With Saturday, January 16, 2027 being the date for the 2027 general polls and the commencement of campaigns slated for Wednesday, August 19, 2026, the next electoral season is as well as being on ground. With all eyes on him as president and who is interested in a second term bid, Bola Tinubu is not just the man to beat, but much of the permutations across various aspects of the polls exercise will be calibrated primarily on his personal, political fortunes and otherwise. This disposition will also impose on him the imperative to continuously reinvent himself in order to remain ahead of the pack, as it could be said. It is in that context that his camp has been strategising to counter any initiative by the relentless opposition factors, who are arrayed and baying for his blood. Just as well have been the various ordinary and extraordinary measures adopted by his camp to stay ahead of the race – including his recent three-week ‘working vacation trip’ to Europe and possibly other destinations.

Against such a backdrop, a major take-away from the situation is that his opponents need to expect surprises on his return, as that is vintage Bola Tinubu.

Yet, like any other mortal in his circumstances, he must be having the most challenging time of his life. However, hardly will anything stand for or against him in the perception by the public of his suitability for a second term in office beyond his scorecard during his current first term.

Interestingly, the administration recently released a scorecard of sorts on the performance of the president, which delineated the matrix of his achievements. Among the achievements are the fiscal reforms – prominent among which were the removal of fuel subsidy and floating of the exchange rate of the Naira against international currencies. This dispensation alone was reported to have mobilised as much as N15.8 trillion between June 2023 and December 2025 and boosted the revenue mobilisation profile of the administration, with much of the funds distributed to local governments and states.

Another area of interest is that of foreign reserves where the country increased its stock from $35 billion in May 2023 to over $52.5 billion by mid-2026. Yet another area is that of improved real GDP growth, with credit rating upgrades by S&P Global, and removal from the FATF gray list.

However, these positives did not come without significant pains to the citizenry with graphic tell-tale evidences. For instance, due to the suddenness of the removal of fuel subsidy on May 29 2023, being the very day of his inauguration as president, the prices of petroleum products escalated and a wider cross section of Nigerians fell into sudden, harrowing privations for which they were neither prepared nor have recovered from up till the present. This was due to the centrality of the price of fuel to the economy being the driver of the transport and energy sectors on which the economy runs. The fact that even now – as it was then – the administration is yet to provide a soft landing to cushion the deepest pains of the populace – tells much about the unpreparedness of the administration, for its treatment of Nigerians as guinea pigs, for its fiscal experiments.

With the floatation of the exchange rate of the Naira against foreign currencies, the import dependent Nigerian economy resonated with the fuel subsidy removal; hence the cost of living witnessed the sudden spike to astronomical levels. Some authoritative sources put the inflation rates at between 30 per cent–40 per cent, even as the exchange rate exceeded N1,500 per dollar.

As a corollary, the country’s poverty level soared, with the World Bank and other authorities warning over the portends of dire consequences if some amelioration is not effected urgently. With the administration unable to offer any significant relief packages beyond pittances of palliatives, most Nigerians remained unattended to under the poverty line, as the country also remained on tenter hooks.

Meanwhile, also among the reliefs offered by the administration was the review of the minimum wage from a starvation rate of N35,000.00 to N70,000.00 monthly after a prolonged protest by the labour movement and other interest groups in the country. Later followed the conditional cash transfer scheme (some say scam), which was administered in the most opaque manner, even as the government claimed it had benefitted millions of households, many of such difficult to verify. In the same vein, questions have been raised over claims by the administration over the adequacy of the measure in the light of the trending hyper-inflation across the country.

While the foregoing instances tell the story of Bola Tinubu’s scorecard on the economic scorecard, the record of the administration on the political side may not feature significant shine, as most Nigerians see his style as manifestation of crass capture of state power, with valid fears of his intent of perpetuating himself in power beyond the constitutional limit of two terms in office. For instance, on the eve of his formal bid for a second term in office, Bola Tinubu has on his side, a stack of formidable assets never assembled in the history of Nigerian politics. He is coming into the polls with at least 32 of the country’s 36 state governors aligned with him. Coupled to this massive structure is the ‘gift’ of a divided opposition front.

The message here is simple. If, with a less than impressive score card Bola Tinubu can still mobilise so much arsenal for his second-term bid, the problem to beat in the forthcoming polls is not him but the Nigerian political culture. (Weekend Trust)