Remote working presidency

Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s impact on the still evolving sketches of Nigeria’s presidency is, indeed, astonishing. And to imagine that he has so far done less than three and a half years in office as president.

The minders of President Tinubu were merely stating a trite fact of his presidency when they issued a comment late last week that Tinubu could work from any location of his choice. The statement reminded Nigerians that this is a digital age. Tinubu has actually brought a peculiar dimension of the presidency to bear on himself and Nigeria in three odd years.

For anyone who had believed that Muhammadu Buhari was remote at the presidency, Tinubu, Buhari’s associate and successor, has brought the concept of remote-working for a sitting president to a height unknown and unrivalled in any other free country, except, perhaps, Cameroon. Even in the old Soviet Union, they used to be mindful enough to station the General Secretary of the Politburo, as the president of the starchy enclave used to be known, by the balcony once in a while, to wave to the people.

COVID 19 forced the world to embrace remote working as an acceptable, practical alternative to physical presence in definite location of work and service delivery to an extent never experienced before it. Even at that, remote working never assumed the same connotation as abandonment of duty or the extreme case of abdication. Remote working in its true, honest intent, actually, refers to “working from home”. Or, to be fair, any location outside the known or traditional office or workplace. Of course, home is where a person calls that.

It is true that remote working has increasingly been identified with a vast range of professions, a number of which until recently seemed unsuitable for distant management. It is also true that the world has grown into a global village, a reality that the Canadian communication scholar, Marshall McLuhan brought into the consciousness of humanity as far back as the early 1960s.

Even for all these, the idea of the leadership of a sovereign state, more so in a peace time, governing remotely from distant locations, remains an aberration. Not since rampaging British adventurers and their neighbouring intruding and overbearing fellow colonialists landed as an affliction on unprepared distant territories in Africa, Asia and elsewhere, has any sovereign or its approximation been known to rule from abroad.

The statement by the assistants to President Tinubu that he can govern from any part of the world reflects a mindset that has rendered his presidency a scourge of sorts. No presidency in a modern democracy does that. No officials in a truly decent democratic society should be caught making such a statement. It is not arrogance. It speaks to lacking decorum and respect for the citizens of a country. Yet, last week was not the first time such gall will emanate from the Tinubu presidency. It is wrong.

There are lies that cannot be masked with a bold face. President Tinubu needs to come clean with Nigerians.

The loud questions repeatedly asked by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Peter Obi of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) and Adewole Adebayo of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), in particular, concerning the whereabout of President Tinubu, cannot be dismissed by his associates as playing politics. Yes, the four gentlemen are co-contenders on the presidential election turf with the president. Beyond politics, however, the four are citizens. Tinubu owes them and over 200 million Nigerians an obligation to make his movement clear and definite.  A president does not play hide and seek with the citizens over his movement. A president is not a private citizen.

The statement from the presidency that Tinubu is well and doing fine, and is entitled to a vacation, is puerile. No, President Tinubu is not well and fine. A president who is well and fine does not abandon critical issues of governance and his campaign for re-election just to enjoy holiday abroad. Nigerians may have been grossly afflicted and inflicted by the policies of the Tinubu-led APC government, but the people are not all dim bulbs.

The point has been made over and over, that Tinubu is human. He is entitled to suffer health challenges. All humans do, at one point or another. If Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a president, in a democratic country has a health challenge, he owes the people an obligation to come clean with his records. If he says, or his assistants insist that he is well and fine, then let him come home and hit the campaign stump. There are weighty personal and state matters waiting for him to address Nigerians on.

It is so disconcerting to begin to imagine that Nigeria is, after all, not any different from Cameroon, and that what happened in Camerron not too long ago may also happen in Nigeria. Or is indeed, already playing itself out. At the last so-called presidential election in Nigeria’s eastern neighbour, President Paul Biya,93 was in Switzerland snoring away while his effigy was carried around the regions to represent Biya on campaign. Yes, it happened. This is Africa. And did Biya not “win”? He was ferried back to Younde,sworn in,more like in a trance and has since returned to Switzerland to continue sleeping.President.

Now, that Emmanuel Macron has gone and returned to France, he must have briefed President Tinubu on deliberations at the 2026 UNGA. The president should come back home, if he is well. Even before he returns, he should direct his assistants to stop disrespecting Nigerians with stale comments on his absence.  However tech savvy President Tinubu may be, the presidency is not a remote working job.