Ahmed Bola Tinubu marked the second anniversary of his presidency Thursday May 29. A day earlier, the cardinal John Onaiyekan, a former Catholic archbishop of Abuja, gave the president a goodwill message. It actually was an unmistakable thumb’s down. The following day Tinubu made a national TV anniversary broadcast, which looked like a reply to the Onaiyekan lambast. I’ve titled this piece “A Telephone Conversation”, which is a parody of Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka’s 1934 poem “Telephone Conversation”, a satire on racism that was prevalent at the time. Two entirely different threads of thought but I’ve imagined Onaiyekan and Tinubu in a conversation over the polemics of governance.
In a newspaper interview Onaiyekan granted May 28, he advised President Tinubu to change course if he wanted to be returned to power in the 2027 election. The Cardinal’s reason was that Tinubu’s policies were hurting Nigerians awfully badly. “My advice for Mr. President is to find ways and means of finding out what Nigeria is actually going through,” he said. “Not those around him who are always praising him to the skies. They should find out. It is the job of every leader. Now, I’m not telling him to go and live in Mpape for two days, which would not be a bad idea. But he should be able to know how the people in Mpape are surviving. He should also know how families are managing with N30,000 salary a day.
“Since it is the people that he should serve, he should do more to raise the level of well-being of Nigerians. I don’t think we are unfair to the government if we say that in the last two years, our level of well-being has crashed considerably. The government may say it’s not their fault. They may say they have done their best. But the government is there to make sure that, at least, the level of well-being of Nigerians is maintained and, if possible, improved. And I think [now] is a good time. Two years is halfway through for him to, at least, try and do that. If he changes gear in that regard and takes policies that really target the poor people of Nigeria, they will remember him forever. But if he continues like this for the rest of his term, if we have a free and fair election, he will not win. Because how can the country bring him back if we are not feeling good? The elections were over two years ago. He doesn’t have to worry again whether he won the election or not. The Supreme Court said he won, so we have agreed now. We have agreed that he won. This is what the Supreme Court said. Now he should just govern, make life as liveable as possible for Nigerians, deal with security everywhere, improve the economic level of our people, and fight corruption.”
As if responding to Onaiyekan’s tirade, President Tinubu said he knew where he found Nigeria when he assumed power – in overcast weather. His task, as he saw it then, was to make it more predictable, so that if you planned to leave your home for one reason or another you didn’t have to scratch your head whether you would be drenched in an unexpected rain. He knew to achieve that weather predicability and ease, he had to act tough and that is exactly what he has been doing. Tinubu agreed his toughness had caused the greater majority of Nigerians unsurmountable pain and nail-biting but there was no other way out. He saluted their resilience and understanding but said the belt-tightening must go on for another two years, possibly. He said, “we have remained honest by acknowledging some of the difficulties experienced by our compatriots and families. We do not take your patience for granted. I must restate that the only alternative to the reforms our administration initiated was a fiscal crisis that would have bred runaway inflation, external debt default, crippling fuel shortages, a plunging Naira, and an economy in a free-fall.”
The president said he accepted the dark clouds were far from over, but he wouldn’t beat a retreat now because already he saw better times not too far ahead. “Despite the bump in the cost of living, we have made undeniable progress,” he said. “Inflation has begun to ease, with rice prices and other staples declining. The oil and gas sector is recovering; rig counts are up by over 400% in 2025 compared to 2021, and over $8 billion in new investments have been committed. We have stabilised our economy and are now better positioned for growth and prepared to withstand global shocks. In 2025, we remain on track with our fiscal targets. Gross proceeds per barrel from crude oil are broadly aligned with our forecasts as we intensify our efforts to ramp up production. Our fiscal deficit has narrowed sharply from 5.4% of GDP in 2023 to 3.0% in 2024. We achieved this through improved revenue generation and greater transparency in government finances. In the first quarter of this year, we recorded over N6 trillion in revenue.”
In this imaginary “telephone conversation” between Onaiyekan and Mr. President, we see clearly a disturbing disconnect, the very kind the cleric said exists between Tinubu and ordinary Nigerians, who are being bashed by the president’s faceless policies. Why not. One is a man with a living faith, who believes that Nigerians deserve better than what their leaders are delivering. He has empathy and the common touch and the down-to-earthness of a “man of the people.” The other is a hard-boiled politician, who speaks in the idiom of rulership, not followership. His reasoning is abstract, sometimes metaphysical, surreal even. The books his advisers present to him say inflation is falling and he accepts it because the figures, not Wuse market, indicate so. Not the man who has had to change from buying a bag of rice every three months to “managing” two mudu to eat only on Sundays. A Rehoboamian Tinubu wouldn’t understand when told that the pills he is serving Nigerians are not curing the disease but rather killing the patient that he insists should patiently continue to take them. Somebody said Tinubu would lose the next election. There may be none.
