Tinubu in the eye of the storm

Tinubu in the Eye of the Storm: Can a Troubled Presidency Still Reshape Nigeria?

From Aburi to 2027: The Unfinished Quest for a Restructured Nigeria

At certain hours of the morning, when Lagos has not yet found its voice and the wind from the Atlantic drifts in like a tired hymn, one could almost believe that this country is gentler than it truly is. The sea moves in slow, deliberate breaths, the gulls circle like meditative scribes, and for a fleeting moment Nigeria appears calm — a quiet illusion that dissolves the moment the city awakens.

In those hours, one also remembers that leadership in this land has never been a simple vocation. And yet, seldom in our democratic journey has a president found himself as relentlessly contested, as tenaciously questioned, and as emotionally charged in the public consciousness as Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The storm around him is not merely political; it is psychological, historical, even spiritual in its dimensions.

Since 1999, we have had leaders who faltered, leaders who disappointed, leaders who promised and failed to deliver. But none have walked into Aso Rock carrying the burden of suspicion and the weight of fractured goodwill quite like Tinubu did. It is one of the enduring paradoxes of our political life that a man so towering in influence arrived at the presidency to find himself surprisingly lonely.

The criticisms began long before the oath was taken. His campaign was a battlefield of excavated archives, resuscitated allegations, and political knives brandished from familiar hands. Even within his party, the shadows were long and the loyalties tentative. That he won — barely, but definitively — remains a testament to the unpredictable alchemy of Nigerian politics.

But victory, as he soon learned, is not the same as acceptance.

A Beginning Rooted in Upheaval

Few inaugurations have altered the mood of a nation as instantly as Tinubu’s. His declaration — “subsidy is gone” — was brief, almost understated, yet it collided with the national psyche like a thunderclap. The subsidy was an unwieldy beast, yes, but it was also a psychological cushion, a flawed but familiar shelter. Its removal, coupled with the floating of the naira, detonated with the precision of a controlled explosion whose aftershocks the people, not the planners, absorbed.

By nightfall that day, the price of living had leapt beyond the reach of ordinary Nigerians. Transport costs soared, market prices spiraled, and entire homes slipped into a kind of silent despair. The cry of hunger travelled across the land with the force of a collective lamentation.

Yet within the chaos lay an uncomfortable truth: the subsidy regime was unsustainable, and deep down we all knew it. Previous administrations circled around it like dancers afraid to lead. Tinubu cut through it with a single stroke. One may contest the timing, the abruptness, the absence of cushioning measures — but not the courage.

What followed, however, betrayed a disconnect between reformist ambition and political sensitivity. A new presidential jet. A lavish refurbishment of the vice president’s quarters. The largest cabinet since 1999. These decisions, though justifiable on paper, arrived at the wrong time, in the wrong season, and in the wrong atmosphere. They struck the public like salt on fresh wounds.

A Country at War With Shadows

Beyond the economy lies the deeper, more menacing crisis: insecurity. The northern forests echo with the footsteps of bandits; farmlands lie abandoned; children are abducted from classrooms as though plucked from the pages of a dark fable. In some towns, non-state actors have become the de facto authorities, levying taxes, enforcing decrees, standing armed at peace meetings with a boldness that insults the very idea of government.

We are, in many ways, a nation navigating a quiet war — not declared, not formally recognized, but intimately felt in the breath of parents who fear the school run, and in the trembling of farmers who cannot till the earth that feeds them.

Tinubu inherited a broken security architecture, but inheritance does not diminish responsibility. Nigerians wait for the moment when this government’s response transcends rhetoric and becomes a living, breathing transformation.

2027: The Quiet Tragedy of Limited Choices

The question on many lips is whether Tinubu can secure a second term. And here, another Nigerian paradox unfolds: the field of contenders is crowded, yet the field of credible alternatives remains distressingly sparse.

Some of those eyeing Aso Rock left behind states bleeding from violence. Some presided over religious divisions that deepened like cracks in old clay. Some could not point to one enduring legacy of governance. Yet they posture as redeemers.

Thus the nation edges toward a political dilemma that feels simultaneously comic and tragic: a Hobson’s choice, where one is free to choose only what is available, not what is desired. Tinubu may not be embraced in the streets, but the opposition has not yet fashioned a convincing antidote to him.

Sometimes a leader survives not because he is beloved, but because the alternatives carry too many shadows of their own.

What Future Can Be Built?

Lost beneath the daily storms is a fundamental truth: Nigeria’s ailments will persist no matter who occupies the presidency unless the very foundation of the union is redesigned. Our constitution, a patchwork of compromises and silences, is a structure built on damp soil. We amend it endlessly, as though adding new paint to a house slowly sinking into the earth.

But we cannot amend our way out of a structural defect. We must rebuild.

Tinubu has spoken, over decades, of restructuring — of returning power to regions, of allowing states to grow according to their strengths, of creating a political architecture that reflects the nation’s diversity rather than suppressing it. If he summons the will to act on these convictions, he could reshape this country in ways far more enduring than any economic policy.

A sovereign national conference.
A four-tier federation.
Regional policing.
A decentralized system that acknowledges the complexity of our realities.

These are not lofty ideals; they are necessary lifelines.

Nigeria stands at a threshold where it must choose rebirth or decay. And if Tinubu, despite the storms swirling around him, chooses the path of renewal, he could yet become the president who gave this country a fighting chance at peace, coherence and dignity.

Legacies are not written by applause; they are written by outcomes.

At the Centre of the Storm

Tinubu is a man standing in the heart of a tempest he partly inherited, partly triggered, and must ultimately calm. His presidency is a long, winding corridor filled with both peril and possibility. He can emerge diminished by crisis or elevated by courage.

Nigeria has a history of surviving without transforming. But survival is not the same as direction.

If this president can muster the clarity and bravery required to restructure a fractured nation, his name may yet be etched in gold — not because he was perfect, not because he was adored, but because he dared to push the country toward a future it has long postponed.

Until then, the waves continue to crash along Bar Beach, and the wind carries its ancient music across the city. Nigeria waits, breathing, believing, doubting, and hoping — all at the same time.

I come in peace.

🪶
J.J. Oluti
Creative Voice of Africa