By Kolawole Odetola
Tinubus biggest issue is not that he is utterly corrupt, which he undoubtedly is. In certain circumstances, corrupt leaders can be effective, in fact, very effective. Vladimir Putin is no saint. He is rumoured to be a very rich man. But Russians don’t care as he is a highly effective leader.
Waging in effect an almost four year war against the combined strength of the worlds richest powers and winning that war while still offering his people a standard of living higher on the average than those enjoyed by the citizens of his bitterest western enemies is not the sign of a weak leader Tinubu will go down in history alongside Shehu Shagari and Tafawa Balewa as one of Nigerias’ weakest leaders ever. Most Nigerians simply don’t understand what leadership is about.
And not just at the political level but even in business and also the family. They associate it with entitlement, not responsibility. With detachment, not decisiveness, it is seen as a position of ease, not one of extreme stress, which it should be. They see it as claiming accolades when things go well but delegating blame when it goes wrong. This is what Tinubus silence in the last 3 months of unprecedented crisis in Nigeria has exemplified.
A foiled coup, threat of foreign invasion, a senior minister publicly insulted by an officer not senior enough to be his aide de camp. And now a serving General executed like a dog on social media and police officers guarding two ministers fighting each other on their behalf. His silence is not due to maturity or ‘wisdom’. It is in his view not getting involved in a messy situation so as not to be held responsible for it. Street smart but far from genuinely intelligent.
A shallow and superficial individual with a vacancy where a soul should be, and a wall of air where a spine should reside, at best a back room intriguer, an elevated street corner wheeler dealer capable of painting bus lanes on roads but not drawing lines where responsibility should should lie, raised by bags of cash to a position far in excess of his abilities, Bola Tinubu is question mark marooned on the pedestal of leadership.
Remaining quiet as everything collapses around him because he is evidently out of his depth. Utterly out of his depth. Leaders reveal themselves in periods of crisis. By their moral conviction, they reassure, inspire, and reinforce the beliefs of others, pulling them along by the sheer force of their personality and vision.
But Bola Tinubu has not got a personality, nor has he got any guiding set of values or a vision. At best he is a moderately competent technocrat, he lacks the ideological self assurance of an Awolowo, the charisma of an Abiola the native wisdom and quiet reflectiveness of an Obasanjo, the natural intelligence of a Babangida or even the strength of character of an Abacha.
One of the least personally qualified men ever to occupy high office in Nigeria he is a product of a squalid society now falling apart at the seams. Nero they say fiddled when Rome burned. Tinubu can’t do that as this politically impotent man hasn’t got a fiddle.
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