In celebrating his 73rd birthday a week ago, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu received very many goodwill messages. Of the lot, a particularly striking one was by former President Muhammadu Buhari who described President Tinubu as “a serial winner of democratic elections.” This compliment confirms President Tinubu’s claim, in his famous pre-primary election “Emilokan” speech delivered to party faithful on 3 June, 2022 in Abeokuta, Ogun State. He said, on that occasion, that former President Buhari invited him to be his vice-presidential candidate in the 2015 election, because Asiwaju Bola Tinubu had never lost an election.
In this regard, in a 24 November, 2023 article titled “Tinubu, the baobab,” published in this paper, but outside this column, this writer noted: “President Tinubu’s life experience, I believe, is the stuff of which legends are made, and his is the epitome of a grace-filled life. He won a senate seat at the first attempt, won the governorship seat at the first attempt, and won the presidential election at the first attempt. The crowning glory of this legendary winning streak would be his institution of sustainable good governance in Nigeria.”
Incidentally, with respect to this objective, the President remarked as follows at the special Ramadhan fast-breaking dinner he hosted at the Presidential Villa on 29 March, 2025: “Those who are very close to me knew the odds were very much against me. … I almost dropped the idea of running, of continuing the race. … When I assumed office, it was extremely difficult. But the day of the inauguration … I had to decide on what is not in the original script of my speech. It’s on the subsidy. I looked straight into the crowd … and I knew what was in the handing over note that I reviewed a night before. … I had to decide. Whichever way it comes, the hallmark of a great leader is the ability to decide to do what you have to do at the time it ought to be done. That was the day I said the subsidy is gone. The following day, floated the currency.”
The President continued: “I was hounded and abused, thoroughly criticized in the papers. But I believe in the cause of retooling our economy and changing the narrative of our nation. Not because of me, but because we were spending the money that belongs to our generation yet unborn in advance, ahead of their birth. It cannot continue. We reversed the situation. It is less than two years in office. The economy is turned round. We’ve taught management to ourselves. … We must achieve food security and sovereignty for our country. … We’re about less than 24 months in the administration. What they think … will blow up in our face is giving us the hope and Nigeria is turning around.”
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In one respect, while acknowledging the positive impact of President Tinubu’s policies, the Guardian of 15 March, 2025 reported Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State to have said: “Looking at it, 20 to 22 months down the road, to the glory of God, with your wisdom, tenacity, far-sightedness, and your Renewed Hope initiative, this is the first time in the history of this country that we will be fasting while the cost of foodstuffs is coming down. … Inflation, which we were all afraid of, is also coming down. The price of petrol is also coming down every week. I congratulate him for this feat.”
In contrast, Malam Buba Galadima, a member of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and one of President Tinubu’s staunch critics, was quoted in The Nation’s Hardball column of 14 March, 2025 to have said that the fall in food prices was as a result of food imports and that “this will make the economy of the North, which depends on agriculture, to dwindle as many won’t be able to farm again to gain any meaningful profit.” As Hardball rightly asked, “Pray, who does falling food prices hurt? The northern ‘Talakawas’ that need cheap food to make life more livable? Or the rich that would spend even less on food, while sinking their excess money into more earthly comfort? Who?” Hardball also rightly noted: “Galadima has a right to play whatever politics he likes, no matter how senseless. Still, his illogical take – ease on food prices as anti-northern conspiracy – is likely to make him the butt of jokes, even among the northern masses he is trying to hoodwink.”
President Tinubu has made some new friends, due to the unimaginable patronage they have received from him; and he has made some new enemies, due to the unfulfilled expectations of some of his erstwhile backers. Strangely enough, some opposition politicians have been accusing him of inciting crises in their parties in order to facilitate his winning of a second term election in 2027. In a particularly noteworthy example, former Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir el-Rufai, an erstwhile supporter of President Tinubu and former member of the All Progressive Congress (APC), said to some leaders of his new party, the Social Democratic Party (SDP): “The crisis … in the Labour Party is contrived. It is funded by the government of the day. Everyone knows it. Jumping from one court to another is all designed to distract the party leadership from focusing on their core functions.”
