By all measurable standards, be it economic, security, governance, or moral leadership, President Tinubu’s administration has proven to be the most disconnected and disoriented in Nigeria’s democratic history. Since assuming office in May 2023, his government has presided over escalating insecurity, economic collapse, and ethno-political favoritism. This reveals not a government of reform and progress, as the president and his coterie of assistants have woefully been trying to portray, but one of elite insulation, strategic deflection, and sustained political opportunism.
With the 2027 general elections in sight, it is no longer premature to assert that the president and the APC have already lost the Nigerian people. Whether they acknowledge this fact or continue in their illusionary bravado, the writing is on the wall. No amount of political scheming, institutional capture, or electoral manipulation will restore the public goodwill they have squandered. It is time they began preparing to hand over power in 2027, for no democracy can endure indefinitely under the weight of such deliberate misgovernance.
Under Tinubu’s watch, insecurity has worsened across all six geopolitical zones. From the continued rampage of bandits in the Northwest and Northcentral, and Boko Haram in the Northeast to the IPOB-related unrest in the Southeast, and from the blood-soaked highways of the Middle Belt to kidnapping epidemics allover the country, Nigerians are living under a quiet siege daily. In fact, nowhere is safe, neither the farms, the roads, nor the cities.
Instead of confronting this reality with resolve, Malam Tinubu has adopted an eerily cavalier attitude. This is evidenced by his habitual silence or superficial gestures. The most telling illustration were his recent trips to Katsina and Kaduna. At a time when that region has been ravaged by terrorist attacks and mass abductions, he chose to dance with a singer. The moment was grotesque, tone-deaf, and emblematic of a leadership more concerned with optics than outcomes.
As ordinary Nigerians cry out for protection, Tinubu’s administration responds with mockery. Security briefings are held behind closed doors, condolences are offered without action, and empty platitudes are recycled. It is no wonder that the people’s patience has worn thin.
Perhaps the most painful betrayal of this administration lies in its reckless handling of the economy. Upon taking office, Tinubu embarked on a dramatic and unplanned fuel subsidy removal that immediately plunged millions into poverty. What followed was a haphazard unification of the foreign exchange market. Rather than stabilizing the naira, it caused a freefall, sending inflation to decades-high levels and making basic goods unaffordable.
It is not just that Nigerians are poorer. It is that they are being deliberately pauperized. The policies rolled out since 2023 are not only economically disastrous but also strategically indifferent to the survival of the average citizen. With inflation soaring past 30 percent and food inflation over 40 percent, Nigeria’s streets today are lined not with protestors, because even protest has become too costly, but with quiet despair.
The government’s late and reluctant response to this man-made crisis only reinforces one point. President Tinubu and his mis-economic team were never interested in reform. Their focus has been on optics and political theater. The administration turned a deaf ear to every warning and resisted any social cushion until the opposition coalition gained traction, which forced it into reactive rather than proactive action.
No serious analyst can ignore the ethnic coloration that Tinubu’s appointments and policies have taken. In a multi-ethnic, multi-religious nation like Nigeria, governance must be inclusive not only in language but in substance. Yet, Tinubu has surrounded himself with a clique that reflects deep regional bias and a disturbing overconcentration of power in the hands of political cronies, particularly from the Southwest.
The appointment of family members, close allies, and business partners into key national institutions, without transparency or meritocracy, has deepened Nigeria’s crisis of trust. Even the most symbolic of institutions, such as the INEC and the judiciary, have been dragged into suspicion under his regime.
His rumored attempt to replace Vice President Kashim Shettima ahead of 2027 only adds to the optics of intrigue and instability. That move, whether driven by ethnic calculations, internal APC frictions, or presidential insecurity, signals a desperate administration trying to reset a sinking narrative. But it is too late. The baggage is already too heavy.
It reflects the Hausa adage, “Tusa ta karewa badari” (the game is up). Tinubu’s political machinery may still spin, but the soul of the nation has long disconnected from it.
Ironically, the biggest campaign boost for the emerging opposition coalition has been the Tinubu administration itself. It has eased the job of opposition strategists. It has united the masses across regions, classes, and ethnic groups under one banner: disillusionment.
This is why voices like Solomon Dalung, a former APC insider, are now boldly declaring that even if Tinubu were to appoint his son as INEC Chairman, his wife as Chief Justice, and all 36 governors defected to APC, the people would still reject him in 2027. And Dalung is right. Nigerians have endured enough. The hunger, joblessness, and fear they feel are not partisan. They are universal. When the government’s only reforms come in response to political threats and not the cries of the people, what moral right does it have to ask for another term?
All the mass defections to the APC and the orchestrated promises by some governors to endorse President Tinubu for 2027 will eventually backfire. These political stunts will not strengthen the APC; they will cause it to implode and explode from within. When the time comes, no governor seeking reelection will dare to align his campaign with Tinubu’s because doing so would guarantee political suicide. The people have made their anger clear. The more the APC tries to appear united behind a failed presidency, the more fragmented and exposed it becomes. Tinubu has become a liability, not an asset.
The President appears to have mistaken state power for eternal mandate. But Nigerian democracy, battered as it may be, is not without a pulse. The 2023 elections may have come with controversy. However, 2027 is shaping up to be a reckoning.
No voter in their right mind will vote for a government that inflicted inflation, ignored insecurity, and responded to hunger with elitist indifference. The price of rice is no longer an economic indicator. It has become a political referendum.
The president has spent more time curating palace alliances and touring Western capitals than sitting with the Nigerian people. He has appointed sycophants and propagandists, not technocrats. He has danced while communities were burned, and he has weaponized poverty to keep citizens too weak to resist. Who exactly does Tinubu think he is fooling?
It is time for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to begin writing his exit speech, not out of shame but out of respect for the nation. Nigeria does not belong to any man, party, or clique. It belongs to over 200 million citizens who deserve better than manipulated elections and elite musical chairs.
If the president insists on pursuing re-election, he will be contesting not against political opponents but against the collective memory of a betrayed people. That is a war no politician has ever won. As 2027 approaches, one truth stands firm. This presidency is already lost. Not by ballot, but by conscience. And when conscience votes, no rigging can stop what is coming.
