For a more accountable presidency

THE sight has become routine, almost theatrical: elected governors and ministers abandoning their duty posts to line the airport tarmac, waving at a departing or arriving presidential aircraft as though in a court of old. Handshakes are exchanged, smiles are staged, cameras click—and governance pauses. This practice deserves unambiguous condemnation.

In a constitutional republic, such rituals have no democratic justification. Governors are elected to govern states; ministers are screened by the National Assembly to serve the people. They are not courtiers. When governors travel across the federation merely to offer visibility to the President at Abuja airport, it is neither loyalty nor respect—it is institutional distortion. It would be instructive to know the aggregated cost of this practice to state and federal treasuries. Yes, Nigeria has a monarchical past. Culture explains why presence, escort, and ceremony feel familiar. For instance, Nigeria’s royal fathers move with retinues not because they cannot walk alone, but because tradition demands continuity and honour. Families escort loved ones to the airport as an expression of affection. These cultural instincts are real. But culture evolves. If it did not, Nigeria would still be governed by kings, and republican citizenship would never have taken root.

No other African republic—let alone advanced democracies—treats its elected president like a 17th-century monarch on the tarmac. In Ghana, President Nana Akufo-Addo travels without governors assembling to wave at aircraft doors. In Kenya, William Ruto routinely departs and returns without county governors forming ceremonial lines. In South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa is not surrounded by premiers at airports to perform loyalty rituals. These countries share Africa’s communal cultures; none confuse culture with court politics. There is, however, nothing improper in the President being accompanied by close aides—his Chief of Staff, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, and designated advisers. They are appointed to serve the presidency directly. Governors are not. Their proper place is at their desks, accountable to citizens. Even ministers, once confirmed by the National Assembly, become national—not presidential—servants.

Condemning this excess should not distract from a deeper democratic failure: the near-total exclusion of the press from meaningful, unscripted access to the President. Nigeria’s journalists—the Fourth Estate—fought, bled, and paid dearly under military rule to secure the freedoms we now enjoy. Yet today, at moments of maximum public visibility—on the same tarmac where political actors gather—the press is reduced to spectators. Ministers wave. Governors smile. Journalists are kept at a distance. There is no democratic justification for a Presidency approaching three years without a single unscripted, collective media engagement. None. Security is the usual explanation. We are told access is restricted for the President’s safety; that the Brigade of Guards operates under strict directives; that journalists sometimes get too close. These concerns are not trivial. Nigeria’s security history, particularly after the assassination of General Murtala Mohammed, shaped a command-and-control approach to presidential protection. But security is not a veto on accountability. It is a design problem with known solutions.

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Across Africa and beyond, presidents routinely face unscripted questions without compromising safety. In the United States, Donald Trump—controversial as he may be—is questioned almost every time he boards or disembarks from Air Force One. He routinely engages journalists at the White House. These democracies manage risk through accreditation and background checks—not by denying the press its democratic role. Nigeria can do the same. A simple reform would suffice: ten minutes of unscripted questions at departure or arrival. No scripts. No pre-selected questions. Just accredited journalists, cleared by security, asking what citizens want to know—where the President is going, why it matters, and what was achieved.  In functional democracies, such access is not episodic. It is institutionalised—through regular presidential media engagements, extended one-on-one interviews, and routine press briefings from the seat of power. These practices are not radical innovations; they are democratic hygiene. The argument that journalists might be unruly collapses under scrutiny. Nigerian journalists have covered wars, coups, pandemics, and elections. They are professionals. When journalists are brutalised for doing their jobs, that is not security; it is democratic regression.

President Bola Tinubu has the political experience and authority to change this. He can end the airport pageantry of elected officials. He can normalise press access. He can institutionalise regular, unscripted engagement and leave a democratic imprint stronger than ceremony. We at the Tribune believe that Nigeria does not need less respect for authority. It needs clearer boundaries, better habits, and louder questions—and answers. Culture may explain the routine escort. Democracy demands regular conversation.