The fact is, President Bola Tinubu is not exactly a miracle worker—but when it comes to political engineering, he comes remarkably close. An objective assess-ment of his antecedents reveals that he is one of the most astute and prolific political strategists of our time.
Based on records, and against all odds, he won the 2023 presidential election despite numerous obstacles stacked against him—not just from within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), but also from some of his political allies and even his political protégés, who, perhaps be-lieving they had come of age, took up the gauntlet against him in the race for the presidency two years ago.
Given the formidable forces arrayed against him during the APC primary elections, few politi-cal pundits gave him any real chance of winning. Apart from having to contend with the incum-bent vice president, the sitting Senate President, and a powerful Minister of Transportation—pre-sumably backed by then-outgoing President Mu-hammadu Buhari—there were other seemingly insurmountable administrative obstacles placed in his path to the Aso Rock Presidential Villa.
The primaries were conducted under this toxic atmosphere, with the aforementioned pow-erful candidates allegedly enjoying Buhari’s en-dorsement. Tinubu also had to battle candidates from his immediate political family, who went head-to-head with him following the spread of malicious rumors that the president was against his candidacy—a ploy that fractured his support base within his ethnic constituency.
At that point, Tinubu’s presidential ambition seemed to be heading for an early sunset. But through sheer tenacity and doggedness, he de-fied the odds. As such, what many expected to be a stillborn ambition—like an ectopic pregnan-cy—he ultimately prevailed. Hence, Tinubu, a veteran of countless political battles, emerged as the APC’s presidential flag bearer.
Like a gifted archer, Tinubu had pulled arrows from his quiver and struck his target with preci-sion, persuading a majority of his fellow contend-ers to step down for him. With that game-chang-ing political masterstroke, he once again proved himself to be a maverick, overwhelming and confounding the remaining contestants. The sec-ond-highest number of votes went to the former Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, Buhari’s campaign director, while the third-high-est went to then-Vice President and former Lagos State Commissioner for Justice under Tinubu’s governorship, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.
By exhibiting superior strategic planning—a skill set that has defined his political career from activism to his time as senator and governor— Tinubu rose to the top of his party’s ticket for the February 14, 2023, presidential election.
After he secured the APC ticket, another ma-jor obstacle emerged: the naira redesign policy, which posed a threat as severe as navigating the Bermuda Triangle. The withdrawal of old naira notes and their replacement with newly designed ones, right in the middle of the campaign season, could have derailed his candidacy. Without cash in the financial system, how could politicians mobilize supporters to the polls?
Once again, Tinubu navigated the crisis. The Supreme Court’s timely intervention, fol-lowing a suit filed by concerned APC governors against the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), sus-pended the policy. The court’s ruling provided much-needed relief to a suffering electorate and enabled political campaigns to continue.
On election day —February 14, 2023—despite low voter turnout caused by the toxic political climate and earlier outlined challenges, Tinubu, against all odds, emerged victorious after a brave and tenacious fight.
He triumphed over the former ruling party, PDP’s candidate, ex-Vice President Atiku Abu-bakar, and a surprise candidate, the Labor Party flag bearer, Peter Obi, who was in 2019 the vice presidential candidate to PDP’s Atiku Abubakar, the Waziri of Adamawa.
Despite his victory, his traducers remained unrelenting. After the elections, they challenged the authenticity of his academic credentials. Having exhausted legal options in Nigeria, his detractors turned to the United States, seeking validation from that country’s academic and legal systems. There, too, Tinubu’s academic record was scrutinized and ultimately validated through rigorous processes.
Given the comprehensive scrutiny—public, electoral, and legal—both in Nigeria and abroad, it is fair to say that President Tinubu’s mandate is arguably the most thoroughly tested and authen-ticated in Nigeria’s democratic history.
It is important to revisit Tinubu’s extreme-ly rough path to the presidency to underscore that he is a veteran of many political battles, un-afraid of challenges. Therefore, the new wave of insecurity currently causing tension—especially the rise in violent conflicts across North-Central Nigeria, notably in Plateau, Benue, and Nasara-wa states—will likely be brought under control, just as the president has already made significant strides in addressing Nigeria’s socio-economic challenges.
The success of President Tinubu’s bold and visionary economic interventions in the past 24 months is evident in the fact that the economic fundamentals that were previously in negative territory have shifted to the positive under his leadership. This turnaround is the result of his tenacity and boldness in confronting entrenched administrative dogmas that have long shackled the country’s progress.
