By Oluwasore Alabi
In Nigeria, the argument over whether life is getting better is rarely settled by statistics. It is settled at the market, at the filling station, and at the end of the month when a salary runs out. On Friday, the First Lady offered her own diagnosis for anyone who still says they don’t see the progress.
Speaking at the inauguration of the Abuja headquarters of the PBAT Door-to-Door Movement, Senator Oluremi Tinubu said things were happening in the country, except for those who do not see them. Maybe, she said, they could be given “Bola Tinubu eyeglasses.” She then added, with a nod to the crowd, “We are doing that, JigiBola.”
The second line was a play on words. JigiBola is the eye-care programme her husband launched in 2001 as governor of Lagos State, offering free screening, eyeglasses and surgery, and the state government relaunched it in 2021. The joke, in other words, was that the president had been handing out glasses for twenty-five years.
The movement she was commissioning is a grassroots group campaigning for President Bola Tinubu’s re-election in 2027. It was convened by Government Ekpemupolo, popularly known as Tompolo. Mrs Tinubu closed the headquarters launch with a prayer for the president’s victory and declared her support for the All Progressives Congress. For her example of progress, she picked airports.
She said improvements at Nigeria’s airports are visible, and that she wants to be able to travel more quickly. It was a small, personal measure, and a telling one, since an airport is a place most Nigerians will never use on a given week. Her speech also had a longer horizon. Mrs Tinubu said she hopes to leave Aso Rock in 2031, which would mean two full terms for her husband, and walk into a Nigeria she can enjoy as a woman in her seventies.
To the campaigners in the room, she gave a brief: carry the Renewed Hope message from house to house, explain the economic reforms, point young job seekers to emerging opportunities, and keep the tone one of hope, peace, unity and development. The eyeglasses line has history. President Tinubu used almost the same phrase about a month ago at the State House, when he told Renewed Hope Ambassadors that those who refuse to see the hope in the roads, the children and the economy would be given eyeglasses.
In the same speech, he acknowledged that the journey had been hard and asked for patience. Hearing the First Lady repeat the line suggests it has become a standard reply from the Tinubu camp to its critics. Whether it works is another matter. A supporter will hear a joke from a woman who is sure of her case. A sceptic can just as easily hear a person at the top of the system telling people they are mistaken about their own wallets.
Some outlets have already framed the remark as a swipe at doubters, and the debate it has generated is the kind campaigns usually try to avoid. That is the risk of the line. A message that tells voters they cannot see properly will be tested by the one thing glasses cannot fix, which is the price of food. The 2027 election will be the eye test, and the voters, not the campaign, will read the chart.
