One may not get tired of pointing out lapses, a clear case of inexperience and insincerity in the governing style of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the man imposed on Nigerians as an elected president by the Mahmoud Yakubu-led Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and stamped as legitimate by the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
Love or hate him, like him or despise him, there is something inscrutable about the man Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and it stands him out. It’s not bombast, it’s not swagger. It’s not bravado. It’s not braggadocio. And it’s nothing quixotic. Maybe it is even more than just one thing. The man seems to be a bundle of lies and a package of confusion full of surprises, spiced with a hidden agenda against certain components of the federating states.
His several appointments to critical sectors of the Nigerian economy need not to be revisited for its lopsidedness with a clear mission. Let’s avoid talking on the list of those close aides such as the Chief of Staff to the President etc. Tinubu’s ambassadorial list is a complete disappointment, full of questionable characters, but as usual, the list was speedily endorsed by the Akpabio-led Senate. It really surprised most Nigerians that Bello Turji’s name or that of Simon Ekpa or Abubakar Shekau, although late, were missing on the list.
The Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, as the most expensive road project on Mother Earth, is a story for another day. Let’s not revisit the issue of insecurity bedeviling almost all the 36 states that has defied solution due to insincerity of purpose. We are not talking of the dispatch of fighter jets to neighboring Benin Republic to assist a despot retain power after an attempted coup while bandits and insurgents sniffing lives out of Nigerians at will are busy dancing Omologo in the forests.
Honestly, it will be difficult if not impossible for Nigeria to regain its lost status as the giant of Africa under a Tinubu presidency the way the country is presently governed.
In theory, we are said to be operating a federal system through the framework of a unitary structure. Those in power at the centre controlling the levers of government, determine who becomes what, who gets what, how, when, and where, irrespective of qualification, experience, and other variables.
Part of the qualification for patronage is that a prospective beneficiary of any engagement must first be a certified zombie loyalist, a screened clown that cannot reason and brain dead for remote control. Party membership or loyalty does not carry any weight in the Tinubu style for consideration. Any opposition party member that can mortgage his/her integrity and sing on Your Mandate We Stand automatically qualifies for Tinubu’s patronage. That is the psyche of the man imposed on Nigerians as their president. We are paying the price of our hypocrisy, greed, sycophancy and docility. We are now with neither an independent judiciary nor an independent national legislature. All we have are On Your Mandate We Stand subscribers!
Let us together illustrate one trending absurdity but very normal in the Tinubu style of governance. Osun State, which Tinubu hates to associate with as his state of origin, was until last week, governed by the strongest opposition party, PDP with Ademola Adeleke as the elected governor presiding over state affairs.
In desperation to scuttle the efforts of Governor Adeleke in building a virile Osun State, Tinubu’s ruling party at the federal level, APC, approached the Supreme Court to make pronouncement on the Constitutional prescription on fiscal autonomy of the country’s 774 local government area councils. And surprisingly although expected, the apex Court ruled in favor of APC.
The apex court ruled in July 2024 that local government funds must be paid directly into the Bank Accounts of the respective local governments not through the Joint Accounts maintained by the respective State Governments and their Councils; and that for this purpose only democratically elected Councils should be recognized. Any Council led by caretaker committee should not benefit from the Federation Allocation Committee largesse; State Governors were barred from withholding, altering, or redirecting Council funds as was the case before the judgment; and, that non-compliance would be treated as contempt of the Supreme Court.
From the look of things, the foray to the apex Court was just a waste of time only intended to score a cheap political goal against governors. In spite of Nigeria’s distorted federal system, the so-called federating components are, and should remain, the federal and the state governments. Enforcing the funding of Councils directly from the Federation Account simply means, making the respective Councils federating components. Well, that Supreme Court judgment has been observed in the breach and it remains so. Indeed, some states brazenly and in defiance of the apex Court and the federal government caused their rubber stamp legislatures to make laws that virtually made the Supreme Court judgment a nullity. Except in few states like Bauchi, it has remained business as usual with local government statutory federation allocation.
Funny enough, the same Tinubu administration that procured a favorable Supreme Court judgment that frowned at withholding council funds by state governments, was caught in the same web. It withheld the federation allocation of Osun State under the pretext that the elected councils dominated by the opposition PDP were not legitimately returned. As if Tinubu himself was legitimately elected not imposed.
