Category: Opinion

Vanguard News

…Region faces tough choice over Tinubu, Jonathan, Atiku, Obi, Amaechi

Clifford Ndujihe, Politics Editor

THE North as a political bloc has a tough decision to make regarding who it will back in the 2027 presidential election, as no fewer than five politicians are on its radar for endorsement.

The five leading politicians hoping to get the nod of mainstream North, including incumbent President Bola Tinubu; former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; former President Goodluck Jonathan; former Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi; and former Rivers State Governor, Mr Rotimi Amaechi.

Although some northerners are considered to be eyeing the Aso Rock top seat, key stakeholders contend that a northerner succeeding President Tinubu will hurt the North-South power-rotation principle and create instability in the polity.

Northerners interested in the presidential seat in 2027 include former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Presidential Candidate, Mr Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim. The likes of former Kano State Governor, Senator Musa Kwakwanso and Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed, are potential aspirants.

However, to maintain stability in the polity, Vanguard gathered that some northern stakeholders, who are bent on stopping Tinubu, are shopping for a good Southern candidate who will serve a term and quit.

This understanding, Vanguard gathered, is behind the push for former President Goodluck Jonathan and the move is presenting tough nut for the northern bloc to crack, as there is no unanimity yet on who to support among four leading potential southern candidates.

The four candidates on the radar of many power brokers in the north are President Tinubu; former President Goodluck Jonathan; former Anambra State governor and 2023 presidential candidate of Labour Party, LP, Mr. Peter Obi; and former Rivers State governor, and Transportation Minister, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi.

Among the quartet, Tinubu and Jonathan cannot do more than four years. Obi and Amaechi can seek re-election in 2031 for a second term, if elected.

However, to maintain the power-rotation principle, Obi and Amaechi have pledged to do one term, a pledge that is still raising dust in the polity.

With some dismissing the one-term promise as rhetoric that could be discarded as witnessed among political leaders in the past, most of the power brokers resolved to go for certainty instead of uncertainty.

According to them, power must return to the north in 2031. The only way to guarantee that is ensuring that the next southern president does only four years. This leaves Tinubu and Jonathan as the two topmost options.

Tinubu
Against the plot of some politicians, especially from the north, President Tinubu prevailed in the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential primaries and went on to win the 2023 poll, fending off a tough challenge from Atiku and Obi.

He polled 8.79 million votes; Atiku got 6.9million votes while Obi scored 6.1million votes. The courts ratified Tinubu’s election as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

However, two years into his administration, the north is divided over the performance of the President. While some said he had done well and deserved to be handed another mandate, some northern leaders have accused President Tinubu of marginalising the north in terms of appointments, budgetary allocation, projects and infrastructural developments, and vowed to stop his re-election in in 2027.

Supporters of the president in the north, including governors, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Senator George Akume; ministers and appointees, have pledged their support for Tinubu and outlined the things he had done for the north in two years, which they argued outweighed what late President Muhammadu Buhari did in eight years.

However, others, including Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir el-Rufai; Senator Aminu Tambuwal, Governor Bala Mohammed insist otherwise, saying apart from marginalising the north, Tinubu’s reign had unleashed unbearable hardship and suffering on the citzenry of which northerners are worse off.

Of Tinubu’s 8.79 million votes in 2023, more than five million came from the north, with the north-west contributing over 70 per cent.

His aggrieved northern critics said his footprints in the north were not commensurate with their massive support, hence the need to look elsewhere in 2027 to halt the hardship.

In response to the North’s complaints, the Tinubu administration, last week held an engagement with northern citizens in Kaduna where government officials led by Akume and Isa Bagudu outlined the president’s achievements in the region while listening to their grievances. Going forward, Tinubu may align with former Kano Governor, Senator Musa Kwankwaso to get the support of a major block in the North-West.

Will Tinubu’s opponents beat his supporters in the battle for northern votes? Will Tinubu address the grievances of the north in the next 460 days before the February 20, 2027 presidential poll to swing the support of critical Northern mass to his side? These are some of the questions that will shape the outcome of the 2027 election.

Jonathan
Although, controversy is trailing his eligibility to run in 2027, following the 2018 constitution amendment that bars anyone that had been sworn-in twice from contesting the presidency, Vanguard gathered that Jonathan is gradually becoming the beautiful bride among some top northern power brokers, who see him as the best bet to defeat Tinubu in 2027.

Jonathan was vice to the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. Following the National Assembly’s Doctrine of Necessity, he was sworn-in to complete Yar’Adua’s term in 2010.

Thereafter, he contested in 2011, won and was sworn-in again. He sought a second term in 2015 and lost to late President Muhammadu Buhari, who ran on the card of the APC.

Buhari’s victory was the first time an opposition candidate was beating an incumbent president in the history of electioneering in Nigeria.

Those who worked against Jonathan in 2015 said, among others, that he should not have contested to allow power return to the north because after President Olusegun Obasanjo, a southerner ruled for eight years, Yar’Adua, a northerner, was in the saddle for two years.

So allowing Jonathan to continue till 2019 would mean power being in the south for 18 years out of 20 years of democratic rule. Besides, they said Jonathan was a signatory to the power rotation agreement in the PDP, which he reneged on.

However, given the “stop Tinubu” project, sources said Jonathan has emerged as a top contender within PDP, with many leaders declaring their readiness and willingness to give him the party’s ticket.

A source said apart from his performance as a leader, his concession of power to Buhari after the 2015 tight election, instead of dragging the nation through tension-soaked litigation like most presidential candidates had been doing since 1999, earned him a soft-spot in the hearts of many northerners.

