to reframe grueling political struggles into heroic folklore. For Tinubu, language is not just a tool for communication; it is an alchemical instrument meant to transform pain into purpose. Or is it a scheme to mesmerize the minds of the masses. If so, his plan is working and still not working.
Consider his address to the 1999–2007 set of governors, where he sought to contextualize the fierce, decades-long journey required to capture the presidency. Rather than offering a standard political retrospective, Tinubu remarked:
“We went into the pond and wrestled with a pig. We got dirty, and cleaned up. That is why I am here today.”
Similarly, during his 2023 election acceptance speech, as the country stood on the precipice of intense fiscal structural adjustments, he turned to the classic literary archetype of sacrifice:
“We are a reviving nation, and before a nation becomes a golden egg, we must sweat and you must sweat.”
But there is a prose problem, the non-fiction of real pain. While this poetic framing allows Tinubu to maintain a grand, historic vision, it creates severe friction when it collides with the daily realities of the Nigerian populace. Poetry requires a luxury that starving citizens cannot afford: imagination, the suspension of disbelief, and time. Governance, by contrast, requires immediate, tangible relief.
When the Tinubu administration tells a nation battling soaring food prices and a plummeting Naira that “the pains of the moment are temporal, transient, and ephemeral,” the literary beauty of the sentence begins to curdle. To a citizen unable to afford transport fare, describing a brutal economic terrain as a “necessary but transient pass” can feel profoundly detached.
This friction was acutely illustrated by the early-administration slogan, “Let the poor breathe.” Originally coined as a lighthearted phrase to signal empathy, it quickly transformed into a weapon of bitter irony on social media. As fuel subsidies were abruptly severed and electricity tariffs spiked, the public stripped the phrase of its poetic intent. In the absence of a visible, highly detailed implementation plan, the “prose” of governance, the phrase became a painful reminder of the vast gulf between linguistic flair and socio-economic survival.
The greatest vulnerability of a poetic governing style is that it is highly susceptible to being misunderstood, particularly in a hyper-critical, fast-moving digital media ecosystem. Tinubu’s reliance on deep idioms and spontaneous wordplay frequently backfires when processed by a literal-minded public.
A poignant example occurred during a Democracy Day celebration at Eagle Square, when the President missed his footing and slipped while boarding a parade vehicle. Rather than issuing a defensive, bureaucratic press release detailing a minor misstep, Tinubu chose to reframe the physical fall poetically at a state banquet later that evening:
“Early this morning, I had a swagger… I’m a traditional Yoruba boy, I did my dobale.”
It was a brilliant piece of cultural footwork. By invoking the dobale, he attempted to transform a moment of physical vulnerability into an act of profound cultural humility and grace. Yet, the modern political arena rarely accommodates poetic licenses. While his supporters applauded the linguistic recovery, his critics and online algorithms seized upon the literal fall, weaponizing the footage to question his physical capacity for governance. The poetry of the dobale was utterly lost in the prose of political warfare.
This dynamic of instant disruption was born at the very genesis of his presidency. His most famous declarations, “Emi lokan” (It is my turn) during the campaign, and “Subsidy is gone” during his inaugural address, were delivered not as structured policy rollouts, but as short, punchy, dramatic decrees. Because the prose (the immediate mitigation strategies and structural safety nets) was omitted in favor of the dramatic, poetic exclamation, the market reacted with immediate, literal panic.
Governing in poetry is a high-wire act. On one hand, it provides a leader with the rare ability to cut through bureaucratic noise and speak directly to the emotional core of situations. Tinubu’s use of proverbs and raw storytelling allows him to project a sense of unshakeable historical destiny.
On the other hand, a country as complex, youthful, and impatient as modern Nigeria cannot be sustained on metaphors alone. When a leader relies too heavily on parables to explain systemic fractures, they risk leaving the public feeling gaslit by eloquence.
If the fundamental grammar of survival like, affordable food, security, stable electricity, and a strong currency, is not explicitly written into the daily prose of governance, even the most beautiful metaphors will eventually lose their magic. For President Tinubu, the ultimate test of his administration will not be whether he can continue to craft soaring verses from the podium, but whether he can translate those verses into the clear, readable prose of a prosperous nation.
