(As published in the Nigerian Tribune of 15/04/2025)
His election was about the most controversial in the history of Nigeria but since the highest court of the land confirmed it, everyone resigned to it, and accepted it.
The expectation was that there will be redemption, and that the President would leverage on his so-called experience to take Nigeria out of the woods.
He had chorused restructuring as leader of the opposition and he had campaigned deceptively for true federalism as his mantra. Alas, two years down the line, Nigeria is experiencing its worst economic crisis and the greatest threat to its security and survival.
The desperation for power was too apparent, especially when in 2023 Nigeria, a leader was canvassing a Muslim-Muslim ticket just to win votes and capture power, by any means possible.
And for the umpteenth time, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu jetted out to France, the new destination for the surrogate presidency.
Usually shrouded in mystery, the President has embarked upon these phantom trips well over ten times at the last count, and they have not fetched Nigeria any dividend.
At the time the President was visiting France, close to 70 persons were brutally murdered in Plateau State, many others were losing their lives in Benue State and majority of Nigerians were sleeping with both eyes opened, due largely to the worsening state of insecurity in the land.
The national grid collapsed again as the President was leaving Nigeria, warnings were issued that 30 States are prone to heavy flooding and there were groans across Nigeria as farmers had stopped going to their farms on account of the mass invasion of herders and terrorists.
These could not be the priority of the President, who has spent the better time of his tenure outside Nigeria. But something has to be done urgently, to stem the slide into anarchy, unbridled violence and bloodshed across the land.
What is the security situation presently? We have a police force lacking in legitimate leadership, the armed forces is so politicized that the leadership is loyal only to the party in power and a commander-in-chief that seems to have been totally overwhelmed with the crisis. We are in a failed state, pure and simple, held down by bandits, terrorists, jihadists and criminals, to the embarrassing extent that retired army generals had to rally round themselves to raise huge sums of money to rescue the former head of the National Youth Service Corps from the den of kidnappers, after two months.
The state has become helpless. Unconfirmed news filtered in through the social media that a pick-up van was stolen from the convoy of the National Security Adviser when he went to pray at the mosque. It is that bad.
The President has run Nigeria aground and he does not seem to care, so long as he gets re-elected for another four years, and by any means possible.
