President Bola Tinubu (PHOTO CREDIT: @officialABAT)
The truth is, whether a president smokes Silk Cut or drinks herbal tea, is secondary. What tugs at the skin of Nigerians is whether Tinubu’s administration is delivering the “corn in the pot” — the policies that sustain daily life. I think he is not. As the fable above teaches, the sweet fragrances of tobacco and coffee are pleasant but for a moment. It is the enduring fibre of the corn that lasts longer in the belly of the town. As to Tinubu, history judges leaders not by the smoke they exhale, but by the bread they put on the nation’s table.
Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, grabbed the headlines recently. In a sensational repertoire, he alleged that Nigerian President Bola Tinubu is “an unhealthy man” who, at the drop of a hat, junkets to French hospices. Lawal was not done. In the headline-grabbing interview, among other allegations, he claimed that Tinubu sprouts out smoke like an old British classic car, the Morris Minor. “The only thing I know he likes much is cigarettes, Silk. He smokes. I don’t know whether he does it now. He likes that a lot. He can’t do without it,” Lawal alleged.
