By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

ARE there regular Nigerians who are enjoying the All Progressives Congress (APC) government since 2015, in particular, the version that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu invented when he became president in 2023?

Some would raise their hands because they believe it is their duty to ensure that Tinubu does not look bad under any circumstance. They have sworn to it, they are dedicated to defending Tinubu.

From the way some sound, they may be willing to put their lives on the line if that will ensure a Tinubu victory. They mean it.

What has Tinubu done that impressed them so much that they cannot see the ruination that Tinubu’s presidency has imposed on Nigerians?

They would go into drivels about how Tinubu’s policies saved Nigeria’s nationhood from annihilation. His great economic policies, his prudence, anti-corruption stance which has given us a better country than Tinubu met.

Where are the evidence? High prices of foods and medication for everyone, add children. Unbearable cost of electricity while it is barely available. Fuel costs seven times what it cost when Muhammadu Buhari handed over to Tinubu weeks less than three years ago.

Tinubu floated the Naira to a collapse that almost stripped it of its value. Businesses are collapsing, unemployment is on the rise. Tinubu and his supporters dismiss these as the words of critics. They want all Nigerians to become liars, minimising how much Tinubu has damaged Nigeria, and accepting it was not the fault of Tinubu.

The country he Inherited was badly damaged. Few are buying that excuse, not former President Olusegun Obasanjo who blamed Tinubu for many things, among them inability to do anything well in an administration known for its appetite for borrowing.

Without any reasonable answers to these assertions, the likes of Minister of Works, the very powerful David Umahi retorted that those who did not like the opaque Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road, which Obasanjo last year called a scam, should not use it when completed. Rather if it ever gets completed.

Tinubu has always lived in the future. It serves him well. Thousands of Nigerians have died due to insecurity, his harsh economic policies. He has no words for the situations.

He gives impressions that he is building a great future for Nigerians.

Which Nigerians? The living or the dead? Without answers for the present, without a discernible past, Tinubu cligns heavily to the future when he believes we would have forgotten or would not be available to ask him to account.

Tinubu has taken this drivel abroad. No longer able to spin stories about his achievements, principally leaving Nigeria debt-riddled, he now talks of the future.

He told Africa CEO Forum in Rwanda, that he would do more work when re-elected. Isn’t that an admission of his failure.

“I have to continue to reset and rethink and then challenge the intellectual curiosity. The philosophy I came with in governance is believing that the hallmark of a transformative leader is the ability to make decisions, do what you do at the time it ought to be done on behalf of the people.

“If you miss that curve, you are not on the path to success, and that’s what I believe. First time, I took hard decisions, regardless of pain. Stop reading newspapers and commentary because I was going to get a big pushback, and I did,” according to Tinubu.

The only thing he seemed to have said with clarity is that he stopped reading newspapers and commentary so that he would not see the criticisms.

No need to wonder. Tinubu confessed to an international that he was insular. No need for a confession. They knew long ago.

Let us note that Buhari, who many believed would be Nigeria’s worst leader, was enamoured of newspaper cartoons. One of his media minders said he could spend good time reading or looking at cartoons.

“I was sitting on a hot burner, but we made the curve today,” Tinubu continued the rambling. “There is a very bright light at the end of the tunnel. The economy is stable. The Naira is stable and predictable. Planners can now do a reasonable budget. They can plan their lives well."

With Tinubu, we are in an endless tunnel of darkness. What was Tinubu saying? Those were his lines in Rwanda to attract investors.

Words prove inadequate to address Tinubu’s destruction of Nigeria. The layers of lies his media spins are some of the best proofs about the emptiness of his dreams for Nigeria.

Barely two months after the great news, by Team Tinubu: That Nigeria secured a £746m ($997m) financing agreement backed by UK Export Finance (UKEF) to completely modernise and repair the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports in Lagos, another great news from the global jamboree came from Rwanda.

World-class port operator APM Terminals pledged a $600 million investment in Nigeria’s maritime sector. The Regional President, APM Terminals Africa-Europe, Igor van den Essen said the proposed investments will be deployed in Apapa port modernisation, logistics infrastructure, and long-term private-sector investment in Nigeria’s maritime sector.

It is the same Apapa port(s). Many Nigerians, except Team Tinubu spinning these tales, are wondering why Tinubu is not interested in other ports in Nigeria.

There are more worries about Apapa ports no matter how the stories are curated.

On 18 May 2025, there were celebratory reports in the media that APM Terminals Apapa, in collaboration with the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, had completed the rehabilitation of 970 metres of quay apron surface at the Apapa port, a critical infrastructure initiative aimed at improving operational safety, sustainability, and efficiency at Nigeria’s busiest container terminal.

The reports continued that the Federal Government had approved the rehabilitation of Apapa and Tin Can ports as well as the upgrading of the eastern ports including Calabar, Warri, Onne, and Rivers Ports.

It could be these "eastern ports” that the proposed $600m investment included as “Nigeria’s maritime sector”.

More questions: Which parts of the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports will be modernised with the UK loan? What part would be left for APM’s $600m?

Tinubu can be forgiven if he cannot remember that he had UK loan for the same ports just two months. A President who cannot remember that insecurity is claiming lives in his country, the Tinubu who cannot deliver on 5,000 he promised would secure Plateau can forget things.

However, Tinubu knows when to appoint an Adviser on Homeland Security. Whatever the brief, the bandits are not impressed. They attacked a school in Oyo State on Friday, abducted some pupils, and shot a teacher who later died in hospital. Attacks are now frequent in Ekiti, Kwara States once “safe”.

Regular attacks areas are no longer discussed – Benue, Borno, Plateau, Zamfara. The Commander-in-Chief is busy travelling, promising he will work hard, not even harder, in 2027.

Amid the hunger, anger, people are passionately emitting promises of war, mayhem if Tinubu is not allowed a second term, after three years in which he keeps regurgitating inventors’ confidence in the same project.

Whatever that has reduced the highly promoted Tinubu to foreign travels and specious speeches at home and abroad is unsustainable in another tenure.

The mistake of 2023 should not be repeated. If Tinubu had achieved anything he should be using them in his campaigns instead of weakening the opposition in an entitled manner that suggests he will the only presidential candidate in 2027.

Finally…

UNSAFE anywhere. Over 100 children are in hospital in Ogun State from inhaling suspected poisonous gas. Will someone for once be held responsible for something?

FORMER Nigerian Minister of Power, Saleh Mamman, was sentenced to 75 years in prison by the Federal High Court in Abuja on 13 May 2026 for stealing N33.8 billion meant for projects like the Mambilla Power facility. Have you wondered the type of system that permits an individual access to that load of money and the power to steal it?

IT Is beyond shame that priests of the Catholic Church would hire thugs, security agents to fight each other in the long-drawn tussle over ownership of Tansian University in Anambra State. Each new episode of the fight worsens matters and drags the name of the Church in the mud. The Church’s attitude leans more towards indifference.

•ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues.

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