It was no surprise, therefore, that during his recent solidarity visit to Benue State—after last Wednesday’s deadly attack in Yelewata, which claimed an estimated 200 lives—President Tinu-bu made a strong and unifying statement:
“We cannot do without one another. I want us to create a leadership committee now to meet in Abuja and fashion out a strategy for lasting peace. And I am ready to invest in that peace.”
Being a highly trained accountant and an alumnus of the global oil firm, Mobil, before venturing into politics, President Bola Tinubu has mastered the art of prioritization. Conse-quently, tackling the monster of insecurity was not at the top of his initial priority list. However, after taking the time to personally visit victims of the latest attacks, he now appears ready to take on the murderous gangs. During his visit, he openly queried the heads of the security agencies in his entourage:
“How come no one has been arrested for committing this heinous crime in Yelewata? In-spector General of Police, where are the arrests? The criminals must be arrested immediately,” President Tinubu demanded.
This recalls a similar moment during the military era when then Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida, during a Supreme Military Council meeting (the equivalent of today’s Na-tional Executive Council), publicly asked the Inspector General of Police at the time, Etim In-yang, the now-iconic rhetorical question: “My friend, where is Anini?”
Anini was the leader of a notorious armed robbery gang that terrorized Nigerians and evad-ed capture for months—just as today’s internal terrorists continue to torment Nigerians in the hinterlands. These insurgents kill defenceless ci-vilians, often burning them alive in their homes, and have done so with impunity and without fac-ing serious consequences.
But President Tinubu’s visit to the ground zero of internal terrorism in Makurdi, and his charge to the heads of the military, police, and the Department of State Services to apprehend the perpetrators and bring them to justice, signal a major turning point. The president appears to have run out of patience, and his strong directive should make it clear to the outlaws terrorizing our rural communities that the Nigerian gov-ernment will no longer tolerate their impunity.
Concerning putting the nation’s economy on even keel, from experience, we know that taming inflation—which is one of the key pathways to delivering the dividends of democracy—does not happen overnight. As history shows, while decline can occur swiftly, recovery often takes more time. Although the lived experiences of most Nigerians are yet to align with the signifi-cantly improved economic fundamentals, Pres-ident Tinubu has succeeded in putting Nigeria on a growth trajectory. This progress has been acknowledged by global rating agencies such as Fitch and Moody’s, as well as institutions like the IMF and World Bank. Even international media outlets like the Financial Times, which once painted a grim picture of Nigeria, are now reporting more optimistically.
Palpable hope—promised in President Tinu-bu’s Renewed Hope agenda—appears to be on the horizon.
Despite the evidential data, still convincing Nigerians that the economy is indeed improv-ing has been difficult. That is irrespective of the arduous but strategic reforms carried out over the past twenty-four months by President Tinu-bu and his team. It is rather discomforting that many citizens continue to wear long faces, as they are grappling with the high cost of living. They have yet to feel the economic relief being touted, even as the administration marked its second anniversary.
In my column last week, I broke down the rea-sons why the benefits of reform do not immedi-ately trickle down to the masses. My intention in that piece, titled ‘Democracy, GDP Growth, Pov-erty and Insecurity in Nigeria’, was to manage the expectations of anxious Nigerians who are still experiencing hardship resulting from the sweeping reforms. I emphasized that while things are indeed improving, the positive outcomes may not be felt immediately in their daily lives.
In essence, expecting an immediate and sig-nificant reduction in the cost of living would be premature. The economic difficulties currently faced by the masses are unintended consequenc-es of the administration’s tough but necessary de-cisions to unshackle the economy from outdated policies that had long stunted Nigeria’s growth.
Previously, economic managers opted for short-term relief that only postponed the inev-itable, as evidenced by the CBN’s unsustainable and unlawful printing of ₦23 trillion in “ways and means” to pay salaries and fund government operations by Tinubu’s era.
Such an ad hoc and knee-jerk approach to managing the economy has been jettisoned even though its discarding is the source of the harsh socio-economic environment in which Nigerians are currently caught up.
Even Tinubu’s harshest critics admit that, had he not introduced key reforms—such as the removal of the petrol subsidy and the unification of multiple naira-to-foreign currency exchange rates—Nigeria could have faced economic col-lapse. Continuing on the old path could have rendered the country insolvent and pushed us into a debt crisis like