There is no point overstating the fact that the outcome of the 2023 presidential election was greeted with hoopla. There was rage and outrage. Nigeria was almost on edge on account of this. But all that now belongs to the past. The country has moved on in spite of it all. The victory, in whatever way and manner it was procured, has received a stamp of legitimacy from the ultimate court in the land. The winner has since assumed the reins of governance.
But we have a brand new headache to deal with. We have gone through the phase of legitimacy or the lack of it. What is at issue now is the disposition of the victor to power. It has just dawned on Nigerians that the new kid on the block, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is a student of Niccolo Machiavelli. A 16th Century Florentine philosopher, Machiavelli is often regarded as the father of modern politics. Those who were privy to how Tinubu rode to power will readily agree that he is well schooled in Machiavellian political theory. Having taken over political power by fair or foul means, Tinubu has, so far, left no one in doubt that the Machiavelli in him lives. He has a predilection towards the Machiavellian political thought, which holds that the most effective leader should be feared over being loved and that fierce leadership is more important than a generous one.
Tinubu, we must be reminded, rode to power with an entitlement mentality. He said it was his turn to rule. Whereas Nigerians jeered and jibed freely over the loose declaration, the man went underground to ensure that his dream became a reality. Having won, he is now being propelled into action by that spirit of entitlement. To bring the import of the statement home, he has brought into the mix the Machiavellian political thought we just made reference to. He is acting out the Machiavellian theory, which teaches that an effective leader should be feared rather than being loved.
Since he assumed office, he has left no one in doubt that his focus is ethnic. He is in office to advance the cause and interest of his Yoruba ethnic group. His actions and inactions in this regard are there for all to see. As President of Nigeria, Tinubu has been criticized on account of this. But the more he is being called out, the more steeped he gets into his ethnic presidency.
What will anybody do about this Tinubu disposition? What should be the possible response of non-Yoruba Nigerians to this ethnicisation of the Nigerian presidency? A leader who cares about the people will be interested in the answer to this question. But Tinubu does not appear to care a hoot about this. He is not interested in being loved by other Nigerians. If anything, he wants to instill fear into them. He wants them to know and recognize that he can deploy the enormous powers of the presidency in whatever way he pleases. This is the latest coloration the Nigerian presidency has been given. Nigerians did not know anything like this until the advent of the Tinubu presidency. This has become the Tinubu trademark. It is an instrument of oppression and suppression. It is a winner-takes-all disposition.
Under the Tinubu order, the presidency is the property of the President. He can appropriate the powers of institutions of state. He determines and decides their policy directions. That is why some national institutions such as the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria are being Balkanized. Critical departments of the agencies have been directed to relocate to Lagos by presidential fiat. The President is to decide where they should operate from. He can narrow down or expand the scope of their operations. Everything depends on what the President wants. This also means that the President can decide to move his office to Lagos. If the President moves, all ministries, departments and agencies that report to his office will go with him. The presidency is simply for the President. Every other person in the corridor is merely an onlooker. Nigerians did not know that it could be so until the advent of the Tinubu presidency.
Perhaps, what needs to be brought home more poignantly is the fact that the Tinubu order is harsh and unpleasant. In his mad pursuit of ethnic politics, Nigeria is sinking into the abyss with no hope of rescue. The economy is in doldrums. The national currency is in a free fall. Galloping inflation is snuffing the life out of Nigerians. There is pervasive hardship, the type that has never been seen before in the history of the country.
Even the military, which we say have no business in governance, never got it so wrong. Successive military regimes managed our oil resources as dexterously as they could. They were able to keep the pump prices of petroleum products at affordable rates. They did not allow inflation to send Nigerians to their early graves. They stemmed the tide. The same is true of the civilian regimes that we have had since 1999. Each has been able to keep our economy running at acceptable speed. Now, there is confusion in the land. The country has no economic managers. Those who claim to be in charge of the economy are no more than greenhorns. They are insular and incompetent. This has thrown the country into spasmodic economic instability.
Perhaps the death pangs that Nigeria is facing at moment would not have taken place if the system had not messed up an important date like February 25, 2023. It was the day the spiral into self-immolation began for the country. On this day, self-negation was promoted over self-discovery. It was the day Nigeria lost the opportunity for rebirth. The result is the cyclical web of agony that we are caught in.
What the Tinubu order teaches is that Nigeria is a vast sea of nothingness. Whatever will constitute something will be the making of the man in the saddle. Tinubu may not have met a vacuous Nigeria. But he disemboweled the state handed over to him to get his own idea of what Nigeria should be. That idea, strange as it is, defines our new way of seeing. Just as the Machiavellian theory teaches, Nigeria of today is being ruled with fierceness. There is no room for populist actions. Those in the saddle believe, like Machiavelli, that there is no need to be nice to humans because they are ungrateful, fickle and false. Goodness can only be good when it serves the self-interest of those dispensing it. Nigerians, as presently governed, should not look up to anything good because none will come their way.