Tinubu slaying the dragon,- By Kehinde Yusuf

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*Photo: Professor Kehinde Yusuf *


On the Quora site on the internet, the question was asked: “What does the expression ‘slaying dragons’ mean?” A 12 July, 2024 answer is: “‘Slaying dragons’ is an idiomatic expression that refers to overcoming difficult or daunting challenges. The metaphor of ‘slaying a dragon’ evokes the heroic act of defeating a powerful, formidable foe – usually a mythical dragon creature. This imagery suggests that the challenge being faced is substantial, requiring bravery, skill, and determination to overcome.” To accomplish such formidable and dangerous tasks, Ayinla Omowura, the late famous Yoruba Àpàlà music exponent, counsels that, metaphorically-speaking, the hunter who would set out to kill an elephant should be well-prepared; and must not forget to take along with them charms that could miraculously lift them out of imminent danger (“Ode tí ó p’erin kó múra o, kó má se gbàgbé egbé sílé.”)

The Nigerian situation is a dragon of sort, and in trying to slay it, as in attempting to kill an elephant, the hunter must be well-equipped and nimble enough to survive the fury of the threatened dragon and the provoked elephant. The heroic hunter whose fate it is to slay the dragon or kill the elephant is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. This hunter’s historic challenge is to confront the nation’s socio-political and economic dragon along with its Frankenstein offspring.

Well-respected economists have predicted hard times for the country. A former Governor of the Central Bank, the opposition All Progressives Grand Alliance’s Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State, declared, on Channels Television, as follows on 1 September, 2023: “This [Tinubu] government inherited, from a macroeconomic standpoint … an economy … like a dead horse but standing. … Muddling through this over the coming months would be bumpy; no question about it. But I am glad that at least, the first salvos have been shot by the president, by his courageous step to remove the obnoxious scam that has festered over the years called petrol subsidy and then dealing with the exchange rate. … I am willing to give the government a benefit of the doubt. They’ve just set up a team. I believe that the economic team would get cracking.”

Sometimes, in politics, it’s great, it’s re-energising, to step back, to calm down, and gauge how your opponents rate you. In one of such ratings, as President Tinubu continues his efforts to slay the dragon tormenting Nigeria and as he continues to record chequered outcomes, a former Governor of Jigawa State Alhaji Sule Lamido, who is also a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and a key figure in the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), was generous in his assessment. In a 31 August, 2024 Nigerian Tribune interview by Taiwo Amodu titled “Tinubu is an emperor, will be difficult to dislodge in 2027 – Sule Lamido,” Alhaji Lamido said in relation to the possibility of the PDP winning the presidential elections in 2027: “It is a huge challenge. … We are working hard, but it is a huge task. It is going to be difficult with Tinubu, with his hold on the country, on the economy, and his audacity … It is something else.”

Alhaji Lamido continued: “Tinubu is very daring; he is his own creation, he is a self-made man, right from Chicago, what he went through on the streets. Look at how he was able to fight the Alliance for Democracy and Afenifere and then Obasanjo. At the APC [All Progressives Congress] convention, Buhari was against him but he defeated Buhari. What are you talking about? Don’t underestimate a man like that. Look at how he made it in life. He confronted all obstacles to get to where he is today, at the apex. There is no Nigerian like Tinubu who has been there on his own. Every established political arrangement, every institution, he demolished them. Now that he is in charge, he is not going to be easy to deal with. With Tinubu, Nigeria is a fiefdom, Tinubu is the emperor.”

Another opposition politician, the Vice Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the 2023 election, Ahmed Buhari, also had his views about what political benefits Tinubu could gain from the 11 July, 2024 Supreme Court judgement granting financial and other forms of autonomy to local governments. According to a report in the 24 July, 2024 issue of Premium Times, in a story by Saviour Imukudo titled “Local govt autonomy is Tinubu’s political move for 2027 election – Buhari,” the ADC chieftain said: “It is a political move. So, if I want to come back to office in 2027, I might not necessarily win the loyalty of the governors because most of them might also want to contest against me.”

ADC’s Buhari continued: “But if I can win the loyalty of the people at the grassroots where the real votes are, they know that the money comes directly from me to them. They have access to me. We are leaving the governors hanging and we can even remove the governors if we want. From the political perspective, I am seeing President Tinubu trying to take the powers away from the governors and win the grassroots directly by making sure that the funds from the federal (government) move directly to the (local government) councils so that if that is done they (local government councils) listen to him.”

