Between privilege and persecution: Seyi Tinubu’s reality, El Rufai’s restlessness vs. Ushie’s struggle
Recently, IBB launched his book, A Journey in Service, in which he depicted his buddy, General Sani Abacha, as the Ravager-in-Chief of the June 12, 1993 elections, while he, the helpless Commander-in-Chief, watched as a dream he had sold to Nigerians for nearly a decade was crudely aborted. Some voices rose in defence of Abacha. […]
Recently, IBB launched his book, A Journey in Service, in which he depicted his buddy, General Sani Abacha, as the Ravager-in-Chief of the June 12, 1993 elections, while he, the helpless Commander-in-Chief, watched as a dream he had sold to Nigerians for nearly a decade was crudely aborted. Some voices rose in defence of Abacha. Principal among these was Sadiq Abacha, a son of the late General, who described his father as a better leader than his accuser and a subject of envy to a man who was his ally and C-in-C in the military.
To Sadiq, of course, his father was a hero. To the Yar’aduas, the Abiolas and the Saro Wiwas, to mention a few, he is probably a villain worse than Hitler. Yet, it is somewhat understandable that Sadiq would praise his father despite the evidence to the contrary.
Recently, during his Ramadan tour, Seyi Tinubu, the president’s son, who had remained quiet until now, allowed himself to be goaded into speaking. In a trending video recorded in Yobe, Seyi was seen in a student-union-leader style, telling the audience that his father and their “father,” President Bola Tinubu, is the best president Nigeria has ever had. He told fantastical stories about what his father, the president, had done for Nigerian youths and the economy—and was instead greeted by a muted response from his audience, who did not recognise the ‘reality’ he was painting.
As a Nigerian, I did not recognise the Nigeria that Seyi spoke about, and I am sure that persecuted corps member Ushie Rita Uguamaye does not recognise that country either because none of us have experienced it. It is only a year and a half into the Tinubu presidency, so the jury is still out on where he will eventually rank among Nigerian leaders in terms of greatness or lack thereof. The reality, however, is that this past year and a half has been among the toughest Nigerians have faced. The economy has been a mess; the naira has been devalued so much that it has been hard to keep track of the exchange rates. The Tinubu subsidy policy, which we can agree has backfired, has only succeeded in driving up fuel prices and the cost of living. These are things every Nigerian, at least those connected to the reality of the country, unlike Seyi Tinubu, could attest to.
It would not be fair to expect Seyi to be publicly critical of his father’s government. No one should, in all honesty, expect or demand that a son should do that to his father, especially one he has actively worked to enthrone. After all, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi defends his father’s legacy in Libya. Uday and Qusay terrorised Iraqis on behalf of their father, Saddam Hussein. Even Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of the notorious Italian Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, has continued to defend him and portray him in a positive light.
So there is a long tradition of presidents’ sons becoming extensions of their fathers’ rule, but no one should be treated as a dingbat either in the way Seyi’s address presented the people he addressed. His address showcased a chronic disconnect from the reality many Nigerians face, or he is merely engaging in political speak. None of these is good because it either presents him as an insincere person who does not care to lie and use deceit for the political advancement of his family, or an even more frightening prospect—that he believed what he said. That would be infinitely dangerous because it would suggest a complete misreading of the situation by the people around the president. The implication is that they are content with their performance in government and therefore see no urgent need to improve. That would be a tragedy of unimaginable proportions.
We can pass this off as Seyi’s personal opinion about the presidency, which just happens to be headed by his father. He is completely entitled to his opinion, as guaranteed by free speech. The irony is that Seyi chose to speak in the same week another Nigerian is being berated for sharing her opinion about his father’s presidency. Corps member Ushie Rita Uguamaye’s emotional lamentations about the state of the nation, in which she described Tinubu’s presidency as “terrible,” have caused her a lot of grief. She has been called, harassed, and intimidated by officials of the National Youth Service Corps for speaking up. The president’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, called for “capital punishment” for her previously. He later tried to educate Nigerians on his conception of “capital punishment,” which resoundingly differs from everyone else’s.
President Tinubu will do well to rein in the zealots who have made it their mission to hound the poor suffering girl—one of the millions of suffering Nigerians who are finding it hard to cope in this economy, which isn’t working for everybody, contrary to what Seyi Tinubu had proclaimed. The president must remind her persecutors that this is a democracy, in which the right to free speech is protected by the Constitution, and that criticism of the government or lamentations about the state of the nation do not translate to dissent or treason.
The overzealousness of her persecutors has achieved quite the opposite of what they intended. Their pressure on her to take down the video has instead caused more Nigerians to see it, and now some Nigerians have initiated a “30-Day Rant” to express their displeasure about the hardship in the country. In media studies, this is the Streisand Effect, where a desperate attempt to suppress certain information achieves the exact opposite by making that information viral. I have written about this before in this column.
Free speech should not be the exclusive preserve of a few. The Constitution does not discriminate. No one has persecuted the former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, for his acerbic criticism of this government that he helped bring to power. El-Rufai had passionately implored Nigerians to vote for both Tinubu as president and his handpicked candidate, Uba Sani, as governor of Kaduna State. Now he is at political daggers drawn with both men.
He was key in the emergence of former President Muhammadu Buhari, who, after 2011, had decided to retire from politics before El-Rufai went and knelt and begged him to run for office one more time. We all know how those Buhari years went. We are now witnessing this era. Now he is bashing the governments he helped install while trying to form another coalition to replace it. Nigerians must assess and decide how the succession of governments he has vociferously campaigned for has fared over the years. The focus here is that El-Rufai has said all sorts of things about this government, from allegations that some people paid their way into ministerial offices to how poorly Nigeria and the APC are being run. He received a presidential birthday greeting from the villa despite his criticisms of the president.
The brandishing of the NYSC by-laws to silence a Nigerian corps member from voicing her frustrations about the hardship in the country is a grave miscalculation on the part of the authorities. In theory, President Tinubu is supposed to serve at the discretion of Nigerians who voted him into office. If Nigerians have a right to vote for President Tinubu, then they must retain the right to express their pleasure or displeasure over his performance without fear of persecution. After all, this is NOT America.