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President Bola Ahmed Tinubu craves recognition as an icon of democracy in Nigeria. There is nothing wrong in that. He was, without doubt, part of the struggle for the restoration of democracy in Nigeria in the 1990s.
That struggle, led by the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), came to a head after the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida annulled the 1993 presidential election won by Chief Moshood Abiola. The campaign was a just cause.
Beyond the effort to retrieve the mandate given to the winner of the election, the pro-democracy campaign of the mid 1990s sought also to install the noble ideals of democracy and liberty which allow every citizen the right to aspire to any office up for election, and people the freedom to choose whoever they prefer as their leader.
Properly situated, the June 12 struggle was beyond Chief MKO Abiola. It was a struggle for the enthronement of justice and freedom of the people to choose their leaders. It couldn’t entirely be about Abiola, because MKO as he was commonly known, was a man with a personal baggage as pronounced as his pocket and his generosity. But he was the choice of majority of Nigerians across all divides. That’s what democracy does. It does not slam the door on anyone. Only dictatorship does that.
For a man believed to be a genuine democrat, one whose bona fides were forged in the crucibles of the struggle for the enthronement of democratic ethos in Nigeria, Tinubu’s bearings since he arrived the presidency in mid 2023 has been extremely disappointing, if not vexatious. Every day that passes by exposes him further as a frightening and frightened figure whose true personality is far removed from what he professes.
A personality is properly defined, not by what one says as by what he does. Numerous acts associated with Tinubu and his commissioned agents, as well as the sundry ad hoc elements working vicariously for him, particularly inside courts, increasingly present a threat to democracy and peace in the society.
Apart from the devoted effort by Tinubu himself and his lieutenants to steadily harp on his antecedent as a democrat, as if they themselves are in doubt, the other side of him which his acolytes hawk around with zeal is that he is a master strategist in politics. Fair enough. Here again, however, the outcome of the touted mastery has tended to emit more heat and smoke than light.
Forget about governance. The primary focus of President Tinubu almost since he commenced his job as president, has been on how to win a second term. He has gone about it with single-minded determination. This, it has turned out, is where his strategies are unravelling.
How does anyone explain it that a president who has amassed resources beyond comprehension, corralled virtually all the state governors into his party and has subjugated all the state security instruments to himself, still find himself in a palpable state of nervosity over a competitor in the political field who comes along with a bare hand?
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If as it appears apparent, the chief strategy of President Tinubu to win a re-election is anchored, not on any sublime democratic gameplan, but on railroading relevant state institutions to ensure that Peter Obi or perhaps any other viable prospective opponent in the 2027 election is eliminated from the field before the contest is due, then he should change his strategy. Let it be known by those who may not care for now that once the culture of disqualifying opponents before election is introduced in the Nigerian political system, it has come to stay.
There is a world of difference between a devious scheme to undermine democracy and a smart electoral plan. President Tinubu should direct his ‘minister for the judiciary’ to call in the ad hoc staff in the courts to stop embarrassing him. A June 12 pro-democracy personality should hang a better shining epaulet than the tainted type worn by Paul Biya of Cameroun, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and lately, Samia Sululu Hassan of Tanzania.
Re: Principalities converge over insecurity
Andy Ezeani’s piece on Tuesday, June 23,2026 titled “Principalities converge over insecurity”. is fantastic. The most enthralling paragraph is where he lent credence to my often-repeated view that there is no government in the world that allows human beings to live inside forests, more so in a country with serious problem of insecurity. It is only in Nigeria that such outright madness is allowed because of the primitive open grazing of cattle, predominantly by the Fulani who resist all laws against that. It is difficult to divorce this habitation in the forests and regular attacks on citizens from the kidnapping syndicates living inside the forests like dangerous wild animals.
For kidnapping to stop immediately, President Tinubu should direct the security agencies to supervise the vacation of everybody out of the forests and jungles throughout the country. Human beings are not supposed to live in the forests and nobody should be allowed to hibernate in forests. Living and hibernating inside forests and jungles clearly shows that these ragtag terrorists masquerading as herdsmen have ulterior dangerous motives just like the kidnapping syndicates. Please, Andy Ezeani, consider devoting a piece on this crucial fact of allowing human beings to hibernate in forests. It must be stopped. There is nothing the government can do about kidnapping unless people are banned from hibernating inside forests.
Serious countries in West Africa like Ghana did not accept the madness of throwing their borders open for the Jihadists terrorists from the Sahel region to infiltrate in the name of herdsmen. Nigeria needs to wake up.
Time may have come for the deployment of the much trumpeted “African charms” being made by powerful medicine men and women to confront these invading Fulani militia Jihadists from the Sahel who are the kidnapping syndicates for Nigeria. Thanks to the revered Oba of Benin for initiating effort to explore traditional methods to protect Nigerians from the menace of these invaders.
• Polycarp Onwubiko, Abuja
