Tinubu needs new salesmen

The 16 months of the Bola Tinubu presidency have been a ton of paradoxes. Here is a man toasted as the most prepared for the job, currently doing it like a kindergarten. Granted that one is permitted to learn on any kind of job, including medical procedures, but the apprentice won’t be without tutors and supervisors who will steady shaky hands (no pun or mockery intended and thankfully his health appears to be on rapid rise since the election was won and lost) and give sterner tutorial stuff in the course of shepherding the rookie. But only the man that admits his shortcomings can be helped. While it is clear to even a blind man (you don’t need sight to feel hunger pangs currently ravaging the land), that the president is not doing the job like a pro he was packaged for Nigerians to be, the bigger problem is that he doesn’t appear to have people, even behind the scene, steadying his hands as his presidency bumbles through his first and, as many are praying, his only term in office as the leader of the republic. Well, maybe with the exception of ultra-disruptors like IMF, World Bank and their kind. Their advice which could be adduced from their publicly-pushed arguments, is reason Tinubu’s presidency is in ruins and the country, in panic. He should ditch them like yesterday.

Tinubu’s pejorative cognomen among his angry political associates in Lagos is Emperor. His obstinacy on contentious policy issues and politics during his governorship sojourn in Lagos is well-documented among them, especially those who began his political odyssey with him. It was claimed that the Emperor abusive salutation came about from his unyielding nature during arguments, even in the early days of his governorship when he was yet to have a firm hold on the state politics, let alone being a regional or national substance. I was told by associates that when he was not winning arguments, he would resort to “I was the one voted as governor, not you”, to deliver a knock-down punch against those trying to point him in different directions on volatile issues.

His first deputy, Kofo Bucknor-Akerele in a recent interview with Tribune, expectedly had no nice things to say about him, considering the no-love-lost situation that has existed between them since Tinubu orchestrated her impeachment 22 years ago but what she said about the president not taking advice has been demonstrated openly by the Nigerian leader himself. When asked by senior political journalist, Bola Badmus what she would say to the president if she met him, the Lagos native said, “I don’t think the president would want my advice. I don’t think he is the kind of person that takes to advice. After all, I was his deputy. I don’t believe he is the kind of person that takes to advice. He seems to have the mindset that he knows it all”.

Even if one wants to lob sour grapes accusation, at least they worked closely together for three years before the parting of ways and Yoruba will say oku odun meta kuro lalejo saare {a three-year-old corpse is acquainted enough with the grave}.

In 2012 at the colloquium marking his 60th birthday in his early days as the opposition leader, Tinubu publicly knocked then Governor Babatunde Fashola, his successor, for advising a level-playing field as demanded by the rank and file of their political group. Hear today’s president then “Ask them {party faithful} not to give me the task, that I will not be able to deliver. What I had done consistently in the past, why would I want to change at 60? I have succeeded with that behaviour and sorry I will not deviate from it”. My interest here isn’t the fairness of his kingmaking style. The rank and file as well as the associates who are complaining about his god complex, enabled his ascension to the cult status where he plays the oracle. They should live with it. The point here is the mindset which Kofo-Bucknor pointed out. Because something worked yesterday doesn’t guarantee results today. It will be tragic if the president’s mind is rooted in ideas and behaviours that worked for him as governor when eyes were still glued to knees. Maybe that is exactly why he is failing|

Another paradox is his poor media image and messaging, which began festering with his entry into the presidential race in 2022 despite being arguably the dominant media entrepreneur in Nigeria. The absurd situation becomes more telling when one adds the fact that alongside Atiku Abubakar, his Ambition-Generated-Enemy {AGE}, Tinubu used to be the honey that journalists, especially the very senior ones, swarm around like bees, during his days as an opposition leader, especially when he, using his media strength, decorated himself with the title of the National Leader of APC, before the party took power at the centre. For clarity, he still has many around him and as president, he is entitled to as many as can get his message across to Nigerians. But it seems that a mute button has been activated from only-God-knows-where, with those even appointed to speak the truth of the administration, appearing to be hiding from being identified with their principal and his ideals. Are we dealing with Thomases here or Peters?

No doubt, it is a tough call defending this administration and the sprawling pains its policies have unleased on Nigerians, but when you are being paid to do a job, it is either you do it or quit, if your conscience and conviction are at variance with the job specifications. Yes, even die-hard APC members are bailing on the administration and you wont blame them if they see the current leadership as too monstrous for their conscience but those who accepted appointments from the president in whatever guise, would be deemed to have chosen to identify with him. They should, or quit or be thrown out. There are ministers in this administration who haven’t done up to three pubic events to explain what they are doing since their appointment over a year ago. Some just started talking and belatedly defending the administration when Bayo Onanuga confirmed that a shake-up was on the card. The few that were speaking before now, were busy announcing increment here and there, further piling misery on the people, before receding into their comfort and comforting offices at the expense of public purse. Do we just conclude that the man has surrounded himself with supposed partners who are just sneering at him, from a distance?

For the president to have many media “boys” with this obvious poor messaging, he is likely the main problem, because his kind easily suffer from ITK, due to many successes of the past. Yoruba will say igbehin loju. Christians call it the Omega Anointing; to end well. But his media “boys” also appear rooted in the past when he was the darling of opposition politics. The media “behaviours” that helped them make a god of politics and governance wizard out of him, are not delivering on curating a performing president. They would have to transfigure, to fit into the reality of the shrine where the god currently operates from. Celebrating an upstanding delivery and not am outstanding message of a national broadcast should be humiliating for a president who wants to be taken serious on substance of governance, considering that many of his colleagues elsewhere are playing basketball for hours non-stop. As a compensation for loyalty of all these years, it is understandable if the president doesn’t want to replace his “upstanding” boys, but at least, he can get them retrofitted, to fit the demands of his new assignment for them. For the ministers he may want to retain, especially those from the North, for 2027 sake, can he make it mandatory for them, to engage with Nigerians at least on quarterly basis? And the president himself, can he at least, bring back the presidential media chat, even if it is to talk about “no free beer parlour anymore”?

But if the president doesn’t mind starting on a clean slate, he can try this advice from Bucknor-Akerele, “Well, I would advise him to look around the country; we have qualified and capable people in this country who can give him the right advice and show him the way as to how to run the country.”

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