This was one of the reasons he had cordial relations with Buhari after leaving power.

Faced with dearth of strong contenders, following the defection of Atiku to the coalition-backed African Democratic Congress, ADC, Vanguard gathered that many PDP top shots have signed into the “Bring back Jonathan” project, wooing him to accept to run.

PDP Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Ibrahim Abdullahi, confirmed the development, hinging the move to growing public nostalgia for Jonathan’s leadership style.

He said many Nigerians, including former critics, now agree that Nigeria had a more stable and democratic era under Jonathan.

“Even those who criticised him while in power are now admitting they were wrong. They’re asking for his forgiveness and urging him to return because they now recognise his values,” Abdullahi said.

He recalled and described Jonathan’s peaceful concession in 2015 as a defining moment of statesmanship.

“When he lost, he could have rigged the result in his favour, but he said no Nigerian’s blood was worth his ambition. That is the leadership Nigerians are yearning for—not just PDP members,” he said.

According to Abdullahi, some PDP top brass have met Jonathan to persuade him.

Vanguard gathered that a series of such meetings and consultations have been held abroad and Nigeria and more are afoot in the days ahead.

Obi, Amaechi
Obi, without “structure” as opposed to his opponents, ran a good race in 2023 and lost to Tinubu and Atiku.

Since the end of the election, Obi has remained visible in the polity, touring all parts of the country and carrying out philanthropic gestures.

Although he is still a member of the factionalised LP, he is one of the leading politicians promoting the ADC coalition.

Others with him in the coalition are Atiku, El-Rufai, Tambuwal, and Amaechi, fuelling speculations that their individual presidential ambitions might harm the coalition.

However, the quartet have dismissed the fears as unfounded, saying their goal is to rescue Nigeria from the iron-grip of Tinubu and APC and ensure good governance in the country.

They added that they would back any one of them that emerged as ADC’s flagbeaber.

While still on the coalition push, the PDP initiated moves to have Obi, who left the party in 2022 to return to the party, where he was vice presidential candidate to Atiku in 2019.

Obi confirmed the move and said he was open to discussions that would protect the interest of the country.

In the 2023 election, Obi won 11 states and the FCT. He won 10 southern states apart from Rivers. He also won a state in the north-central zone.

Last week, Professor Jerry Gana said with Obi as PDP presidential candidate, the party would win the North. However, this though appears to be changing with the upswinging push for Jonathan.

Amaechi as transportation minister, carried out many projects in the north, including the rail line from Nigeria to Maradi in Niger Republic. He also took a transport university to Daura and was honoured with a chieftancy title,

In the 2023 primaries of the APC, Amaechi came second to Tinubu and harvested his votes from many northern delegates.

Like Obi, Amaechi has promised to do a term if elected. With the latest push for Jonathan, it is to be seen if the core northern bloc will back Obi or Amaechi.

Atiku
Arguably Nigeria’s oldest presidential aspirant, who has been seeking the presidency since 1993, Atiku is one of the options before the North. He recently left the PDP for the ADC. He has also promised to do one term. If he picks the ticket, it will be his fourth time of being a presidential candidate dating back to 2007 (Action Congress, AC); 2019 (PDP); and 2023 (PDP). He sought the APC ticket in 2015 and lost to Buhari.

In the 2023 election, Atiku won his native North-East but lost North-West and North-Central to Tinubu. It is to be seen if he can rally votes from the North and make inroads in the South to land victory in his seventh attempt.

A Medal of Loyalty: Ambassador Lawal Kazaure and the Unwritten Code of Service

By: Saleh Farouq Gagarawa

In the corridors of global diplomacy, protocol officers often operate behind the scenes ensuring that the wheels of statecraft turn smoothly, that dignitaries are honored, and that national prestige is preserved with every handshake and reception. But in the case of Ambassador Lawal Abdullahi Kazaure, Chief of Protocol to the late President Muhammadu Buhari, his role transcended ceremonial duties. He redefined what it means to serve not just a President, but a leader, a nation, and a legacy.

The Unwavering Shadow of Loyalty

Ambassador Lawal Kazaure’s name became synonymous with loyalty, discretion, and sacrifice throughout the Buhari era. For over a decade, he walked ahead of late President Muhammadu Buhari literally and figuratively guiding state protocols, but more importantly, safeguarding the dignity and honor of Nigeria’s first citizen. His service was not transactional; it was deeply rooted in conviction, personal integrity, and an understanding of the gravity of his office.

He was more than a Chief of Protocol; he was a sentinel. His loyalty could not be bought, and in a world where personal gain often overshadows public service, Kazaure stood out as a beacon of unshakable fidelity. Presidents across Africa and beyond envied late Buhari for having such a man in his corner someone who blended professionalism with a rare, almost sacred sense of duty.

Through Thick and Thin: A Decade of Sacrifice

Ambassador Kazaure was by Buhari’s side through thick and thin. In moments of triumph and in seasons of adversity, he remained steadfast. He was there in private corridors when decisions that would shape Nigeria’s destiny were being made. He was there on tarmacs, in foreign capitals, and at state functions, ensuring the seamless operation of presidential diplomacy.

But his service went far beyond the physical duties of protocol. He sacrificed much for Muhammadu Buhari time, personal ambition, and comfort all for the higher calling of service to the nation through loyalty to his principal.

