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FOR some years now, Nigerian politics has orbited around President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He has dominated news cycles, bent the ruling All Progressives Congress(APC) to his will. He is currently trying strenuously to reshape the country’s political arena to suit his image and imaginations to the extent that all major political discussions, power struggles, decisions and alignments, such as defections, opposition strategies and future election considerations are primarily influenced to, Tinubu’s actions, and political machinery. The National Assembly, an independent lawmaking body has become servile, more like an appendage of the presidency. His party, the APC, has done what no political party in Nigeria has done: it has composed an anthem in his name: “On your mandate we stand”…
Even some judicial officers have been co-opted to chorus his name at their recent Annual Conference in Abuja as though it was Nigeria’s National anthem. Perhaps Nigeria is getting closer to an imperial presidency. Every story in government circle is slanted to win the favour of the ‘man at the top’. For example, in Edo state, it’s now an offence for political appointees to attend the weekly Executive Council meeting without wearing “Asiwaju Bola Tinubu cap”. It seems the fear of Tinubu is the beginning of political survival in Nigeria. That’s what has brought Nigeria to this sorry state. But the presidency requires that the burden of national unity rests heavily on one man, the President.
You may have noticed that in two and a half years in office, Tinubu has defined for himself and for his presidency a series of purposes, or what American political scientist and presidential historian Richard Neustadt calls “irreversible commitments to defined courses of action. These commitments imply the selection of political ambitions and personal interests. Protection of lives and welfare of Nigerian citizens rank low in this list of priorities. Top on the list is an irreversible commitment to get re-elected in 2027 by whatever means. That also entails decimating opposition political parties considered a threat to this vaulting ambition. Interestingly, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesome Wike is the curmudgeon in chief in actualising this agenda. The philosophy of those in this agenda is to get the President re-elected at any cost, even if the country splits down the middle. They believe that ‘nice guys’ finish last in elections. That is why, in 2022, in faraway Chatham House, London, Tinubu as a presidential candidate said, “power is not given “a la carte”, you must grab it and run with it”.
That’s Tinubu’s school of thought, and he means every word of what he says. But this is not a virtue. It’s a vice. That’s exactly what Hans Mortgenthau(German-American political scientist) meant when he wrote that “the virtues of the politician can easily become vices when they are brought to bear upon a statesman’s task”. That’s why President Tinubu doesn’t seem to bother about promises made, but not kept, or words spoken in public that have little relation to the practical conduct of daily life. It does not matter to him that whatever justification a politician may claim for deceptions, the statesman must align his words with his action.
But, things are unravelling fast in Nigeria, not exactly as the President and his kitchen cabinet had planned. Right now, the clock is ticking for the President. Acts of terror are beginning to feel like part of everyday life in Nigeria. Terrorists seem to have wrestled Nigeria and its leadership to the ground. In the last two weeks, my phone has been buzzing regularly with frantic messages from family and friends abroad asking, “Dan, are you ok”? “Nigeria is in a mess”, is one of such messages from a family friend in the U.S. The message is clear: insecurity has squeezed everyone to a corner. No one is safe any longer in the country. It’s worse in the North. Everyday alive in Nigeria under Tinubu’s watch is a grace from God. Is Nigeria getting harder for the President to govern? Or is he overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems? It’s all because, when you look at the unfolding terror attacks in many parts of the country, you find yourself face-to-face with millions of unsmiling faces as if they were carved from weather beaten stones.
Many families, parents and relatives are tears. In deep agony. They are grieving over their missing children they hugged when they left for school, but many of them never returned. Hundreds have been abducted. Hefty ransom demanded by their abductors. Churchgoers are afraid to attend services anymore, because of the sad memories of members of the Christ Apostolic Church(CAC), Eruku, Ekiti council area of Kwara state, who went for a thanksgiving service and were abducted in a violent attack on Nov.18. Five persons were reported killed, including a pastor. Their abductors demanded N100 million ransom per victim. A day after the attack on worshippers at CAC, gunmen stormed Government Comprehensive Girls’ Secondary school, Maga in Danko Wasaga Local Government Area of Kebbi state. Dozens of students were abducted.
Several soldiers on mission to rescue the schoolgirls were ambushed by the terrorists. Some sustained serious injuries. Few students managed to escape. A parent, Malam Lawal Altine has three daughters in that school. One of them, Miss Khadijat was a lucky survivor of that horrible attack. She locked herself in one of the school’s toilets. The gunmen couldn’t find her. But her two sisters were not that lucky. They are still missing. A puzzle remains in the Kebbi attack. Why were the soldiers attached to the school withdrawn less than an hour before the gunmen stormed the school? That’s the legitimate question the State Governor Nasir Idris is demanding an explanation from the military authorities. Who gave the order for the troops to withdraw from the school at that critical moment even after the state government had provided intelligence report of a possible terror attack?
