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In a country where expectations are historically low but somehow still manage to be unmet, the administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu has boldly charted a new course: redefining what it means to succeed by simply removing any lingering connection between effort and outcome. Since May 2023, governance has evolved into something far more sophisticated than mere administration. It is now a living experiment – part endurance test, part theatre – where Nigerians are both the audience and the unwilling cast.
Consider the administration’s crowning achievement: national cohesion through shared vulnerability. Where previous governments failed to unify the country along ethnic, religious, or economic lines, this one has found the great equalizer – generalised insecurity. From Zamfara to the South-East, from highways to farmlands, fear has become the most reliable federal presence. It is, if nothing else, consistent.
The economy, too, has been handled with a kind of daring abstraction. Numbers no longer merely describe reality – they transcend it. With tens of millions reportedly pushed into extreme poverty, Nigeria has not just retained but reinforced its global standing in the hierarchy of hardship. In a competitive world, dominance matters.
Borrowing, meanwhile, has been elevated into an art form. Trillions of naira have been secured in loans, deployed with such discretion that their tangible effects remain largely theoretical. It is fiscal minimalism: maximum input, minimal visible output. And then there is the small matter of trillions allegedly unaccounted for – proof that even in governance, mystery remains an essential ingredient.
Currency reform has followed a similar philosophical path. The naira’s steady descent has been less a crisis than a statement – an embrace of gravity, a surrender to economic inevitability dressed up as policy. At this rate, Nigerians no longer check exchange rates; they simply brace for impact. Fuel pricing has completed the transformation of the average citizen into a reluctant stoic. The leap from affordability to aspiration has been so dramatic that petrol now occupies the psychological space once reserved for luxury goods. Owning a full tank is no longer routine – it is a milestone.
Security, often framed as a challenge, has quietly blossomed into a thriving informal sector. The kidnapping economy – efficient, decentralised, and tragically lucrative – has demonstrated a level of organisational capacity that might impress economists, if it were not so devastating. Ransom payments have effectively become an unlegislated tax, collected without bureaucracy but with remarkable efficiency.
Yet, if there is a unifying doctrine behind all these developments, it is the administration’s bold reinterpretation of geography. Nigeria, as currently governed, appears to operate on a revised map. – one in which all roads, policies, and ambitions converge on a single city. Lagos is no longer merely a commercial hub; it is the gravitational centre of national existence. Infrastructure projects cluster around it with near-religious devotion. The rest of the federation exists, certainly – but more as conceptual territory than developmental priority.
The much-discussed coastal highway project, with its enormous price tag and impeccable sense of direction toward elite enclaves, serves as the flagship of this philosophy. But it is far from alone. Ports, roads, and economic corridors increasingly trace a familiar pattern: begin in Lagos, expand around Lagos, and, if necessary, explain Lagos to the rest of the country as a national interest.
The recent decision to secure a £736 million loan for port development reinforces this worldview. It is a bold investment in a location already synonymous with congestion, complexity, and commercial dominance. Meanwhile, existing port infrastructure in Calabar and Port Harcourt continues to enjoy the serenity that comes only from underuse. Efficiency, it seems, is best achieved not by distributing capacity, but by concentrating pressure.
In the same spirit of consolidation, the question of contractors has been handled with admirable simplicity. Rather than burden the system with diversity and competition, there appears to be a comforting consistency in the prominence of the Chagoury Group across major projects. It is governance by familiarity – why risk unpredictability when reliability, or at least recognisability, is readily available?
This approach, while unconventional, does offer certain advantages. It reduces the confusion of multiple stakeholders and replaces it with a streamlined network of known quantities. Whether this constitutes efficiency or exclusivity is, of course, a matter of perspective – but perspective, like infrastructure, may depend on location.
Beyond infrastructure, the administration has also redefined the optics of governance. The acquisition of a $150 million presidential jet sends a clear message: leadership must remain elevated, both figuratively and literally. It is difficult to be weighed down by national challenges when one is comfortably above them.
Budget implementation has embraced a similarly selective philosophy. Funds exist, allocations are made, but disbursement appears to follow a logic known only to a privileged few. Contractors wait, projects stall, but somewhere – always somewhere – work continues, particularly where it matters most.
And then there is electricity, that elusive cornerstone of modern life. While tens of millions of Nigerians navigate darkness with resilience honed over decades, the Presidential Villa now glows with solar certainty. It is a powerful metaphor: renewable energy for the few, renewable patience for the many.
Taken together, these developments suggest not failure, but a radical rethinking of governance itself. This is not a government constrained by conventional metrics like widespread development, equitable distribution, or measurable impact. It is a government that dares to ask: what if success were something else entirely? What if unity meant shared hardship?What if growth meant concentrated prosperity? What if accountability were optional, and visibility unnecessary?
In answering these questions, the administration has produced something rare – a political reality so exaggerated that it loops back into satire, blurring the line between critique and description.
And so, as the drums of re-election begin to echo faintly in the distance, the message to Nigerians is both simple and profound: continuity is not just desirable – it is essential. After all, when a system has so thoroughly redefined the meaning of progress, the only logical next step is to give it more time to complete the experiment.
Because if this is what one term can achieve, one can only imagine what another might accomplish.
