President Tinubu: The leader Nigeria may appreciate better after his tenure | By Bolaji Tunji

There is something peculiar about transformational leadership: its true value is often better appreciated in retrospect.
Long after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would have left office, Nigerians might look back at that period and come to a conclusion that is difficult for some to contemplate today — that he was one of the consequential leaders of his generation, perhaps deserving comparison, in courage and lasting impact, with the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the sage whose clear vision still resonates till date, decades after he left the scene.

Awolowo and Tinubu belong, of course, to different generations and operated under vastly different circumstances. Awolowo’s enduring reputation rests on transformative policies, particularly in education, health, infrastructure and social development in the old Western Region. Tinubu presides over a far larger and more complicated entity: a federation of more than 200 million people confronting deep fiscal, economic, security and infrastructural challenges.

The comparison, therefore, is not that they pursued identical policies. It is about a particular philosophy of leadership — the willingness to take decisions whose benefits may outlive the political discomfort accompanying them.

Unfortunately, much of Nigeria’s political discourse increasingly revolves around personalities rather than policies. The opposition frequently returns to controversies around Tinubu’s past, including allegations concerning forfeiture of money to the United States on what most described as drug-related charges or questions over forged National Youth Service certificate, while considerably less energy is devoted to presenting convincing alternatives to the fundamental economic and structural choices confronting the country.

Democracy certainly requires scrutiny of a President’s character and record. No President should be immune from criticism. But ultimately, the more important questions are: What policies are being implemented? Are institutions becoming stronger? Is infrastructure being built? Is government creating opportunities that can survive the administration?

The renewed debate over petrol subsidy illustrates this problem.
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar recently restated that he would restore petrol subsidy if elected President in 2027. That declaration should cause Nigerians to interrogate our collective memory. Have we forgotten so quickly?
The controversy surrounding petrol subsidy did not begin with Tinubu. As far back as 2012, a House of Representatives investigation exposed serious irregularities in the subsidy system. Contemporary reports documented discrepancies between quantities supposedly imported and actual consumption, while the House probe identified massive overpayments and recommended investigations and prosecutions.

For years, therefore, Nigerians debated how a programme ostensibly designed to protect ordinary citizens had become financially burdensome and vulnerable to abuse.

This does not mean that subsidy removal has been painless. Far from it. The immediate consequences have been severe for millions of families through higher transportation and living costs. Even President Tinubu has acknowledged the enormous pressure the reforms placed on households and businesses.

But the appropriate political debate should be about how to protect vulnerable Nigerians from those consequences without rebuilding the very system whose inefficiencies and abuses the country spent years condemning.
Leadership cannot always be measured by the popularity of today’s decision. Sometimes its proper measurement is what that decision makes possible tomorrow.

Already, some initiatives of the Tinubu administration have the potential to survive his presidency. The Nigerian Education Loan Fund has expanded access to tertiary-education financing on a scale Nigeria had not previously institutionalised. More than 1.5 million students have benefited, with over ₦282 billion disbursed.

There are also major infrastructure projects, including the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Sokoto-Badagry Super Highway, alongside the rehabilitation and construction of thousands of kilometres of federal roads. The administration’s tax reforms, consumer-credit programme, electricity-sector reforms, renewed emphasis on local-government autonomy and significantly increased fiscal resources available to states and councils could similarly have consequences extending beyond one presidency. The Federal Ministry of Finance estimates that states received about ₦9.17 trillion and local governments about ₦6.66 trillion in additional allocations between June 2023 and December 2025 compared with the pre-subsidy-removal monthly allocation.
These policies should be debated vigorously. Their shortcomings should be exposed and their implementation scrutinised. That is democracy. But opposition should also be about alternatives.

If subsidy removal is wrong, what sustainable system should replace it? If the tax reforms are inadequate, what is the alternative? If the government’s infrastructure priorities are misplaced, where should the money go instead? Nigerians deserve that level of political conversation rather than an endless recycling of controversies that do little to determine whether food becomes cheaper, roads become better, electricity improves or young Nigerians gain greater opportunities.

History has an interesting way of separating temporary political noise from enduring achievement.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo is remembered today principally for what he built and the lives his policies transformed, not for every controversy that surrounded the politics of his time.

The ultimate verdict on Bola Ahmed Tinubu will similarly not be delivered by today’s supporters or opponents. It will be delivered by Nigerians years after he has left office, when the passions of contemporary politics have subsided and the country can measure what endured.
If the reforms being undertaken today mature into stronger public finances, better infrastructure, wider access to education, greater energy security, stronger local governments and a more productive economy, history may judge President Tinubu far more generously than contemporary politics presently allows.
And perhaps, long after his tenure has ended, Nigerians will realise that beneath the controversies and the pains of reform was a leader prepared to take difficult decisions — one whose significance, like that of Awolowo before him, became clearer with the passage of time.
Tunji, a former newspaper Editor and Editor-in-Chief wrote from Ibadan, Oyo State