As Nigerians were searching for answers to the questions, the worst happened at St. Mary’s primary and secondary schools, Papiri, Agwara LGA in Niger state. It’s a private school owned and run by the Catholic church. As of last Friday, the number of pupils, students and teachers abducted by terrorists was 303, according to the state Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria(CAN), Most Rev. Bulus Yohanna. The victims included 12 teachers. The school management has refuted the statement by the state Governor that a circular was sent out for all schools in the area not to reopen. Could this narrative by the state government an afterthought or a complicity of some sort?
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Isn’t Cardinal John Onaiyekan right when he said that the federal government “is aware of those behind the killings” and abductions in recent weeks? Or is this the price Nigerians are paying for poor leadership? It’s vital to stress here that, as relative as trust has become in politics, it remains a key requirement in what the citizens expect from their political leaders. The trust deficit that pervades our politics today is a function of the fact that many of our politicians today believe that your vote counts for nothing in determining the outcome of election. That, perhaps puts President Tinubu on the spot. Under his watch, this is what Nigeria has got. According to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics(NBS), a government agency, 614,937 people were killed in the country in 2024, 2.2 million abducted, and over 3 million people displaced by violence.
That figure may have doubled by now. These are some of the school abductions from 2023- 2025. On 22 Sept, 35 students were abducted from Federal University, Gusau, in Zamfara state, March 7, 2024, 287 pupils abducted from schools in Kuriga, Kaduna state. March 9, 2024, 15 pupils abducted from Tsangaya school, Sokoto, Nov.17, 2025, 25 schoolgirls were abducted from Government Comprehensive Secondary school, in Kebbi, Nov. 18, 35 worshippers kidnapped in CAC, Eruku, Kwara state. On Nov.21, 2025, about 303 students and teachers abducted from St.Mary’s Primary and secondary schools, Niger state, and same day, tens of students were abducted from St. Peter’s Foundation Secondary school, in Nasarawa state. On Nov 23, at least 13 students were abducted from a school in Borno state.
While 38 CAC abductees were reported freed on Sunday, about 51 of St. Mary’s students reportedly escaped from their abductors’ den also on Sunday, according to News Agency of Nigeria(NAN). This has been confirmed by Rev. Yohanna. A ray of hope still exists for the release of hundreds of others still in the abductors’ hideouts. Tinubu’s excitement over those freed is understandable. The question is, was their release a coincidence or pre-arranged? As Cardinal Onaiyekan said, could it be that the government knew those behind the abductions?. Or was their release arranged in batches to convince President Trump that finally, he(Tinubu) is taking decisive action against terror attacks in Nigeria? Many questions begging for answers.
To fair, insecurity precedes Tinubu’s administration, but it has taken a monstrous level under his watch, so much so, that nobody needs to tell anyone any longer what to like or dislike about his style of leadership. What his predecessor made worse, Tinubu has made much worse. That’s what happens when an elected President takes his eyes off the ball of governance and preoccupies his mind and energy on the next election years before campaigns kick-off. This is why things are getting worse rather than getting better in the country. Tinubu lacks the political will and bravery to tackle terrorism, perhaps for fear of a backlash. In this age of transparency, leadership requires a doer and a thinker. These are not part of Tinubu’s virtues.
This is what Lyndon Johnson (36th U.S. President) told American House of Representatives in 1947 on how to deal with terror: “whether a communist or fascist, or simply a pistol-packing racketeer, one thing a bully understands is force, and one thing he fears is courage. I want peace, but if you let a bully come into your front yard, the next day he will be up on your porch, and the day after, he will rape your wife in your own bed. But if you say No to him at the start, he will know he’s dealing with a man of courage, someone who will stand up to him. And only then can you get along and find some peace again”.
If Tinubu, and, indeed, previous administrations, had been brave enough to overcome the temptation to flee their responsibilities, terrorism in Nigeria would have been contained. It even took the recent threat by President Donald Trump to wake up Tinubu from his slumber. This failure has made Nigeria to be ranked 6th on the 2025 Global Terrorism Index. Nigeria accounted for 6 percent of global terrorism deaths in 2023. On the terrorism index, Nigeria averaged 7.09 points from 2022 until 2024 when it surged to 9.12 points in 2025, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace. With the present killings and abductions, Nigeria may displace Burkina Faso to the first place in the sub-Sahara.
Taken as a whole, Tinubu should take governance serious. And insecurity is one of them. It’s at the heart of any nation’s economy and human development. The fact that Nigeria is careening towards a failed state is primarily due to misgovernance, corruption and poor leadership. With regard to acts of terror, Tinubu should learn from the lessons of the Chibok girls of 2014. As the national leader of APC and main opposition party then, it’s worth recalling how the party mocked the President Goodluck Jonathan under whose watch hundreds of Chibok girls in Borno were abducted by Boko Haram. Jonathan was called names, “clueless”, “corrupt”, “sleeping behind the wheels” during the crisis. His wife, Patience Jonathan was not spared. Her tears during a TV interview was described as “crocodile tears”. What goes around comes around, isn’t it? When you spread malicious falsehood against someone, take it as a loan: it comes back to you with interest.
