The Executive Director of #FixPolitics Africa, Anthony Ubani, has criticised President Bola Tinubu for using his performance as Lagos State governor to campaign for a second term as President, instead of using his first-term performance as President.

In a statement released in Abuja, the leadership and governance expert pointed out that Tinubu "has every right to campaign on his past, but he has no right to escape accountability for his present."

Tinubu's critics, however, do not see anything spectacular about his eight-year reign as governor of Lagos State. They cite his protracted political war with then President Olusegun Obasanjo over the creation of more local governments in Lagos, which made the retired general seize the allocation to Lagos councils for four years.

Some other critics argue that Lagos, with its enormous resources, can run on auto-pilot financially.

Ubani said: "If the most convincing evidence his party can offer Nigerians after more than three years in power as President still comes from his years as Governor of Lagos State, citizens are entitled to ask whether the administration itself has already delivered its verdict on his first term."

According to him, three years after assuming the presidency, Nigerians deserve a national report card, not another history lesson about Lagos.

"There is something profoundly troubling about President Tinubu's campaign for a second term. The President has occupied Nigeria's highest political office since May 29, 2023. He has exercised enormous executive powers, presided over substantial public expenditure, introduced far-reaching economic reforms and had more than three years to demonstrate what his leadership can accomplish.

"Yet, as his re-election campaign gathers momentum, the country is repeatedly being invited to admire his record as Lagos governor between 1999 and 2007. One is compelled to ask a simple question: Is Bola Tinubu campaigning to become Governor of Lagos State again, or is he seeking another four years as President of Nigeria? This is neither a frivolous question nor a matter of political semantics; it goes to the heart of democratic accountability.

"An incumbent President seeking re-election is not an applicant attending his first job interview. He is an employee returning to his employers, the Nigerian people, asking that his contract be renewed. His most persuasive argument should be the quality of the work he has performed, the promises he has fulfilled, the problems he has solved and the measurable improvements his leadership has brought to the country. His campaign should be overflowing with evidence," Ubani argued.

He lampooned the President for inundating Nigerians with references to Lagos, attacks on political opponents, recycled promises and assurances that prosperity is somewhere ahead.

At the All Progressives Congress presidential campaign rally in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, on November 6, 2026, Tinubu, rather than placing the achievements of his presidency at the centre of his appeal, took time to compare his record as Lagos governor with Peter Obi's tenure in Anambra State.

Responding to his political opponent, Tinubu had declared, "In Anambra, he could not confront erosion. I, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, confronted the Atlantic Ocean."

Whatever the merits of that comparison, Ubani wondered. There was, he said, a glaring problem with it.

He said: "Nigerians are not conducting an election to determine who the more successful state governor was two decades ago; they are choosing who should lead Nigeria from 2027.

"As if that was not bad enough, the APC chairman and the APC presidential campaign director-general both took turns to address the audience in Uyo but could not mention one substantial achievement of Tinubu as President. All they could do was refer us to his leadership as a 'transformer' and 'change agent' in Lagos."

Also referring to his Uyo outing, the governance expert decried Tinubu's penchant for re-approving a project that had reportedly been approved earlier by the APC, including Tinubu himself.

On January 30, 2023, while campaigning for his first presidential term in Akwa Ibom, Tinubu reportedly promised that his administration would build the deep seaport.

"That commitment was made more than three years ago. Further, the Federal Executive Council under President Muhammadu Buhari had already approved the project's first phase in December 2020, at an estimated cost of $2.016bn.

"Yet, in November 2026, Nigerians were once again celebrating another presidential approval for substantially the same long-awaited project. An approval may represent administrative progress, depending on what exactly has been authorised. But approval is not construction. Construction is not completion. And completion is not the same as a functioning facility delivering jobs, trade and economic value," he added.

The #FixPolitics DG sees a deeper political significance in the persistent invocation of Tinubu's Lagos years.

"When a President seeking his first term refers to his performance as governor, he is presenting evidence of his previous leadership experience. But when that same President seeks a second term and continues to lean heavily on the same evidence, he invites a troubling inference. Why is the record of his current office not persuasive enough to stand on its own? Why should Nigerians spend so much time examining what Tinubu did between 1999 and 2007 when they should be examining what he has delivered between 2023 and 2026?

"The administration's supporters may argue that economic reforms take time to produce their full benefits. That argument deserves a fair hearing. Some reforms are necessarily painful, and some infrastructure projects require years to complete. But time is not an unlimited political credit facility. A government asking citizens to endure hardship must be especially diligent in showing what their sacrifices have purchased. It must demonstrate progress with credible evidence, acknowledge failures without excuses and explain what additional time in office would realistically achieve," he stated.

For Ubani, three and a half years is enough time to provide a serious account of stewardship, even if every promise has not been fulfilled. He said the administration's campaign rhetoric was therefore revealing.

Nigeria, he added, is not looking for a former governor with a good story; it is looking for a President with a credible record.