By Uzu Okagbue
Editor’s note: Ahead of Nigeria’s election in about four months time, Uzu Okagbue takes on the conversation over the identity and the past of Nigeria’s President, Mr. Bola Tinubu, in the United States. After a deep and long look, Mr. Okagbue expresses concern over the emerging trend in Nigerian politics where truth is not the primary preoccupation of many who pose as if they are holding the president of Nigeria accountable. He then called for a more patriotic politics and commitment to truth rather than convenience in Nigeria’s political space.
There is an emerging danger in our politics that many people do not recognise until it is too late. It begins the day we decide that the truth is no longer enough. We then begin to improve it, we add emotion; we remove context. We select only the facts that injure our opponent. We repeat an allegation until repetition begins to sound like proof and eventually, we arrive at the most dangerous place in public scrutiny: the place where what is politically useful becomes more important than what is true. That is where Nigeria must pause and reflect on the endless frenzy surrounding President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his past in the United States.
Let me be clear; this is not a call for Nigerians to worship Tinubu. I have never believed that leadership should be placed beyond scrutiny. Power must be questioned; authority must be examined and presidents must be held accountable, that is how democracies remain alive. But there is a difference between scrutiny and obsession and there is a difference between accountability and propaganda.
Indeed, there is a difference between a nation searching for the truth and a political establishment searching for a weapon. Nigeria must learn that difference.
The first casualty of political war is precision
The American records concerning Bola Tinubu have become one of the most recycled weapons in Nigerian political history. Documents are brought out, screenshots are circulated, words are enlarged and headlines are written. Then, social media catches fire, and once again, Nigerians are invited to arrive at the same conclusion. But very few people are invited to do the one thing that matters most. Read carefully and ask:
What was alleged? What was established? What was the nature of the proceeding? What did the law say? What did the courts eventually determine?
These questions matter because, civil proceedings are not the same thing as criminal convictions. Therefore, allegations are not the same thing as findings because, suspicion is not proof and political hatred is not evidence. These distinctions may appear inconvenient to those whose politics depends on outrage. But civilisation depends on inconvenient distinctions. That is why we have law and that is why we have evidence. It is also why words must retain their meaning. A society begins to decline when language becomes a political weapon. Today, “allegation” becomes “conviction.” May be tomorrow, “investigation” becomes “guilt.” The next day, “accusation” becomes “fact.”Then, before long, nobody is safe from the mob. Not because the mob has proved anything. But because the mob has become powerful enough to define reality.
The real question is not what they keep repeating but; why must they keep repeating it? Think about that. A matter has travelled through years of political conflict. Documents have been produced. Lawyers have argued. Courts have considered questions arising from it. Election petitions have been determined. Yet the controversy returns with the same urgency as though Nigerians have just discovered it for the first time. Why? Perhaps because some controversies are too politically valuable to be allowed to die. An allegation can become an asset; a suspicion can become an industry and controversy can become an identity. Once political movements invest heavily in a particular story, the truth becomes dangerous because, what happens if the full truth is counterproductive to the agenda? What happens if the law refuses to produce the conclusion the crowd wants? What happens if the distinction between civil proceedings and criminal convictions refuses to disappear? Then there is only one political strategy left. Repeat! Repeat the accusation, the headline, the darkest interpretation. Repeat them until exhaustion replaces examination, until people become ashamed to ask questions. Repeat it until demanding evidence is mistaken for defending the accused. This is not the pursuit of truth. It is the politics of permanent accusation.
A president does not have to be perfect for propaganda to be wrong
This is perhaps the most important thing Nigerians must understand. President Tinubu does not need to be a perfect man for an inaccurate accusation to remain inaccurate. He does not need to be a saint for the law to retain its meaning. He definitely does not need to be beyond criticism for Nigerians to insist on fairness. These things can exist at the same time. You can oppose a President and still tell the truth about him. You can disagree with his policies and refuse to spread falsehood. You can challenge his government without joining a campaign of character destruction. That is what intellectual maturity looks like. But Nigeria has become dangerously comfortable with childish politics. If one questions an accusation against a politician, he must support him. If one defends the truth about a political opponent, then, he must belong to his camp. If one demands evidence, he must have been compromised. No. Sometimes, a man simply refuses to surrender his mind to the crowd. Nigeria desperately needs more men and women who are prepared to do exactly that.
