Tinubu, leader or impostor?
By Okey Ndibe
There’s a palpable sense of paradox about Nigeria’s current political condition. At the heart of the matter is a simple question: Is Bola Ahmed Tinubu pretty much set as Nigeria’s president and leader, or is he, in effect, an impostor?
It depends who you ask.
The man who goes by the strange acronym of BAT appears to have generated great enthusiasm in certain financial circuits abroad. The Reuters news agency recently carried a celebratory analysis of Tinubu’s agenda.
The title of the essay told more than half of the story: “Baba Go-Fast? Nigeria’s Tinubu stuns wary investors with quick reforms”.
The first paragraph captured the spirit of the laudatory piece: “Nigeria’s new president, in office for less than a month, is pushing to put Africa’s largest economy on a reform track that investors have eyed for decades, fuelling excitement that money could flow to a nation that many had deemed uninvestible.”
The news agency’s analysis praised the promptitude with which Tinubu removed fuel subsidies.
It also gave the thumbs up to his suspension of Godwin Emefiele as Governor of the Central Bank and removal of foreign exchange restrictions.
Reuters is far from the major western media organization to be becharmed by Tinubu’s policies. In fact, the financial magazine, Bloomberg, had first dips serenading Tinubu. In a breezy essay, the magazine’s Michael Cohen wrote: “President Bola Tinubu has got off to a flying start in rebooting Nigeria.”
He continued: “Within two weeks of being sworn in, he’s abolished costly fuel subsidies, and signaled that he will overhaul a dysfunctional currency system, allow foreign investors to repatriate their profits unhindered and make electricity more available and affordable.”
Cohen also cited Tinubu’s suspension of the CBN head, predicting that Emefiele’s departure “could usher in more orthodox approach toward monetary policy.”
Under its embattled governor, the CBN “loaned billions of dollars to the government, helping push public debt to a record $164 billion, and oversaw a complex system of multiple exchange rates that drove businesses and citizens alike to the black market.”
How to explain the effusive commendation for Tinubu? President Muhammadu Buhari has much to do with it.
Buhari, whose disastrous eight-year reign ended on May 29, left a wretched record that would take nothing less than magical powers for a successor – any successor – to do worse. In office, Buhari came across as a know-nothing loath to lift a finger to solve any problem.
Faced with myriad crises – from fuel scarcity to the menace of violent herdsmen – his inclination was to do nothing. And when it pleased him to act at all, he did so with all deliberate slowness. On the whole, he was more likely to exacerbate a problem than to solve it.
That’s why Nigerians will spend years reckoning up the scale of Buhari’s destructive policies, and decades recovering from the impact of his maladministration.
It should be remarked that the foreign journalists singing alleluias to Tinubu are concerned, above all, with how his policies align with Western economic interests. To what extent do their criteria serve Nigerians?
One must acknowledge that Tinubu, so far, has impressed some Nigerians. In campaigning for the presidency, he must have caused alarm in many quarters when he pledged he would sustain Buhari’s policies.
His moves suggest awareness that such a political venture is unsustainable. Nigeria’s stock market seems exhilarated that he’s moving away from, not toward, Buharinomics.
Even so, Tinubu’s best efforts to chart his own course and to appear in charge have done little to erase the impression that he’s in possession of a stolen mandate. Anybody paying dispassionate attention to the proceedings of the presidential election tribunal knows that Tinubu’s claim to legitimacy daily sustains devastating blows.
It may well be the case – given Nigeria’s antecedents in presidential election disputes – that the courts would disregard all the evidence and proclaim that the current occupant of Aso Rock was duly elected. But such fiat, should it come to pass, would hardly settle the question.
The image of the Nigerian judiciary is far from enviable. Unless INEC and Tinubu’s camp rise to the occasion, furnishing the court and public with compelling countervailing evidence, a verdict upholding Tinubu’s election is bound to do further grave harm to the standing of the judiciary. And it won’t spare Tinubu the reputation of being an interloper.