Until the Very End

Perhaps the most poignant testimony to Ambassador Lawal Kazaure’s loyalty came at the end of President Muhammadu Buhari’s journey on earth. True to tradition, the Chief of Protocol walks in front of the President, signaling his arrival and presence. For over ten years, Kazaure carried out this role with precision and pride. But in a moment that will be etched into history, he also walked in front of Buhari’s body as it was laid to rest marking the final act of service to a leader he followed until the very end.

This rare loyalty is almost unheard of in modern governance a story of service that deserves to be remembered and taught to future generations of diplomats and public servants.

Redefining Protocol

Ambassador Lawal Kazaure has redefined what it means to be a Chief of Protocol. He elevated the role from one of routine ceremonial management to one of national symbolism and personal sacrifice. His tenure is a masterclass in diplomatic excellence, humility, and unyielding loyalty.

As Nigeria and the world reflect on the legacy of Muhammadu Buhari, it is impossible to tell that story without mentioning the quiet, determined figure who was always just a few steps ahead Ambassador Lawal Kazaure, the loyal hero of the Buhari era.

May the soul of Late President Muhammadu Buhari rest in Aljannatul Firdausi

On paper, it looked like a mismatch. Iran is not only one of the oldest and most established places in the Persian Gulf but also at least 75 times the size of Israel, with a population nine to ten times larger. Size for size, it’s a modern-day David and Goliath match-up, with ancient history squarely on Iran’s side.

At the height of its reign, especially under Cyrus the Great (545-525 BC), the Persian Empire, modern-day Iran, extended as far as Egypt, and its military might was unassailable. In more contemporary times, Iran defended itself against the aggression of Saddam Hussein during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War.

Sudden tideYet, since June 12, when Israel struck Iran’s nuclear site and killed at least 14 atomic scientists and 16 top military officers, Iran’s response has been something of a damp squib. A leaked intelligence report by the White House suggests that, but for President Donald Trump’s intervention, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, might have been killed in the recent Israeli strike.

In response, a barrage of Iranian missiles was fired on Tel Aviv and Haifa, with civilian casualties. This has been perhaps the most significant dent on Israel’s defence system in the last five decades. However, the response has been far below the notion of Iran as a nation of warriors and the potential nemesis of its precocious neighbour, especially after the fall of Syria’s Hafez al-Assad.

Things got so bad for Tehran that, at one point, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even claimed that Israel was “in full control of the Iranian skies,” a claim that Tehran could not deny.

What happened?How did mighty Iran lose its military footing so calamitously, so quickly? The weakening of Iran’s military strength is not as sudden as it appears. It is the result of years of isolation and economic sanctions, driven mainly by three suspicions: One, that the Shia variety of Islam (and its allied franchises) subscribed to by Iran’s ruling elite is the mainstay of radical and extremist terror groups; two, that it is the main sponsor of at least two radical Islamic groups and arch-enemies of Israel – Hamas (in the Gaza) and Hezbollah (in Lebanon); and three, that its nuclear enrichment programme is not for peace, but for war.

All three points are interlinked, and by 2015, the lack of progress on the third one was the beginning of economic sanctions by the U.S., Britain and France, amongst others, targeting and undermining Iran’s receipts from oil sales and weakening its economy.

But Iran remained a major military force despite the sanctions. It cultivated closer ties with China and Russia, made desperate attempts to diversify its economy and used fronts to sell its oil.

Burden of historyAll this time, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted to strike. He pressured the U.S. to tighten the screw on Tehran and maybe back a pre-emptive Israeli strike, but his repeated claim that Iran was only “months, years, or even weeks” from the final stages of getting the bomb fell on a sceptical, if not indifferent, Democratic White House.

After the debacle in Iraq, where the U.S. lost over 900 troops and spent over $2 trillion based on faulty intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, no Democratic president, whether Barack Obama or Joe Biden, had the appetite for another full-scale war in the Persian Gulf without a convincing reason.

Then, two things changed that changed the dynamics of power and politics in the Persian Gulf. Hamas, long regarded as Iran’s proxy, attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 Israelis and abducting 250. This act of terror not only transformed moderate elements in Israeli politics but also further hardened extremists like Netanyahu, who vowed to crush Hamas and Hezbollah and make Iran pay a heavy price.

Trump

factorWhen Trump was elected president, one year after the Israeli-Hamas war broke out, his brand of tweet-and-deal-making diplomacy, not to mention his close ties with Netanyahu, meant that Iran was on very thin ice. The stalemate in negotiations between Iran and the nuclear inspectors, including the expulsion of the veteran IAEA officials, further raised suspicions about Iran’s claims that its nuclear programme was for peaceful purposes.

Yet some argued that Tehran’s reluctance to cooperate and its rigmarole were merely bargaining chips to ease sanctions and repair its moribund economy, that it was still a long way from the bomb.

Even though the Wall Street Journal reported recently that U.S. intelligence still doubts Netanyahu’s claims of a smoking gun over Iran’s nuclear enrichment, Tehran appears to have exhausted its card, and the days of the old regime may be numbered.

Pre-emptive or not?With Trump mulling direct U.S. involvement in the war, I asked a source in the Israeli foreign ministry on Monday if this was a pre-emptive strike, a move that the Nigerian government had condemned in a statement during the week.

“It is not a pre-emptive strike,” the source replied. “It is a targeted military operation to remove a concrete threat after the pre-established period of negotiations has elapsed. The objectives have been set: the nuclear programme and the ballistic capabilities.”

