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President Bola Tinubu has never proved Nigerians wrong. He has always acted true to form. It’s his known personality trait. Ahead of the official kick-off of the presidential campaign of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for his re-election in the northern state of Kaduna this weekend, a sense of ennui has developed within the crowded Presidential campaign council. It’s a sense of dull, flat mood where nothing feels exciting, fun or worth your effort. If not for the money, some of the campaign officials feel ‘conscripted’, and wished they could be somewhere else. Even the most aggressive supporters of the president are already showing signs of weariness. Increasing frustration has set in. It is not for nothing. During the inauguration of the campaign council last Wednesday, President Tinubu dropped a bombshell. Not many were surprised though. It had leaked days earlier that Tinubu would be a president in absentia during his own re-election campaign that he ought to lead from the front, not from behind. He has chosen the later.
He confirmed it by saying that the responsibilities of the office would not allow him to attend most of the campaign rallies across the states. “I won’t go everywhere with you”, he told campaign officials. Leading from the front rather than from the rear creates clarity. But Tinubu claimed he has been advised not to allow the demands and rigours of the campaign to distract him from governance, adding that Nigerians needed his attention at the moment.
The question is: didn’t Nigerians need his attention every time he travelled abroad at public expense in the name of “working vacation” in Europe? Who is deceiving who?
When a leader leads from behind, he sends wrong signals that he has chosen not to model the behaviour and bears the responsibility he expects from his team. That’s not hands-on leadership style. A good leader cannot dictate orders from a distance. That’s the misfortune of Nigeria under Tinubu presidency.
This latest excuse is one presidential lie too many. Avoiding to campaign under the pretext of the demands of ‘governance’,is what Americans call “the Rose Garden strategy”. It’s also called the “Front-Porch” or a “Dignified reluctance campaign strategy”. It’s a strategy in which the president will, either because of hidden illness, or utter disrespect to the people he’s seeking their mandate, decides to stay within the walls of power, the confines of the Presidential Villa and let others carry his campaign message for him. In America, incumbents like William McKinley(1900) did exactly that by using his running mate, Theodore Roosevelt do the heavy lifting for him. Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, all used this. The case of Joe Biden was one of the disturbing episodes of a sick incumbent who didn’t know when to throw in the towel. In the end,it backfired. Same way, Kashim Shettima, a servile, lame duck vice president,has finally found his voice.
How can a man under whose watch as Governor of Borno state,who was caught dining with terrorists, be compared with Obi,a unique, decent personality? Sadly, Shettima is the irascible fellow sent as attack dog on opposition presidential candidates, especially Peter Obi. His disparaging comment last week, of a “diminished Obi”, is empty. Truth be told, no vice president in the present dispensation, has worse, ‘diminished’ profile as Shettima.
His unkind words against Obi is borne out of a ‘fear factor’, a veiled recognition of the formidable force that Obi has become in the forthcoming presidential poll. Surveys show Obi stands a great chance to defeat the incumbent in a free and transparent election. That’s why Obi is their main target. APC, perhaps forgets that every election has a story, rhythm and cadence that sets it apart from previous ones. So is every person who offers himself to a high public office such as the presidency.
The presidency is by far, the most coveted and toughest job anyone can give his brain. Contrary to the thinking of the ruling party, the presidency not a prize to be won. It’s a duty to be done. The enormous responsibilities the Constitution puts on the President are so huge and tasking that the occupant of the office should have a sound mind, good character, vision, and extraordinary capacity for hard work. He must be selflessly, and passionately devoted, serving the public. His health status should not be a matter of public conjectures. That’s why the counsel, ‘if you can’t stand the heat, don’t get close to the kitchen’, has become very instructive.
Besides, the office is not an entitlement. It’s a trust on behalf of the people. It means using great power for great purposes for the country and its citizens. As a result of these tasks, the question is: do voters actually need the president to tell them why he deserves their votes a second time; show them a record of his achievements in the last four years to justify a fresh mandate? Do they care about the health status of the president? The answer is emphatically, Yes! Should he stay away from the campaign trail and delegate surrogates to do his bidding? No. It is undignifying and unacceptable for an incumbent seeking re-election to be a president in absentia during campaigns. That’s why neuroscientists who focus on the brain and its impact on behaviour and cognitive function, often speak candidly about the need to have candidates contesting for the highest office in the land to be in the best possible health condition. All of this is the more reason why high-octane reactions, most of them condemnatory, continue to trail President Tinubu’s inept excuse to be absent from the campaign hustings. The presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress(NDC), Mr. Peter Obi has spoken the mind of most Nigerians about the reluctance of Tinubu to face the electorate. “If he cannot make time to face the electorate, why should surrogates be sent to ask for their votes? Obi has cogently argued that Tinubu should not delegate accountability. “He cannot outsource the defence of his record to political allies, party chieftains and praise singers while millions of Nigerians struggle with the consequences of his government’s policies”, adding that while “surrogates can speak for the president, they cannot answer for his failure, they can repeat his promises, but they cannot make those promises a reality. They can campaign in his name, but they cannot carry his responsibility”.