Tinubu insisted that the hitherto APC controlled councils whose tenure had expired should be beneficiaries of the funds. A very illogical defense indeed!
The brouhaha of starving the Councils of legitimate funds degenerated to a level where the State Governor had to source funds privately to pay Councils staff salaries and wages. In withholding the legitimate funds of the Councils, the Tinubu led government spared no thoughts or considerations for the pains and privations visited on innocent Council staff.
Tinubu’s primary interest was politics and flexing of muscles. On December 5, 2025, the Supreme Court struck out a suit instituted by the Attorney-General of Osun State challenging the Tinubu-led government for withholding Osun State Council’s legitimate federation allocations. The apex Court ruled that the Attorney-General lacked the locus standi to sue the federal government on behalf of the Councils. However, the Court chided the federal government, saying that withholding the Council’s allocations was illegal and egregious. In other words, it could be construed as contempt of the Supreme Court ruling.
The objective for the story of Osun State is to establish the simple fact and truism that politicians, especially of the APC hue, are often incapable, insincere and extremely dishonest to transform a country to a bubbling nation. They are more preoccupied with how to rig the 2027 elections than venturing into anything that will endure. So, any country that has a preponderance of unintelligent and unpatriotic politicians as statesmen at the helm of its affairs will continue to be in the lower rungs of the global development ladder and battling to survive in troubled waters. And forging a nation out of a country will surely remain a pipe dream under APC. That unfortunately appears to be the lot of Nigeria since 2015 when APC accessed the presidency with the support of imported foreign mercenaries now abandoned and turned to banditry maiming and killing innocent Nigerians for ransom.
The sad and most unfortunate reality is that Nigeria cannot work as expected under an APC controlled government until, and, unless Nigerians flush out APC from power, we can then begin to be intentional in building a nation out of the country. In the process, we need intellectuals and patriots and not those politicians presently controlling the levers of power, and more of statesmen directing our national affairs to start a brand new journey. Building a nation is a process, not an event as is the case with APC governing style. A style that is seriously de-marketing the country while turning the citizenry for global mistrust as laughing stock. It will be safe to speculate that if the military had not aborted the democratic process in 1966, the then ongoing endeavor of nation building by those genuine and committed nationalists could have achieved significant milestone by now. As said this remains in the realm of speculation because a totally different outcome was possible.
Building a sustainable and enduring nation requires defining a shared vision which fosters a unifying identity, common values, and goals subscribed to by citizens; establishing and nurturing a legitimate governance process that is transparent and accountable through requisite institutions and laws; ensuring security and rule of law to protect citizens and enforce laws equally; driving economic development, investing in infrastructure, diversifying the economy, and supporting entrepreneurship, promoting social cohesion which involves encouraging dialogue, inclusivity, and celebrating diversity; investing in human capital formation including prioritizing education, agriculture, healthcare, and innovation; and, engaging and encouraging citizens participation in decision making, and through that, fostering patriotism.
In the particular case of Nigeria under Tinubu’s style of governance, part of the missing requirements to make the country great include a lack of ideas and commitment to strengthen institutions, enhance transparency, encourage accountability in government, combat corruption, and make elections credible. There is the need to move beyond the mono-product economy. A serious government could have increased investment in agriculture and livestock, ICT, and manufacturing. Attention could have been paid to the country’s roads and rails infrastructure, electricity supply must have been improved by now, the government, in its nearly three years in office, could have by now ensured the ease of doing business nationwide without threats from security challenges. But the reverse is what we have on the table. What Nigeria is experiencing as part of Tinubu’s dividends of democracy is a gale of defections to the ruling APC, destruction of opposition parties to pave way for a one-party system with Tinubu as the sole 2027 presidential candidate, escalating corrupt practices beyond control and rising case of insecurity with bandits brandishing their weapons and other criminal elements roaming the streets as untouchables. When shall Nigerians regain their freedom from an APC, bondage? Nigeria, for now, is in the middle of an APC-created storm, consuming Nigerians in droves. God save Nigeria!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues.