What has changedHere is how Israel systematically weakened and significantly degraded Iran’s military capacity, especially in the last two years, forcing the mullahs in Tehran to shelter behind the veil in what may prove to be a decisive new phase in the war in one of the world’s most troubled regions.

One, Iran’s regional allies – Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Bashar Hafez al-Assad in Syria – have either been neutralised, rooted out or forced to flee. The pager attack by Israel on Hezbollah members and affiliates in Lebanon and Syria last September was particularly devastating. At least 13 members of the group were killed, while Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was injured, revealing a major breach in Hezbollah’s security and causing panic in high places in Iran.

Although the Houthis have occasionally threatened security in the region, they have also been significantly contained or dispersed, making Iran even more isolated and vulnerable.

Two, apart from the losses in the ranks of its proxies, Israel has also carried out precise strikes on Iran’s military leadership, assassinating ranking members of Iran’s military, including the Chief of the General Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, who is only a heartbeat from the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The country’s air defence system has been degraded, and even though it has managed to fire hundreds of missiles toward Israel, their potency and impact have been largely limited.

Three, the economic sanctions have limited Tehran’s ability to modernise its military, while support from its main ally, Russia, has been curtailed by Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine, leaving Tehran largely on its own.

Unlikely mediatorsIt’s an irony that, in its moment of travail, Iran is now looking to Qatar and Egypt, two countries that it has long despised, for mediation with Israel and the U.S. Netanyahu still has to answer for the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, and hopefully, that should keep him on a tight leash in his next conquest.

After centuries of military, cultural and geopolitical conquests, is the sun finally about to set on the ‘Gunpowder Empire’? Or is there still one magic spell left under the mullahs’ turban?

Ishiekwene is Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the book, Writing for Media and Monetising It.

By Farooq A. Kperogi

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s unparalleled appointment of three official, cabinet-level spokesmen—in addition to 9 other senior media aides— symptomizes an insidious governmental malaise. It shows a government that is obsessed with public relations at the expense of public welfare, propaganda at the expense of progress, and mind management at the expense of meaningful management.

On November 14, Daniel Bwala, the former mouthpiece for PDP’s Atiku Abubakar during the last presidential campaign, was inaugurated as Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication. This move added him to a line-up that already included Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, who had been informally recognized as the senior spokesperson after Ajuri Ngelale’s dramatic exit, and Sunday Dare, Special Adviser to the President on Public Communication and National Orientation.

Yet, on his very first day, October 18, Bwala brazenly declared himself “the spokesman for the president” to State House correspondents, proclaiming that he was the direct successor to Ngelale. His Twitter declaration further cemented his self-anointment: “Resumed officially as the Special Adviser, Media and Public Communications/Spokesperson (State House).”

Since Onanuga had effectively functioned as the spokesman for the president after Ngelale was forced out of the Presidential Villa, it seemed like Tinubu had no confidence in Onanuga and chose to upstage him by bringing in Bwala.

That puzzled me. I wondered what reputational, symbolic, or political capital Bwala had to earn such an edge. Here’s a man who is deeply resented by Tinubu supporters for his erstwhile caustic attacks on the president and APC during the last election, who is reviled by the opposition for his perceived treachery and mercenariness, and who is disdained by people who couldn’t care less about both Tinubu and the opposition. Such a person is more of a reputational liability than an asset for persuasion.

So, it came as no surprise when I read a swift news release from Bayo Onanuga disclaiming Bwala’s self-description as “the spokesperson” for the president. TheCable of November 19 reported that Tinubu was “furious on learning of Bwala’s manoeuvre and immediately instructed Onanuga to issue a clarification.”

The “clarification” says Bwala is now Special Adviser Policy Communication and Sunday Dare is now Special Adviser, Media and Public Communications. “These appointments, along with the existing role of Special Adviser, Information and Strategy, underscore that there is no single individual spokesperson for the Presidency. Instead, all the three Special Advisers will collectively serve as spokespersons for the government,” the statement said.

Tinubu has by far the largest media team in Nigeria’s history—just like he has the largest cabinet in Nigeria’s history. Yet his government has inflicted the most hardship on Nigeria and demands the greatest sacrifice from Nigerians whom he has already stripped of basic welfare and dignity.

Despite this elaborate roster of media professionals, Tinubu’s government stands as a paradox: the most expansive communication team in Nigerian history, yet the most tone-deaf administration in addressing the agonies of ordinary Nigerians. Like his record-breaking cabinet size, his communication machinery seems less about functionality and more about optics—a poorly orchestrated façade against the backdrop of deepening national suffering.

Historically, Nigerian presidents have managed with far leaner communication teams. President Olusegun Obasanjo had a relatively modest media and communications team. His first spokesperson was Doyin Okupe, who was designated as Special Assistant on Media and Publicity from 1999 to 2000.

He was succeeded by Tunji Oseni whose designation was changed to Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity and served in that role from 2000 to 2003. He was replaced by Remi Oyo from 2003 until 2007.

Apart from these official spokespeople, Obasanjo appointed Dr. Stanley Macebuh as Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications. After firing him, he replaced him with Emmanuel Arinze.

He also appointed Femi Fani-Kayode as Special Assistant on Public Affairs and replaced him with Uba Sani after elevating him to a minister. In other words, Obasanjo never had more than three media/communications people at any one time, and he always had just one official spokesperson.

Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s had Olusegun Adeniyi as his one and only media person/spokesperson. He is also on record as the first president to elevate the position to a cabinet-level position by redesignating as a “Special Adviser” position.

