Think like Tinubu for a change

Since Sunday, when the president finally addressed the country in response to the ongoing #EndBadGovernance protests, analysts and critics have not stopped rewriting his speech. They think he should have proposed more than the usual platitudes he blandly delivered, and I agree. He offered neither reprieve nor concessions, just vaunted some chest-thumping achievements that have had little bearing on the reality of those for whom the initiatives were allegedly designed.

For a man whose managerial prowess was sung to the high heavens, Bola Tinubu serially comes up short in anticipating and responding to national issues with the panache of someone who is interested in his job and invested in seeing tangible outcomes. His lack of charisma makes him come across as a man who will shrug off failures because he has invested no real stake in success anyway.

But beyond trying to resolve what is wrong with his administration, is it possible to get into the president’s mind and ask, “If I were Tinubu, what would I do differently?” Asking us to hypothesise from his angle is not a spurious exercise in fantasy that merely imagines how the world can be reset. It is to seriously ask, if you were Tinubu and you found yourself in power at such a difficult time in the country’s history, what would be the motivation to act any otherwise than what he is presently doing?

Some might want to argue that Tinubu will try hard because he will want to live up to expectations and not be labelled a “failure.” But that would be assuming he cares about your opinion of him. Why would a man who has been called all sorts of unprintable names bother if anyone labels him a “failure”? That will just be one more label, and he will simply absorb it into the list of other unpalatable names he has been called. And no, I would not think he loses any sleep over how his legacy will be shaped either. If you are a leader in a society that does not demand accountability, and people have a low bar for promotion to power, why struggle to build any long-lasting legacy?

Besides, Tinubu has always maintained a payroll of spinners. They will outdo themselves in the bid to write books that will say he succeeded. The whole #EndBadGovernance protests and his lacklustre response to it just become a chapter in the silly little books they will write about his time in power.

Even Muhammadu Buhari’s aide wrote a book that included 80 pages of his supposed achievements in office. Everyone agrees that Buhari was a disaster; who needs a book to convince them otherwise? Definitely not the victims of his failed administration nor even the politicians still hanging around Buhari hoping for endorsement (and who do not typically read anyway). Such writings are for Buhari to convince him he was what he was not. Tinubu’s legacy will be similarly written. History will grovel before him because he will pay the hagiographers handsomely.

Tinubu cannot also be pushed to pursue a transformation agenda any more keenly because of the threat of not winning a second term. The man has been a part of the machinations of political power long enough to understand that no Nigerian leader is elected solely because of performance, and none loses election simply because they fail to perform. There is no transformational ethos in this administration’s essence. The best it will achieve is to keep house through basic management of national affairs. Like Buhari who assumed that the sheer force of his personality would be enough to right everything wrong with this country only to discover that reality outweighs his ideological vacuity, this one too will not stretch itself. Those who think he will disturb himself because he could be ambushed during his pursuit of a second term are mistaken.

If a leader spent the weeks building up to the protests meeting this and that person to see if they could pull their weight to dissuade the protesters but never came up with either an active plan that can salvage the nation or even a concession to the protesters, then best believe that you have seen all there is to be seen about him. There is no other card up their sleeve. Let us not forget that he has been close enough to government to know all the problems of Nigeria and he won the election early enough for him to get started on them as soon as possible. Yet, he started poorly. On the first day, he announced the fuel subsidy removal policy, not because he had laid out a coherent framework to ensure the feasibility of the policy, but because some spirits possessed him.

Saturday will culminate the activities of the past 10 days, and we will need to figure out what comes next. I would have been optimistic about the potential of the protests to generate coalitions that would have been useful to push the government towards specific reforms, but the manner the hunger plaguing the people (and which drove them to the streets in the first place) has been ethnicised is despairing. In the South-East and the South-South, you have people who did not join the protests to avoid accusations of a sectional agenda (we have enough history on our side to know how that usually pans out).

On the other hand, northerners who do not typically protest hit the streets and beckon to anti-democratic agents for rescue. I expected Bayo Onanuga to bark at them like he did Obidients, but even a rabid dog knows its master. Meanwhile, the South-West is divided along multiple agenda that make whatever point they might want to register with the protests incoherent.

While there have been too many casualties and needless destruction, I still cannot in good conscience blame those who embarked on the protests. Leaders took too much for granted, pushing out one enervating policy after another without considering that people have limits. What else were they expected to do? To continue gorging on the fluff promises of “e go better” the administration was pushing out through its spin doctors?

By holding on to his ground despite the upsets, Tinubu has shown the shape of things to come. He will mostly not budge; he has little reason to do so. So, where do we go from here? For the protesters on the streets campaigning to #EndBadGovernance, what happens on August 11 when they wind up? People cannot protest perpetually; it will cease at some point. What practical steps of political and community organising should accompany the protests?

For us not to merely suffer, it is up to each one of us to make our plans for survival. Anyone who reads this column knows that I am not particularly a fan of turning issues best resolved through policies into a matter of individual responsibility, but that is what Nigeria almost always boils down to. We have been asked to figure out our own infrastructure of education, transport, health, public facilities, water, energy, and even security. Now we must plan how to survive this government.

There is enough about Nigeria, precedents to Nigerian politics, and even Tinubu’s character to determine that he does not have—and unlikely to stimulate—enough motivation to act differently. He will, of course, try to enact policies. If they work, they work. If they do not, they do not. He will not get off his high horse and sacrifice himself to make his policies effectual. He is an old man; he cannot come and die. Not even when he has achieved his ultimate ambition, and simply wants to enjoy the power for which he sold his soul. Why should he now start bothering himself on Nigerians’ behalf?