By Ikeddy ISIGUZO
BOLA Ahmed Tinubu worked so hard to be President of Nigeria that he needs a lot of time to recover from the dreary journey to his success. The other truth is that the most important thing after becoming President was annexing every power handle for his second term.
The road to a second term is proving more treacherous than Tinubu expected after farming out key appointments to those who are in his corner.
His dedication to his personal issues has led to our current standing as a country without direction. Tinubu’s selflessness is premium. His silence as Muhammadu Buhari strutted over Nigeria, promoting divisions across political, religious, and ethnic lines, was loud. Those decisions were implicated in many policies and programmes that alienated parts of Nigeria Buhari had chosen to bear the bulk of his religious and ethnic bigotry.
Tinubu campaigned to continue from where Buhari stopped. He has made no specific moves to tackle insecurity which surged under the Buhari administration because Buhari did not deter the terrorists.
Victims of attacks were advised to be good neighbours to their attackers and share land with the killers whose appetite for more blood and land appeared insatiable.
Bandits, kidnappers, terrorists have freely continued to attack whenever they want. The semblance of security for Nigerians is wearing thin. Illegal miners in the North West, religious fundamentalists in the North East, attackers in Plateau, Benue, and others whose attacks seem to borrow from a cocktail of motivations including land grabbing and more space for illegal mining, have drawn incoherent responses, whether on the battle fields or in effecting measures that can curb the growing savagery.
I wrote on 5 October 2025: “Our most current challenges draw massively from Tinubu’s compassion deficit – he does not care what happens to Nigeria.
“He has added the compassion deficits to better known defects of the man who in 2023 suffocated Nigerians with promises that he platformed not only hope, but a renewed version.
“His answers to keeping his promises are making new ones or tabling incoherent responses. His Independence Day Anniversary speech mirrored this absence of compassion, a loss of touch with the Nigerian reality and an exaggerated importance of a presidency that dedicates its attention to serving a few Nigerians and extrapolating them to represent Nigerians.
“Said Tinubu in his 1 October nationwide broadcast, “We chose the path of tomorrow over the comfort of today. Less than three years later, the seeds of those difficult but necessary decisions are bearing fruit”. “Which fruit? The fruits are reflected in statistics that have no bearing to how Nigerians are eking out a living”.
The momentary attention terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, and other crimes is getting will cease if Trump takes the heat off Tinubu whose concerns are not about people dying and the drain on the economy. Not even the shrinking of Nigeria’s territory worries Tinubu except if it can impact on his chances of winning a second term.
Why has he not asked for international collaboration to end the attacks in different parts of Nigeria? What alternative plan does Tinubu have? Is our President averse to ending terrorism in Nigeria?
Tinubu said on Thursday “We will spare no effort and leave no stone unturned in our mission to eliminate criminals from our society. We urge our allies to stand firmly with us as we amplify our fight against terrorism. We have made significant progress in the past two years, and we will decisively eliminate this threat.” Tinubu called for collaboration from international partners and allies to foster security and economic growth.
“Nigeria will be, and remains, a reliable partner and dependable ally to its friends and a steady voice for stability. We also welcome the collaboration and support of our allies, friends, and partners as we strengthen both security and economic growth,” Mr Tinubu said.
Tinubu acknowledged that Nigeria was indeed faced with terrorism—a challenge the West African country has had for almost two decades—stating that it will not back down in its fight against the menace.
Tinubu stated in a social media post on Friday that Nigeria would continue to assert itself on the global stage with “calm, clarity, and a strong sense of purpose”.
“We are indeed faced with terrorism — a challenge Nigeria has faced for almost two decades, and we will not back down. We will decisively defeat terrorism and claim victory in this battle,” he admitted the challenge.
“Security is non-negotiable, and we will never compromise on this principle. With unwavering courage and a steadfast commitment to the rule of law, we will prevail,” Tinubu said
Brash as Trump’s offer of assistance is, some call it a threat, our government’s best answers to Trump’s charges have been vacuous.
Prof Joash Ojo Amupitan, Tinubu’s recently appointed Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in a paper he wrote in 2022 stated, “The alleged involvement of the State and non-State actors in the commission of crimes under international law in Nigeria has complicated an already complex situation”.
“Consequently, the situation beckons the urgent need for a neutral and impartial third-party intervention, especially the UN and its key organs, the military and economic superpowers.”
According to the renowned academic, international law supersedes absolute state sovereignty in cases of genocide and crimes against humanity.
“In a globalised world, State sovereignty diminishes to accommodate the common interests of the global community concretised by a mixture of consent, consensus and compelling norms.”
The matter of international law versus state sovereignty would be understood as every country should behave well, for every country’s well-being.
How well has Nigeria handled the crisis in almost 20 years? Could things have been done better?
Definitely, things could have been better managed. The woolly debates government generated that more Muslims than Christians had lost their lives in the terrorist attacks fell flat. Was government saying it was not tough on the terrorists because Muslims were their targets? Would that also be telling Trump not to bother because Christians were safe, and whatever happened to Muslims was unimportant?
Tinubu should get to work quickly and be clearly involved in the planning of the war against terror, in Nigeria. There is no time for the circuitous debates that could delay action.
Finally…
NIGERIA has had no ambassadors in more than two years of Tinubu’s administration. The diplomatic assets Nigeria require to maintain relations with other nations have depreciated in those years. The absence of ambassadors has left our missions with diplomats who in are not of adequate status to attend most high-level engagements. The processes that lead to ambassadorial appointments may not be exhausted in eight months – the 2027 elections would be months away. The chances of appointing ambassadors in Tinubu’s first tenure are increasingly diminishing.
DEFECTION is the biggest political strategy of the All Progressives Congress, APC. The defectors are flying to safety from their current parties to APC which seems to be the only party that would be eligible to present candidates for the 2027 elections. They dread a worse situation – the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, coming after them for financial infractions. The ride to a one-party state is on a fast lane. But some men of courage should be able to provide the opposition without which democracy declines to a dictatorship.
IS there a prize for whoever kills the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP? The race to strike the killer blow on the party is stiff. More contenders are joining. Our democracy will further be minimised if PDP allows itself to finish itself at a time Nigerians were thinking there was a possibility that the party would be the major opposition in the 2027 election. The curated crisis in the party could not have been on for so long if there were no beneficiaries, within and outside PDP.
ISIGUZ0 is a major commentator on minor issues