Goodluck Jonathan sustained this tradition. When Ima Niboro was his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity from 2010 to 2011, he had no other media/communications person. And when Reuben Abati took over from Niboro from 2011 to 2015, he was the only spokesperson and media/communications person for the president.

The slide into a propagandocracy began with Muhammadu Buhari, who doubled down on PR appointments. While Femi Adesina served as his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu operated as Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity. Buhari’s entourage also included social media mavens, photographers, and digital content creators—an unprecedented escalation in spin management.

There was Tolu Ogunlesi (Special Assistant, Digital & New Media); Lauretta Onochie (Personal Assistant, Social Media); Bashir Ahmad (Personal Assistant, New media); Sha’aban Sharada (Personal Assistant, Broadcast Media); Naziru Muhammed (Personal Assistant, TV Documentary); Sunday Aghaeze (Personal Assistant, Photography); and Bayo Omoboriowo (Personal Assistant/ President’s Photographer).

But Tinubu has taken this expansion to absurd heights. Apart from three cabinet-level official spokespersons, you also have Tunde Rahman (Senior Special Assistant to the President — Media); Abdulaziz Abdulaziz (Senior Special Assistant to the President — Print Media); O’tega Ogra (Senior Special Assistant (Digital/New Media); Tope Ajayi – Senior Special Assistant (Media & Public Affairs); Segun Dada (Special Assistant — Social Media); Nosa Asemota – Special Assistant (Visual Communication); Mr Fredrick Nwabufo (Senior Special Assistant to the President — Public Engagement); Mrs Linda Nwabuwa Akhigbe (Senior Special Assistant to the President — Strategic Communications); and Mr Aliyu Audu (Special Assistant to the President — Public Affairs).

Such bloated extravagance sends a disconcerting message about the administration’s priorities during a time of profound economic hardship.

In a March 4, 2017, column titled “Propagandocracy and the Buhari Media Center,” I pointed out that the size of a government’s propaganda apparatus is often inversely proportional to its confidence in its own legitimacy. Tinubu’s indulgence in this over-the-top PR operation signals two troubling realities: insecurity and incoherence.

The insecurity stems from an acute awareness of its own fragility—an administration desperate to control the narrative because it knows it has failed to deliver on substantive governance. The incoherence arises from the cacophony of voices in this unwieldy structure, breeding contradictions, turf wars, and conflicting messages. How can a government unable to synchronize its internal communication hope to connect with its citizens?

At its core, Tinubu’s sprawling PR machine is emblematic of an administration focused on perception management rather than problem-solving. This gluttonous obsession with propaganda, in the midst of soaring inflation, subsidy removals, and austerity measures, is an affront to struggling Nigerians.

Leadership demands more than just the appearance of competence; it demands action. Until Tinubu shifts his focus from multiplying spokespersons to delivering substantive governance, his legacy risks being that of a leader who built a fortress of spin while the people languished outside its gates.

By Farooq A. Kperogi

OCTOBER 1 is celebrated as Nigeria’s Independence Day. But Nigeria isn’t independent. It is, for all practical purposes, a dependent state, a satellite state, whose political and cultural elites are still tethered to the coattails of colonialism and neocolonialism. Its economy is almost literally run by the World Bank and the IMF, and the older the country gets, the more it seems to tighten the apron strings that tie it to its former colonial overlord.

No one illustrates this contradiction and emotional dissonance more dramatically, not to mention more symbolically, than President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who chose to depart for the United Kingdom, Nigeria’s former colonizer, for a two-week annual leave just a day after celebrating Nigeria’s so-called 64th independence from British colonialism.

To publicize traveling to rest in a country that colonized you, a day after celebrating freedom from that country’s colonialism is the ultimate national self-ridicule. It’s like a woman throwing a party to celebrate her emancipation from an oppressive relationship with a wild brute, only to show up at her ex-partner’s doorstep the next morning to seek validation.

A president choosing to spend personal time in the country that once colonized his own projects an image of lingering dependence on the former colonial power. It’s an implicit endorsement of the cultural and societal norms of the colonizer over those of the home country and raises questions about national pride and the commitment to fostering domestic tourism and economic growth.

Most world leaders opt to spend their annual leave within their own countries or in neutral locations to support local economies. For instance, former U.S. President Barack Obama often vacationed in the state of Hawaii, his birthplace, while French presidents traditionally spend holidays in French territories. These choices reflect a conscious effort to remain connected with their homeland and to promote its attractions.

Like Muhammadu Buhari before him, Tinubu didn’t find any part of Nigeria worthy of his presidential annual leave. London is worthier of presidential annual leave than any part of Nigeria because these leaders actually disdain Nigeria, which provides the political, social, and cultural basis of their power. That’s such an unrelieved national tragedy.

Nigeria boasts diverse landscapes, rich cultural heritage, and numerous tourist attractions—from the savannahs of the north to the coastal regions of the south, from Yankari Game Reserve in Bauchi to Obudu Ranch Resort in Cross River. By vacationing domestically, the president could spotlight these attractions, boost national tourism and inspire citizens to explore their own country.

It would also send a strong message to potential international tourists (whom this and previous governments seem fixated on attracting) about the safety and appeal of Nigeria as a destination.

But choosing to vacation abroad, particularly in the former colonizing country, redirects personal expenditure away from the domestic economy. While the economic impact of a single individual’s spending might be minimal, the symbolic loss is significant. It suggests a lack of confidence in the nation’s infrastructure, leisure facilities, or security— issues that are within the president’s remit to address and that he claims he is deeply concerned about.