Unsurprisingly, a formidable propaganda machine has been set up against President Tinubu and is run by active recruits and passionate volunteers. One of the issues on the basis of which propaganda is being spun about him is that he promised to reduce the pump price of petrol, but broke the promise; and rather increased the price. Well, politicians are believed to have the tendency to break promises. The major basis for this stereotype is that people lose sight of the fact that every promise is a conditional statement, and the unstated condition is, “all things being equal”. In other words, a politician would gladly keep a promise and earn plaudits, if situations do not arise which make keeping the promise difficult, impossible or unreasonable. In the United States, former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s candidate for the 5 November, 2024 presidential elections, found himself in one of such situations, as he narrated in the presidential debate between him and the Democratic Party candidate, Vice-President Kamala Harris, on 10 September, 2024. 

In the debate, a moderator, Linsey Davis, charged Donald Trump as follows: “You have long vowed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. You have failed to accomplish that [in your years as President from 2017 to 2021].” Trump responded: “Obamacare was lousy health care. … And what I said, that if we come up with something, we’re going to replace it. But remember this. I inherited Obamacare because Democrats wouldn’t change it. … They were unanimous. They wouldn’t vote to change it.” Probably inadvertently, Kamala Harris supported Trump’s excuse that his hands were tied, when she remarked: “When Donald Trump was president, 60 times he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. 60 times. I was a senator at the time. …  The late great John McCain, I will never forget that night. Walked onto the Senate floor and said … No, you don’t get rid of the Affordable Care Act.”

Senator John McCain was a senior member of Trump’s party, yet he “joined two moderate Republicans, two independents and every Democrat in voting against the so-called ‘skinny repeal’ of the Affordable Care Act.”  This further confirmation of Trump’s claim was done in the 27 July, 2017 NPR.ORG report, by Susan Davis and Domenico Montanaro, titled “McCain Votes No, Dealing Potential Death Blow To Republican Health Care Efforts.” In other words, it was impossible for Trump to keep his promise to repeal Obamacare. The former President therefore had no choice but to “run it as good as it can be run,” as he put it, in his own words, in the presidential debate. Trump’s action is consistent with the pragmatic counsel, by the ace Yoruba musician, Ayinla Omowura, that once a song changes, the accompanying beat must change (“B’órin bá ti yí ni k’ílù yí padà.”)

Ranged against President Tinubu is a minority of vocal rabid revisionists with distorted interpretations of events, using hugely dysphemistic, hyperbolic, grotesque and fallacious means. Prominent among these vicious critics are media ogres seeking to gore him with their pens and their tongues. They can’t tell you exactly what they stand to gain if he fails. But they’re obsessed with seeing him fall, all the same. Maybe, all they hope for is to be able to self-justify by saying, “We told you he was the wrong candidate” – a delusional self-association with clairvoyance. A German word, borrowed into English, which aptly captures this condition, is ‘schadenfreude’, and its remarkable Wikipedia definition is “the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, pain, suffering, or humiliation of another.”  The detractors hawk negativity and pessimism about Nigeria, and ignore this admonition: “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” 

Incidentally, very many Nigerians don’t share the fury of the pessimistic elite, as the mammoth crowd at the Edo State APC governorship campaign rally in Benin City, on 14 September, 2024, indicates. A Nigerian Catholic priest working in Gambia, Rev. Fr. Kelvin Ugwu, an ardent supporter of opposition Labour Party’s Peter Obi, was reported to have remarked, in a 16 September, 2024 article by Timothy Agbor, titled “Cleric expresses shock over huge crowds at APC campaign rallies despite hardship” in The Point newspaper: “One would have thought that with the high cost of things, the hunger and pains in the land, the death of innocent Nigerians due to inability to afford medical help and the overall failure of APC government, anywhere APC is mentioned, the people would rise up and ensure those elected are made to do what they were elected for … but NO. The grand finale rally of APC governor election on Saturday the 14th made me realize that I should stop crying more than the bereaved. The crowd at the rally was unbelievable. Believe me, nothing will change in Nigeria. It is so sad. You see, Tinubu … in the next election, he will still win if he contests.”

From the cleric’s exasperation, one thing is clear. As President Tinubu strives to slay the dragon, the mass of the people are giving him the benefit of the doubt, in the hope that tomorrow holds sustainable ease. They seem to live by the Yoruba belief that one day of rainfall eases thousands of droughts (“Ojó kansoso òjò borí egbegbèrún òdá.”) The President must not let them wait in vain.

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