The country called Bola Tinubu

It does appear that finally, cheeky Britain is finally coming to the end of a long eventful road, as far as the right it appropriated to define and code Nigeria goes. It is not just that they gave Nigeria its name, the British left Nigeria with its imprimatur etched all over it, warts and all.  Most of the struggles and contradictions of the Nigerian state as it is, are traceable to the mark left on her by the British.

As things seem to have turned out, 129 years after the British cobbled together the disparate people around the geographical location of the Niger and whimsically called the new administrative entity Nigeria, a new Pharaoh is now on the saddle in the former colony. Either by himself or courtesy of his courtiers, the lord of the manor is manifestly determined to either supplant the vestiges of the British or re-model the country Britain created, in his own name.

After over a century of Nigeria existing and swallowing such tendentious history that held that the river Niger was discovered by Mungo Park, the time may have come to replace the old history and landmarks with realities of the moment.  The way things are shaping up, Nigerians, young and old may soon learn that Mungo Park did not discover River Niger. From recent spirited assertions, the man who, not only discovered River Niger, but is the founder of Nigeria and its landmarks, is the genius called Bola Tinubu. Before him nothing was which was believed to have existed in Nigeria.

There have been sixteen heads of the Nigerian State since the country became a sovereign state in 1960. Majority of those were military dictators. Instructively, even the military dictators obeyed basic rules of decency and administrative etiquette which restrained political leaders from allowing public institutions and monuments to be named after them while they controlled the reins of power. It is an unwritten law, but a moral imperative for leaders.

They always concede to future governments and generations the right to accord them any honour they may find them worthy of. National monuments bearing the names of Nnamdi Azikiwe, Tafawa Balewa and Murtala Mohammed were mostly placed post humously. Yakubu Gowon has only got a university named after him recently. Even that was contested in some quarters on some grounds. Olusegun Obasanjo in his two rounds of leadership of the country has minimal public monuments named after him. Just few roads. Ibrahim Babangida who built quite some notable national infrastructure also remains with one or two roads, named long after he left office. Abdulsalam Abubakar, Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua and Goodluck Jonathan are yet to have due public monuments to their name. Ditto for Muhammadu Buhari, until the renaming of University of Maiduguri after him at his death, an honour so out of place for many cogent reasons that protest trailed the poorly fitting honour.

Enter Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Barely three years after his emergence as president, certain truths about Nigeria seem to be coming to light. New research appears to be at the verge of stablishing that Bola Tinubu and not Fredrick Lugard’s consort, one Flora Shaw coined the name Nigeria. And that the same Tinubu and not the Scottish, Mungo Park “discovered” River Niger.

The realisation of these truth concerning Nigeria, its history and landmarks logically elicit an appropriate reaction, to the effect that Tinubu, the maker of Nigeria, urgently needs to be elevated to sit among the pantheons. This, from all indications, is afoot with alacrity in the Tinubu government. It takes courage to do these things and thank God, traits of courage are currently found in their excess in the Tinubu government. Men who are not restrained by such trivia as simple etiquette and ethical restraint, abound at the corridors of power at the moment and they appear in a hurry to give honour to whom honour is due.

Strategically and in order not to make the restoration of the country too disruptive, the project of naming or renaming public institutions after Bola Tinubu  is being effected gradually. Consequently, such national structures as the International Conference Center in Abuja, built by Babangida had been fittingly renamed after Tinubu, alongside a military barrack and an Immigration facility in Abuja, as well as an airport somewhere.

Fortunately, Nigeria has a more patriotic judiciary than they do in the United States of America, where a court was so disrespectful as to order that President Donald Trump’s name which he attached to the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C be dismantled. Trump, through his acolytes had got the historic Kennedy Center panel beaten to read Trump & Kennedy Centre. It was one of those pitiable hankering for honour.

The matter was challenged in court and the judge literally put Mr. Trump where he belongs. Of course, that was USA. In Nigeria, there is no room for any citizen to challenge any  such fitting honour done to the president and commander-in-chief. Even if any activist lawyer tries it, the court, after reserving judgment on the matter for many months, will eventually deliver a split decision, dismissing the unpatriotic case for lack of locus standi etc., etc.

Renaming Nigeria after her reform-eating President Tinubu does not only seem the right thing to do, it is obviously a patriotic project that can be accomplished within the 1460 days of the Tinubu presidency. With a patriotic National Assembly on standby, alongside an equally patriotic judiciary, what or who can stop Nigeria from being re-named Tinubu?

Thus it was that in the midst of a monumental personal mess last week, Minister of Works, Dave Umahi proclaimed that with the powers conferred on him as minister, that he had conferred with his permanent secretary and had renamed the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway to now answer Bola Tinubu Coastal Highway. The re-naming of the yet-to be scratched 700-kilometre highway after President Bola Tinubu is very understandable in the light of the haste to properly situate history of Nigeria. It is Tinubu country, anyway, so the highway is his.

Those who interpret the renaming of the coastal highway at the time it was done as a strategic move by a man in trouble to pledge his loyalty anew and to seek protection from the law, may be getting it wrong. What has the death of a young lady at the minister’s house got to do with honouring a deserving president? A huge historical exercise couldn’t have been initiated to curry favour and divert attention from a scandal? Or could it?