President Tinubu
After the bishops’ recent closed‑door meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Cardinal John Onaiyekan made a striking claim: that presidential aides are shielding the President from the true suffering in the country, presenting a false “rosy picture,” and that Tinubu already appears desperate about winning the 2027 election.
As a writer and observer of governance, I share that concern. A president who controls the instruments of state, commands a united party, and faces a divided opposition has little rational cause for electoral anxiety — unless overzealous handlers are manufacturing threats where few exist.
The question therefore deserves to be asked plainly: what exactly is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu afraid of?
The EFCC’s freezing of the Osun State Government’s accounts barely a week before the July 2025 governorship election — citing a court order later reversed by the President himself — was not merely a legal misstep. It was a political signal of ‘over‑sabi’ — that familiar Yoruba expression for excessive, misdirected overzealousness — gone disastrously wrong. It also raised a question that goes beyond Osun’s finances and cuts to the heart of governance in Abuja: are these the deliberate choices of a confident presidency, or the panicked manoeuvres of handlers who have convinced the President that 2027 is a battle he might lose?
