Recently, two weeks ago to be precise, I found myself in an ambush, facing something akin to a Spanish Inquisition. I had attended the wedding of a friend’s daughter in London. There I met some old Nigerian friends, some based in Nigeria, who I hadn’t seen for several years. We exchanged pleasantries and banters. Then, one of them said: “I read your newspaper column, why are you always critical of President Bola Tinubu.” He said being resident in the UK, I was detached from the reality in Nigeria and couldn’t recognise the “great things” Tinubu was doing. The others agreed, and said Tinubu was “really transforming Nigeria.”
He’s Nigeria’s “saviour”, they claimed. I was aghast but immediately detected Yoruba solidarity at work – they are all Yoruba! When I asked whether their views were shared across Nigeria, they said only the Hausa/Fulani and the Igbos really disliked Tinubu. But why? Well, because Tinubu’s removal of the fuel subsidy and scrapping of the fixed exchange rates hurt the Northern elite, which, for years, benefitted from the distorted subsidy and exchange-rate regimes. The North also hated his “sensible” decentralisation” agenda and “meritocratic” Yoruba-dominated appointments. As for the Igbos, what do you expect? They are mostly “Obidients”, supporters of Peter Obi, Tinubu’s arch-rival! Tinubu is doing extremely well, they insisted, albeit ruffling feathers!