The timing of the trip particularly exacerbates its symbolic dissonance. October 1 is not—or should not be— merely a historical marker; it is—or should be— an annual reaffirmation of Nigeria’s autonomy and identity. Departing for Britain immediately after such a celebration diminishes the day’s significance.

It conveys a message that, despite official rhetoric, the ties to the colonial past remain unsevered on a personal level for the president who should symbolize our national identity and pride.

Leadership everywhere but particularly in transitional, post-colonial countries like Nigeria that are still battling national self-image issues carries the added responsibility of shaping and reinforcing national identity.

The personal choices of presidents often serve as a reflection of their commitment to this role. By engaging in actions that align with national interests and cultural pride, leaders can foster a stronger sense of unity and purpose among the populace.

To be fair to Tinubu, he has signaled from the inchoate stage of his presidency that he wants no truck with national self-pride and that he is a fawning, unapologetic crawler of British colonialism. That was why he pushed the restoration of the discredited, self-humiliating colonial national anthem through the National Assembly with unprecedently breakneck speed.

In my June 1, 2024, column titled “‘New’ National Anthem is National Self-Debasement,” I observed that it’s inexcusable national self-humiliation to discard a home-made national anthem, irrespective of its defects, for one that was made by an imperialist whose influence we’re supposed to be independent of.

“A country whose symbolic song of independence is inspired, written, and composed by the appendicular remnants of imperialist oppressors of whom the country has supposedly been independent for more than six decades isn’t worthy of its independence. Such a country has lost the moral and philosophical argument for independence and against recolonization,” I wrote.

The national anthem, as an auditory emblem of sovereignty, should carry the weight of our independence and self-fashioning. “Arise, O Compatriots,” whatever its deficiencies, was a product of Nigerian composers who won a national contest in 1978.

The national anthem should be a rallying cry. It should encapsulate the country’s ideals, aspirations, and identity, as espoused by the citizens of the country. Reverting to an anthem with colonial ties is a step backward in Nigeria’s journey toward solidifying its post-colonial identity.

So, it should come as no surprise that a president who so casually and so thoughtlessly discarded a homemade national anthem for one that was composed by a British woman is so enamored of colonial tutelage that he chooses to depart for the country that colonized his country a day after celebrating independence from the colonizer.

I noticed that the usual patriotic fervor that most Nigerians evince on October 1 was noticeably absent this year. Maybe it’s because they can sense the lack of investment in Nigeria’s pride right from the presidency—in addition, of course, to the raging hunger and listlessness in the land.

What’s the point of patriotism and national pride when the president of your country is so ashamed of the country that he is restoring symbols of colonial domination?

I was especially piqued that the official statement announcing his London trip said the president “will use the two weeks as a working vacation and a retreat to reflect on his administration’s economic reforms.” What? Why does he need to go to London to reflect on the death and destruction that his IMF/World Bank economic policies are inflicting on Nigerians?

Nigeria is the theater of destruction. That’s where he should be to reflect on his IMF/World Bank economic policies whose outcome is already foretold—deepening mass poverty, hopelessness, torment, extermination of the middle class, etc.

Maybe Tinubu doesn’t need a vacation anywhere. He only needs to descend from his Olympian presidential height to the streets of Nigeria to see the cries, tears, and blood of everyday folks being crushed by the impossibly ponderous weight of his sadistic economic policies.

The contest for royal supremacy between Muhammad Sanusi II and Aminu Ado Bayero took an explicitly ethnic turn a few days ago when Hashim Dungurawa, the Kano State chairman of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was protecting Bayero from deposition and humiliation by Kano’s NNPP government because of Bayero’s “Yoruba lineage”!

“If the President thinks he will use a few of his kinsmen in Kano and the alleged Bayero’s Yoruba lineage to continue to keep the deposed Emir Aminu Ado Bayero in the State, let him wait for 2027, we will show him that those people will not help him,” Dungurawa said.

By Dungurawa’s ethnic supremacist logic, Kano had a Yoruba emir from March 2020 to May 2024 since “lineage” means line of descent, which is traced patrilineally in most Nigerian societies, including Kano.

By the way, it was actually Muhammad Sanusi II who first covertly caused this whispering campaign to be created and amplified in 2020 in Kano in the aftermath of his deposition and the installation of Bayero as his successor. He did it to delegitimize Bayero.

Nor is this sort of atavistic ethnic baiting Sanusi’s first. For example, after former presidential spokesperson Garba Shehu characterized his Fulani supremacist, anti- Hausa (and anti-anyone who isn’t Fulani) article titled “The Fulani Factor in Nigerian Politics” as “Sanusi’s racist rubbish” in July 2000, he was so enraged that he lied in an Arewa House lecture that Garba Shehu’s parents were from Edo, as if Edo people were lesser humans.)

But what’s the basis for the astonishingly counterintuitive claim that Aminu Ado Bayero is a Yoruba man even though he is the spitting image of his later father, Ado Bayero?

Well, it’s because his mother, Hajia Maryam, who died in 2021, was the daughter of Zulkarnain “Sulu” Muhammadu Gambari, the 9th emir of Ilorin who died in 1992. In other words, she was the older sister of the current (11th) emir of Ilorin.

Although no Yoruba person regards the Ilorin ruling family as anything but Yoruba-speaking Fulani people, Sanusi and his ethnic supremacist supporters regard the family’s locational, linguistic, and possibly genetic, association with Yoruba people as a “stain” on the “purity” of their Fulani identity.