El-Rufai continued: “The same thing is happening in the PDP. Even the NNPP has been targeted for destruction. There are people that have resourced to go and cause problems in NNPP. The last thing I read about NNPP was that one faction of the party has expelled Kwankwaso and the sitting governor. When you see things like that you know it’s contrived crisis. Which party sacks a sitting governor, and the only governor they have? You know it’s contrived. I don’t have the details. I cannot mention names.”
Another of President Tinubu’s erstwhile supporters is Mr. Dele Momodu, a former presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). On the heels of the President’s declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State and the suspension of Governor Fubara, the Deputy Governor and the members of the House of Assembly, Dele Momodu said: “I think it is very unfortunate. I know President Tinubu very, very, very well. Though I’ve not been in the same party with him and all that, we were together in exile, and he fought gallantly for this democracy. So a lot of us, co-comrades at that time, are actually very embarrassed that we have a pro-democracy leader in government, and yet what we are witnessing is worse than dictatorship.”
Interestingly and ironically, Dele Momodu counselled: “You must deepen our democracy, which President Goodluck Jonathan succeeded in doing, which Obasanjo succeeded in doing, despite allegations and accusations of a third term attempt, still managed to hand over power to President Yar’Adua.” He also noted: “He [President Tinubu] should just do his job. The only thing that can guarantee a second term is to do your job well. You do not need to intimidate anybody.”
All considered, it would be a fitting birthday tribute to recap below the 24 November, 2023 article titled “Tinubu, the baobab,” which was referred to earlier in the present article:
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Yoruba ethnic group has an interesting proverb about ascendancy: Eni t’ó bá ma ga, esè rè á tínrín. (‘Those who would be tall cannot avoid having thin legs.’) Being tall here is the metaphor for recording the highest levels of achievement or reaching the highest rungs on the social ladder. Thin legs, on the other hand, are the metaphor for all the vicissitudes, cumulative challenges and obstacles encountered on the way to the top. No doubt, President Tinubu has had more than his fair share of these legs.
“The president has, like Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, received the unkindest cut of all from people who, in the normal course of affairs, should be there for him. In fact, a review of the politicking preceding the 2022 All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primary shows clearly that many aspects of the denigration of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu by Peter Obi (the presidential candidate of Labour Party – LP), Atiku Abubakar (the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party – PDP) and their followers were leftovers from the derogation of Asiwaju by significant sections of the Yoruba elite. This bears out the Yoruba proverb that says that the enemy is in the backyard, but the traitor lives right within the house with the target.
“Some detractors have stridently cast aspersions on every bit of the president’s life and have invested huge resources into dragging him through the mud. Considering all the denigration, flagellation, sabotage, ingratitude and peer envy the president has suffered for so long, it is understandable for him, warts and all, to have earned substantial sympathy. Providentially, at every turn, he has been lifted well above his detractors.
“Getting this far in life in spite of the seemingly overwhelming challenges on his path is enigmatic. Steadily, his detractors have inadvertently been creating a mystique around him, making him to live out the Yoruba saying, that the more they debark the baobab tree, the fatter it becomes. I found it noteworthy that a columnist with Nigerian Tribune, Suyi Ayodele, placed the president in the class of àkàndá. Specifically, in the article titled, “Salute to Melchizedek of Nigeria”, he said: “There are people known in Yoruba worldview as Àkàndá (special beings). Everything about them is a mystery (Àdììtú). They get away with everything that would easily consume other mere mortals.” …
“In this regard, the following articulation by Yap Kioe Sheng of the United Nations (UN) outline of the essentials of good governance is noteworthy: “Good governance has eight major characteristics. It is participatory, consensus-oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and follows the rule of law. It assures that corruption is minimized, the views of minorities are considered and that the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in decision-making. It is also responsive to the present and future needs of society.” As another UN-related perspective states, the key question any effort towards good governance would seek to answer is: “Are the institutions of governance effectively guaranteeing the right to health, adequate housing, sufficient food, quality education, fair justice and personal security?”
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should not be deterred by detractors of whatever hue. And when he has recorded optimal success with respect to the above-mentioned indices of good governance, as his Renewed Hope Agenda promises, this nation would have been blessed with a profound visionary, an undisputable hero and an epochal and enduring inspirational figure.”
As President Tinubu continues to savour his 73rd birthday celebrations, here’s wishing him more grace.
