It is already May 2025. This is midterm for the Tinubu presidency. This period should, ordinarily, find President Bola Tinubu and his administration, in the thick of governance and superintendency initiatives, aimed, primarily at registering positive impact on the lives of Nigerians.
Midterm has become a crucial measurement point in the tenure of governments. At that crucial juncture, a purpose-driven government is not expected to be heard still talking of where it intends to go and what it intends to do. Its performance should be talking for it.
The performance indicators for most governments at midterm, show a flurry of activities and initiatives executed to make clear impact in the lives of citizens. Governments are expected to be in full flight at midterm.
Although many governments may not post their ultimate performance at midterm, almost always, however, the indicators of the character and trajectory of a government are clearly defined at this point. If the policies of a government are leading somewhere at midterm, the people not only feel it, they know it. Their pockets declare it. Their dining tables proclaim it. And their businesses authenticate that something good is happening. If, on the other hand, the road is leading to nowhere, the air of despondence is palpable. Midterm also offers an opportunity for assessment and re-direction by governments that find themselves in troubled water. They re-jig. If they are inclined to.
The midterm record of the Tinubu presidency, is, without any doubt, dismal. What it does going forward is the issue. A cursory look at headlines in newspapers two days back, on the last Sunday of the month of April 2025, presented an alarming glimpse of the reality of Nigeria as the Tinubu government arrives its mid-term.
Prominent among headline news on the day in focus read thus; “Emir cries for military intervention as Boko Haram kill 12 in Gwoza”, “Two third of our communities under herdsmen’s control – Benue Royal Father”, Bandits kill 28 in fresh attacks in Zamfara”, Boko Haram kills two vigilantes,10 firewood fetchers in Borno”, Bandits kill three in Sokoto”, “Benue community alleges neglect as bandits kill 7 traders”. “Kerosine explosion kills five in Rivers community”, “Measles outbreak kills five in Kaduna village”, “DSS arrests British army officer, associates, seizes 57 AK 47, six pump action, Ammo” …. This is but a tip of the iceberg.
The imagery is that of a state at war. In truth, Nigeria is. Life in the country has become very nasty and short. Many are now sustained, primarily by hope, hope that is anchored on God’s mercy, not on any identifiable initiative by the government, to ameliorate the dire situation.
There is hardly any region of the country that is secure at the moment. Virtually all ends of the country are under constant threat by invading terrorists who strut the land with impunity, wielding heavy weapons, killing, dispossessing and displacing natives of their ancestral homes. Traveling on inter-state roads has become as dangerous as walking through a field wired with landmines.
Yet on the same roads are found numerous road blocks, mounted by representatives of all security agencies. In a video that went viral over the weekend, a single road in the South East, from the commercial hub of Onitsha to the city of Enugu, barely 100 kilometres in distance, parades no less than 30 check points, each the high commission of a different security agency. The Federal Inland Revenue services should consider moving in to these locations in the South East, to stem the tide of unremitted revenue.
Living in the outskirts of cities are not safer too. Nigerians now live on edge, whether in the cities or in the hinterland. How enlightening it will be to obtain a reliable statistic of the number of Nigerians from all the various geo-political zones, who have become refugees in the last one year, sacked from their homes by aliens. Yet there is no declared war.
Between the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces and his commanders, there is a lot that needs to be explained. What, exactly, is the game plan? While Tinubu, the commander-in-chief, has come to be identified with merely condemning acts of terrorism and making such vacuous declarations as “Enough is enough”, some of his military commanders have become rather loquacious, failing to realize that the joke is on them. With Army generals now being kidnapped by terrorists and, worse still, paying ransom to be freed, and with the homestead of some of the generals now under threat by bandits and terrorists, what else needs to be said about the security situation of the country at Tinubu’s mid-term?
When the pervasive insecurity in the land and the wilful devastation of farms and farmlands by terrorist-herdsmen are added to the crushing inflation and heavy economic yoke on the people, imposed by the economic policies of the same Tinubu government, the catastrophe that living has become for Nigerians in the last two years, can be seen.
Alas, at this crucial juncture, at this mid-term, where the Tinubu presidency is expected to re-invent itself to save the ship of the Nigerian state that is in unprecedented turbulence, this is where President Bola Tinubu has turned his primary attention to politicking. His paramount interest has become how to retain power in 2027, two years ahead.
The political development of the last week in Delta State, where a state governor, his deputy, their immediate predecessor and all of their party structure, packed up shop and joined the party of the president, is, without doubt novel, albeit a most ignoble one. The development is said to be the first among a number of such other wholesale-packaged jump, purportedly engineered, less than subtly, at the presidency.
Only last week, this column had discussed four governors from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said to be on their way to the ruling party, not out of choice, but to save their skin. Now, the first has jumped. Who needs to look any closely at Dr, Ifeanyi Okowa, to see how miserable life has become. Nyesome Wike has not forgiven Atiku Abubakar for ignoring him to pick Okowa as running mate in the 2023 presidential election, even against the preference of the party chieftains. Now Okowa is said to have resigned from PDP and has joined APC, a defeated man, meekly being taken to where Nyesome Wike arrived much earlier, with more leverage, even if as a valued contract- associate.
The midterm report of the Tinubu presidency may be as uninspiring as can be. The worry is that the other side of the tenure does not seem to hold out any better prospect. Politics is said to be the man’s forte. May be. Even his supporters never claimed that he is good in governance. Even at that, it is very expensive, for a country, for someone to come to the presidency, just to play politics. That, unfortunately, is what Nigerians should brace up for, as Tinubu corrals more wretched PDP governors in his fold, like sheep without a shepherd. Goodbye to whatever existed as governance in the first half of the Tinubu presidency. Welcome to full-blown politics, the 2027 Tinubu version.