Never mind that Sanusi himself—and all emirs in the Northwest—have locational, linguistic, and genetic association with Hausa people, just like the Fulani emirs in Nupeland have locational, linguistic, and genetic association with the Nupe people. Or that ethnic cosmopolitanism is central to the originative imagination of the Dan Fodio caliphate.

The notion that Aminu Bayero is of “Yoruba lineage” because his mother was a Yoruba-speaking Ilorin Fulani princess is utter, misguided, counterproductive identitarian essentialism, that is, the pretense that there is such a thing primordial ethnic purism that is “unblemished” by interconnectedness with other identities.

The claim that Tinubu is protective of Aminu Ado Bayero (which, by the way, I resent because it has no basis in law since only governors can enthrone and dethrone traditional rulers) is particularly ironic because Ado Bayero was one of only a few traditional rulers (the other being the Sultan of Sokoto) who had the courage to tell Tinubu that his economic policies were strangulating the people.

In February this year, he told First Lady Remi Tinubu to let her husband know that ordinary people were in pain. “Although, we have several means of communicating to the government on our needs and requests, you are the surest way to tell the President the happenings in the country,” he said. “We get information daily that essential commodities and cost of living are high, and people are suffering, although it didn’t start with this government.”

How about the self-proclaimed “pure-bred” Fulani Sanusi who has encouraged his minions to play up the Yoruba ethnic “contamination” of Bayero as the reason Tinubu isn’t supporting him? Well, he is delighted with the current state of the economy and patted Tinubu on the back for removing subsidies from petrol.

“It’s injustice for anyone to blame the Tinubu administration for the current economic hardship because there is no other alternative than the removal of the fuel subsidy,” Sanusi said. “After all, Nigeria cannot even afford to pay the subsidy.”

He even went so far as to claim that the economy is in the toilet because Muhammadu Buhari resisted his counsel to “firmly and unequivocally eliminate fuel subsidies.” “The economy was poorly managed, and they [were] not willing to take advice,” he said.

A “Yoruba” emir was empathetic toward the suffering of his people and told a “fellow” Yoruba man, who is the president, the truth about the anguish his policies have caused people without fear of consequences, but an “undiluted” Fulani emir told the Yoruba president that his mass pauperization of people and the obliteration of their means of livelihood was all fine and dandy.

Yet the toadyish, sadistic “Fulani” emir who cheers while the people incinerate in infernal economic policies is causing his underlings to whisper that the truth-telling emir is being favored by the president out of a sense of ethnic solidarity.

Maybe the Sultan of Sokoto also secretly has tinctures of Yoruba (and possibly Kanuri) blood freely flowing in his veins that caused him to be defended and protected by the Tinubu presidency against a planned deposition Sokoto’s APC government for his alleged sympathies for the previous PDP government of Aminu Tambuwal.

 “And to the Deputy Governor of Sokoto, I have a simple message for you: Yes, the Sultan is the Sultan of Sokoto, but he is much more than that; he represents an idea, he is an institution that all of us in this country need to jealousy guard, protect, promote, preserve and project for the growth of our nation,” Vice President Kashim Shettima said at North-West Peace and Security Summit in Katsina State on June 25.

The truth Sanusi and his defenders don’t want to confront is that he is a deeply unpopular person in Kano. He is the only past emir in living memory whose appointment as an emir sparked a violent, spontaneous mass revolt because he wasn’t on the shortlist of princes recommended for emirship by the kingmakers. Sanusi Ado Bayero, Aminu Ado Bayero’s older brother, was the choice of the kingmakers.

Most people know that one of the central pillars of support for Aminu Ado Bayero is a scion of old money in Kano who detests and resents Sanusi and who is extremely close to Tinubu. The NNPP people know this. They know that Bayero’s Ilorin maternal identity (which Tinubu and his people don’t recognize as “Yoruba”) is incidental to the issues.

They also know that Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and Tinubu had struck a deal that required Kwankwaso to spare Bayero in exchange for a favorable Supreme Court judgment and a chance to serve as a minister in Tinubu’s cabinet. His betrayal of this deal by dethroning Bayero hurts Tinubu deeply.

More than this, though, the dangerous game of reactionary ethnic purism that Sanusi is playing and that his minions in the political arena are trying to instrumentalize for national political machinations would inflict incalculable injury on identity formation in the North.

The North, even the Muslim North, is an intricate tapestry of multiple ethnic identities. These identities are united by a higher, overarching glue. In the case of the Muslim North, that glue is Islam, which is causing an ethnogenesis to emerge from a mishmash of identities. To delegitimize or alienate a Kano emir because he traces maternal ancestry to the geographic fringe of the North communicates to the people from that place that they are unwanted, that they don’t belong.

It reminds me of the grave error of judgment that northern Muslim elites made during the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency, from which the North hasn’t recovered.

Obasanjo threw an opportunity for the North to really live up to its “one North, one people” mantra and it failed. Of all Nigeria’s former regions, the North is the only region that was ruled as one and that was unbroken until the regional structure was disbanded. Suddenly, because of Obasanjo’s appointments, a northerner who was a Christian was no longer a “northerner.” Even a northerner who was a Muslim (such as Ibrahim Ogohi) wasn’t a “northerner” unless he came from the Northwest or the Northeast.

Obasanjo was clearly smarter than northern leaders because he destroyed the myth the North cherishes about itself by testing it. Tinubu may be inadvertently doing the same thing to the emirate system. If you don’t manage your diversity well, a smart, competing outsider will always exploit it to divide and conquer you. 

