Who is Tinubu’s faceless ‘boss’? By Ochereome Nnanna
Under the 1999 Constitution, the President of Nigeria is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. As the Chief Executive of the Federation, the Nigerian President is also often regarded as potentially one of the most powerful persons in the world. He can make or break anyone.
Yet, we notice that not all Nigerian presidents are able to display the “omnipotence” of that office, especially in security matters. Northerners and Southerners don’t fit into that office the same way. The North enjoys full power. The South always looks somewhat shackled or circumscribed. Niger Delta militants embattled the Olusegun Obasanjo regime throughout his two terms, despite his combatant military background and tough personal character. But once Umaru Yar’Adua, a civilian with obviously compromised health, offered the same amnesty that the militants had severally rejected, they came tumbling over themselves to accept. That was because they sensed Umaru was now ready for an all-out war if his offer was rejected.
Yes, Obasanjo bravely reset the military which the North had historically used to oust any elected government that no longer served its strategic interests. He uprooted its coup-making infrastructure. Yet, he still pandered to the same faceless forces politically. It was not until his second term that he really went to town, even to the point of nearly getting himself a third term.
Compare how Presidents Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari handled presidential powers. Jonathan quivered in his boots: “Boko Haram is in my cabinet”; “I am not an emperor, pharaoh or general.” He even built almajiri schools that Northerners did not ask for and conceded defeat before the final result announcement. Buhari announced his odious Fulanisation and Islamisation agenda before he was elected (“I will take sharia law to all parts of Nigeria”). He unilaterally filched N100bn from our federal till and gifted Fulani herdsmen.
He also initiated a $1.2bn Kano-to-Maradi (Niger Republic) railway, without National Assembly appropriation. He got away with these. Buhari tried to forcefully settle his violent nomadic Fulani kinsmen from all over Africa in indigenous communities all over Nigeria but was stiffly resisted. The only man who challenged him was Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and his Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Others merely cowered until Buhari’s tenure expired. The same “caged eagle” Southern disease is evident with Tinubu. On the administrative and political ends, you see a powerful president who was able to unilaterally award a N14trn road contract to his friend and business partner, Gilbert Chagoury. He successfully mopped up 32 of 36 state governors into his ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
On the other side, you see a helpless president who is unable to protect the country from armed Fulani invaders, jihadists and bandits despite overloading our military and security high commands and sundry juicy offices with his ethnic kinsmen and women. The terrorists have become so bold as to invade his native geopolitical zone to massacre people, abduct schoolchildren and teachers, behead a teacher on live video and hold babies and children hostage in the forests in this cold, rainy weather. Government reacted tepidly.
Tinubu started putting questions in our minds as to his independence even before assuming the presidential office. Hajiya Najatu Mohammed told us that Tinubu refused to unfold his agenda for the North because “they might even kill me.” They? Who? After being pronounced winner in March 2023, he voluntarily pledged to continue with Buhari’s agenda. Though he discarded most of the late Dan Daura’s political orphans (some are in detention or on trial), Tinubu has meticulously kept faith with Buhari’s pet project: Fulanisation and Islamisation.
After Miyetti Allah Kyautal Hore leader Bello Bodejo made some threatening comments, he was arrested and charged with banditry and illegal possession of arms. A court ordered his immediate release. The federal government never appealed the case. Compare this with the regime’s continued treatment of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu as a “terrorist” for challenging the Islamisation and Fulanisation agenda and asking for a referendum to enable Biafra to exit Nigeria rather than live under a Fulani Islamic caliphate. Today, Bodejo is an APC senatorial aspirant. Tinubu even created a Livestock Ministry for Fulani and appointed himself and former INEC chair Prof. Attahiru Jega as “co-chairs” of the Presidential Livestock Reform Council (PLRC).
Eight months later, Tinubu’s government and the Defence Headquarters are still “investigating” the November 2025 Kebbi State school abduction involving the students of Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga. The state governor, Nasir Idris, had disclosed that a yet-to-be-named official ordered the troops guarding the vicinity of the school to leave the area before the “bandits” swooped to abduct 25 schoolgirls, who were later suspiciously returned unharmed. “Who gave the order?” is a question this government has failed to answer. Tinubu has also resisted pressures to fire and investigate key officials of his presidency widely accused of complicity in the rapid spread of jihadism, particularly into the South West and Middle Belt.
The signal we get is that Tinubu is exercising “ball control” in tackling extremism because he does not want to jeopardise his second-term ambition. The speculation is that the “Jagaban” in Tinubu will come out in full force when he secures his second term. That sounds like a very expensive gamble with the lives of Nigerians. Tomorrow is too far. And what is the assurance that Tinubu must return? That was the same thing they said for Jonathan. He never did. Must Southern presidents always wait for their second term to use their full presidential powers? Who is that faceless power that intimidates Southern presidents not to act as true Commanders-in-Chief? This is why some of us have lost faith in Nigeria.
If a president has to bow to unknown powers outside our Constitution, that is not my country!
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