By SKC Ogbonnia, August 26, 2024.
The #EndBadGovernance protests in Nigeria against the gross misrule of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu have come and gone. Not surprisingly, instead of concrete solutions for a better future, the president remains busy exhibiting the height of dictatorship, jailing innocent protesters, and misleading Nigerians on how he foiled a plot for a regime change. Yes, for Tinubu, any opposing view is either a treasonable felony, secession or coup plot and, consequently, a threat to Nigeria’s democracy. But the truth is that Tinubu himself has become the real enemy and ought to demonstrate patriotism by quietly quitting.
Let me explain. Recall that former President Muhammadu Buhari drove the Nigerian economy to the rock bottom. Then consider that his successor, Mr. Tinubu himself, has already shattered the very rock of the bottom to crash the country to the deepest low. Follow that with the fundamental fact that bad governance is historically the biggest threat to the Nigerian democracy.
Clearly, there is an urgent need for real solutions. But it is equally clear that Tinubu and his regime have run out of ideas. Even the backdoor return of the controversial fuel subsidy has failed to help matters. This slew of abject failures has roots in both his mental and physical conditions.
Clearly, this is not the Tinubu that some of us had admired and cheered to protest against bad governments and demanded revolution in the past. The man at the Aso Rock is far from the DeFacto opposition leader we followed to form the All-Progressive Congress (APC). This is not the character that prompted me at the time to pen that, “if dynamic opposition is the life-wire of a democracy, it is very fitting then to name him (Tinubu) the savior of Nigeria’s current democratic journey.”
Sadly, this version of Asiwaju is polar opposite to his old self. Besides degenerating to a shameless dictator, he no longer has the physical ability nor the mental stability cum acuity for any serious leadership position. This Tinubu is not only too old and too weak but there are also the issues of an acute failing health and cluelessness.
The common pushback by his aides in recent times was to compare the unfortunate Tinubu predicament to the situation in the United States of America. They would argue that the American people tolerated President Joe Biden who is equally old and has similar aging baggage. But that was then.
Once it became obvious that Biden’s feeble condition was nearing the Tinubu stage, the party that sponsored him to power (the Democratic Party) tactfully forced him out of the 2024 U.S. presidential race. The Americans reasoned that Biden’s candidacy was a momentous threat to the nation’s democracy. He was bound to lose to former president Donald Trump—a naked dictator, who was once impeached for an apparent attempted coup.
A palpable fear that had gripped me most of this year was any notion of either Biden or Trump winning the 2024 U.S. presidential race and the implications for Nigeria, a country that has a penchant for copying every American bad examples. On the one hand, Biden is too old and too weak. On the other hand, Trump is a very corrupt dictator.
Though Trump remains in the race, but the Nigeria’s case is a double whammy. Tinubu has the dubious distinction of sharing both the Biden and Trump baggages. The point of the fact is that not only would a Trump or Biden victory in 2024 have emboldened Tinubu, it would have also woken up every corrupt Nigerian octogenarian and nonagrian to begin to gear up for the presidency. After all, “like in America!” Yes, like in America!!
The eventual exit of Joe Biden from the 2024 U.S. presidential race on account of old age is a welcome breeze. In quiting, Biden said, “It’s been the honor of my lifetime to serve as your president. I love the job, but I love my country more…and we need to preserve our democracy.” That is a show of patriotism. It is true love for the country. It is a true commitment to save the American democracy. That singular act quickly placed Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. as one of the most consequential leaders in history.
The Biden historic move ought to serve as a clement cover for President Bola Tinubu to equally quit the stage. Given the common knowledge that bad governance is historically the biggest threat to Nigerian democracy, it is time for the APC, the legislature, as well as the masses to see the needed change. Having fulfilled his lifelong ambition of becoming president, now is Tinubu’s turn to emulate a good American example—for a change. He can equally take a page from former President Goodluck Jonathan, who resisted the temptation of rigging the 2015 presidential election but instead made history by surrendering power to us in the opposition. As at then Jonathan was viewed as “clueless.” Today, despite the perceived cluelessness, Jonathan has emerged as a hero of democracy.
Tinubu’s ready answer, of course, is for Nigerians to wait till the 2027 polls for any thought of regime change. Of course, he would want us to wait forever; afterall, neither him nor any member of his family feels the crushing pain. But Nigerians must not buy him any more time.
The records show that Tinubu is by far the worst president in nation’s history. He has already proven why a vast majority of Nigerians rejected him at the election that brought him to power. In short, his continued stay in office is to risk an end to the nation’s democracy. While he carefully planned how to gain power by any means, it has become very clear he never planned how to govern. Thus his main preoccupation since assumption of office has been how to sustain power by any means and continue to exhibit ostentatious lifestyle while at the same time subjecting millions of Nigerian masses to abject penury and despair. The misrule must stop!!
SKC Ogbonnia, a former APC Presidential Aspirant, writes from Ugbo, Enugu State.