When I sat down to write my column this week, I was overwhelmed by the multitude of issues I wanted to address: the presidency’s pushback against New York Time’s factual reporting on the unprecedented economic crunch in Nigeria that was exacerbated by President Bola Tinubu’s twin policies of subsidy removal and floating of the naira, the political and judicial shitshow in Kano regarding emirship, the unabating suffering in the land, minimum wage, etc.

Every country, including the United States where I live, has problems. I always recognize that. But it seems to me that Nigeria’s problems are peculiar because they are always the same year in, year out, and people who should solve them don’t even pretend to be interested in solving them. They repeat the same motions, mouth the same sterile and predictable defenses, and hurl the same insults at critics.

So, I asked myself if there was even any point in my writing. Who reads what I write anyway? Of those who read, who cares? Of those who care, who is in a position to change anything? Am I wasting my time by writing about issues that won’t change? Should I take an emotional break from Nigeria?

This isn’t the first time I am grappling with these questions publicly and privately. I am sure I am not the only person who struggles with these questions.

Many people have wondered what I stand to gain from my passionate interventions in Nigerian affairs when I am not a direct victim of the dysfunction of the country and won’t be a direct beneficiary of the systemic overhaul I desire for the country.

I used to think people who asked me these questions were shortsighted. I still think they are.

But I am, right now, just sick and tired of being sick and tired. We owe debt for this colorful expression to the late African-American civil rights activist from Mississippi by the name of Fannie Lou Hamer.

At a memorable speech she delivered at a rally with Malcolm X in Harlem, New York, on December 20, 1964, in support of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party’s Congressional Challenge, Ms. Hamer said, among other things, “And I’ve been tired so long, now I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, and we want a change.”

My own emotions are different from Hamer’s. I am not even in the emotional state to ask for a change because I’ve been doing exactly that for more than 20 years. I think I am once again suffering from what I called outrage fatigue in a 2021 column.

It is, as I pointed out, instigated by sustained sensations of powerlessness, hopelessness, mental exhaustion, and cynicism, which ultimately lead to indifference and even compassion fatigue.

My outrage usually flows from a wellspring of righteous indignation over injustice, avoidably missed opportunities, elite cruelty, and preventable existential catastrophes. It is nourished by expectations that its forceful ventilation will jolt people to act and cause policymakers to make amends for the good of the society.

That was what Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist James Earle “Jimmy” Breslin meant when he said, “Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers.”

But outrage, rage, and even compassion, are not a permanent condition; they are intrinsically temporary. It’s impossible to keep your sanity while you are in a perpetually agitative emotional state. In other words, outrage fatigue is an unconscious self-defense mechanism. It’s the mind’s way to decompress and regain equanimity.

It’s bad enough when outrage changes nothing and when both the people on whose behalf you’re outraged and the people whose bad behavior activated your outrage use you for target practice in throwing vituperative darts for daring to be outraged. But it’s worse when people pretend that the consequences of ignoring well-intentioned outrage are unanticipated.

I wrote scores of articles warning that the neoliberal path to development that the Tinubu administration has now wholeheartedly embraced would result in exactly what Nigeria is going through. In fact, before Tinubu was sworn in as president, I wrote that removing petrol subsidies would instigate an unmanageable economic catastrophe that would make governance difficult.

It turned out that more than a decade ago Tinubu himself had written almost exactly what I have been writing about the consequences of subsidy removal on the economy. Now his media aides are pretending that they don’t know that his policies are responsible for the unexampled inflation that’s destroying the lives of common people.

Today, every section of Nigeria is enveloped in profound existential turmoil thanks to both the inability and unwillingness of the government to confront the problems that afflict the country.

In Kano, we now have two emirs, a federal emir and a state emir, and the judiciary just added fuel to the kingship fire raging in the state through what Professor Auwalu Yadudu fittingly called a “strange and baffling” judicial pronouncement.

Meanwhile, Kano State governor Abba Yusuf (who I used to like) has reverted to his default destructive vengeance that I advised him against in previous columns. He has reportedly sent bulldozers to tear down the palace where the “federal” emir lives. Recall that the governor’s first major “project” upon being inaugurated as a governor was to go on a frenzied destruction spree of opponents’ properties.

In my September 23, 2023, column titled “Why the Kano Verdict Can’t Stand,” I wrote:

“After its expected victory, though, NNPP’s Abba Yusuf and his benefactor Rabiu Kwankwaso need to rule with grace and maturity, not vengeance and infantilism. Destroying buildings is no governance. Plotting the dethronement of monarchs that didn’t support you is a page from Ganduje’s sordid playbook. They need to be different. Success, they say, is the best revenge.”

Like the federal government, they didn’t listen. Well, the law is clearly on the side of the Kano State government on the controversy regarding who is the emir of Kano. Although I think Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is a debauched egomaniac, he is right now the rightful emir.

The federal government has no power to determine who is a king in any state of the federation. Femi Falana has also pointed out that federal courts have no jurisdictional competence to sit in judgement over kingship matters.

So, the Kano State government just needs a little more maturity to let the judicial process play itself out. Destroying the residence of Aminu Ado Bayero is the sort of destructive infantilism I counseled against, but which seems to flow in the DNA of the governor.

To be honest, I am just tired. A popular leftist American bumper-sticker slogan says, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” Well, I am paying attention. It’s just that I have reached the elastic limit of my outrage because Nigeria’s tragedy is self-inflicted, predictable, and preventable.