Obi’s argument is faultless. Governance is not an excuse to avoid accountability. In a democracy, governance is the very record a candidate must defend before asking for a fresh mandate. No surrogate can effectively stand in the place of an incumbent who is still alive. In other words, Nigerians deserve a direct conversation with their president, not a rehearsed talking point from political messengers. Echoing the same concerns that Obi has raised, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party(SDP), Adewole Adebayo, pointedly told Tinubu in a scathing remarks, “you are tired and weak. Go home, let Nigeria breathe”. Adebayo said the president’s self-exclusion from the campaign rallies is a definitive proof that he is physically unfit to govern a nation as diverse and complex as Nigeria. Nigeria, he says, “cannot afford a president in absentia at at time when the nation requires active, hands-on leadership to navigate the current socioeconomic challenges”.
That’s why the call by APC National Chairman, Nentawe Yitwatdwa, urging members of the presidential campaign council to “take Tinubu’s story to every Nigerian”, is not resonating with the electorate. It does more harm than good to the president’s re-election bid. What record of accomplishments does Tinubu have to show? It’s a record of despair, not hope, hunger, misery and anger all over the country.
Taken together, APC should save President Tinubu from himself, and spare the country another heartbreak. Tinubu’s political life seems largely to be all about acquiring power by all means. It’s not for the greater good of the people. Has he ever got beyond this driving ambition? No! And that’s what makes his political life an interesting study on how not to be a leader. With Tinubu, one can say with certainty that he seeks power desperately even at his own peril. For him, in some ways, power means being able to bend people to his will and ruin their reputations, if necessary. Gov Soludo of Anambra state is one of them. That’s a story for another day.
To ignore the health of a Commander-in-Chief may pose incalculable harm, not only in the ability of the President to govern, but could also hamper the country from moving in the right direction. The consequences are dire. That’s why we need to heed the wisdom of brilliant tutors, which says, “Never let the same snake bite you twice”. This is an advice that has served some democracies well. But, time and again, Nigeria has failed to heed this warning. The result has been telling, not once, but twice. It could happen the third time, because, since the present democratic dispensation, the failure of candidates who later became Presidents to disclose their health status had come back to haunt us.
Let’s take just two examples. Until he died in office on May 5, 2010, Umaru Yar’Adua was hampered by chronic illnesses, one of which was diagnosed as pericarditis (a serious skin infection) that he never disclosed. His handlers said his health status was his private affair. Yar’Adua was perhaps a decent man, but it goes beyond being a good, decent man to function effectively in the presidency. As it became clear later, his ill- health impeded his effectiveness. He couldn’t seize the opportunity that time and circumstance afforded him with grace to shape his presidency and give Nigeria a new direction and a sense of purpose. That was essentially why he was a failure, a sort of “waka just pass” president. That was why he didn’t know when to invoke the prestige of the presidency and when to hold it in reserve. Until his eventual death, unelected people, we were told, took decisions on his behalf.
That is one of the reasons Nigeria is not measuring up on the leadership scale. Former president Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who foisted him on Nigeria deceived us. President Muhammadu Buhari followed the same sad trajectory of non-disclosure of his medical history. President Buhari spent more than 200 days in the United Kingdom on medical treatment. The underwhelming performance of his administration has a lot to do with lack of mental alertness.
Agreed, anybody can be sick, but it matters to have a healthy President. The office is where the most profound decisions are made. Now to the present. For a long time, the health status of President Tinubu has been a major talking point. Since he became president over 3 years ago, he has been in and out of the country on medical grounds. But his handlers are playing poppycock with it. This is besides his academic credentials that are still a matter of controversy. His frequent trips abroad is fuelling concerns about his health and the task ahead. It’s unfortunate that everything about Tinubu’s health is opaque and top secret. That’s dangerous. When he rushed back from his extended “working vacation” in Europe last month , Tinubu tried to dispel rumours of his alleged ill health. In his words, “there will always be rumours in politics, but I am healthy, sound and ready to go, ready to walk”.
But theory and reality are at odds with him. His fragile health and gaffes are evident. As a foreign columnist asked the other day: “Is Lucifer in charge of Nigeria?”. Nigerians deserve to hear directly from those seeking their mandate and subject their records, credentials and policy proposals to public scrutiny. The 2027 presidential campaign should not be reduced to Paul Biya’s Cameroon, where an infirmed president hides under the fortified walls of power. That’s not democracy. Full disclosure will help assuage concerns voters might have that could impede the ability of an elected president to fulfill the enormous responsibilities of the office.