The law must not change because we dislike the man before it
This is where many Nigerians betray the very principles they claim to defend; they demand the rule of law until the law produces a result they dislike. They demand due process until due process protects their opponent. They demand that institutions be respected until the institutions refuse to give them the conclusion they desire. Then suddenly, everything becomes compromised; the court is compromised, the judge is compromised, the system is compromised, the evidence is compromised. Everybody is compromised except the person shouting. But democracy cannot survive on such thinking. The law must protect the person you like and it must protect the person you dislike, otherwise, it is not law but simply power waiting for its turn.
The greatest test of a person’s commitment to justice is not how he treats his friend, but whether he can remain fair when the truth helps his enemy. That is the test before Nigeria.
What if we are asking the wrong question?
Nigeria has serious problems. Our economy demands serious thinking. Our security challenges, our young people, the future of the naira, all demand serious thinking. Our institutions and the quality of our leadership demand serious thinking. Yet, we are repeatedly invited into emotional debates designed around a controversy from decades ago. At some point, a nation must grow. Not forget the past. But grow beyond political addiction to it. The question before Nigeria cannot permanently remain: Who can we destroy? It must become: what kind of country are we trying to build? This is because politics built around destroying personalities rarely builds institutions. A generation can spend years proving that a politician is terrible and still have absolutely no idea what to do with the country after he is gone. That is the tragedy of opposition without imagination. Demonstrating that leadership without imagination is no better. Nigeria does not merely need people who can tell us what is wrong. We need people who understand what must be built.
History is not interested in our hashtags
This is what should humble everybody involved in Nigerian politics. History has no interest in our social-media anger and not impressed by our hashtags. It does not remember who shouted the loudest. History asks only one brutal question: what happened when you had power? That is the question President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will ultimately face. Not X, Facebook, political documentaries, but history. What did he do with Nigeria? What did he do with the economy? What did he do with institutions? What did he do with the opportunity given to him? Did his policies work? Did they fail? Did Nigeria become stronger? Did ordinary Nigerians become better off? Those are the questions that will remain and resonate after politics, and perhaps this is why some people prefer the permanent controversy.
Governance is complicated, so is evidence, economic reforms and nation-building. But outrage is easy. Anybody can manufacture it. Therefore, Nigeria must stop confusing anger with intelligence because being angry does not make us informed. Disliking a politician does not make every accusation against him true. Supporting a politician does not make every criticism against him false. Two truths can stand side by side. This is basic fact, yet our politics behaves as though we have forgotten. We have become a country where political loyalty determines what facts people can see. The same evidence can produce two completely different realities depending on who is reading it and that should frighten us. This is because, once politics takes control of truth, democracy becomes little more than a contest between competing lies. One side lies for power, the other lies to take power. The people stand in the middle, applauding whichever lie sounds better. That is not democracy. That is manipulation clothed in elections.
The time has come to put the frenzy in its proper place. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should not be shielded from scrutiny, yes. But neither should he be permanently tried by political repetition. The records should be examined. The facts should be understood and the legal distinctions should be respected. The courts may be criticised. But their decisions cannot simply be erased because they are politically inconvenient. Most importantly, Nigerians should stop allowing themselves to be recruited into intellectual laziness.
Do not read a headline and surrender your mind. Do not see a screenshot and abandon reason, and inherit hatred as though it were evidence. Ask questions; read the documents and understand the law. Then make your informed judgment.
A mature nation does not fear scrutiny. But neither does it celebrate distortion. A mature democracy does not protect leaders from questions. But it also does not permit political opponents to redefine words in order to manufacture guilt. That, perhaps, is where we must finally leave the Tinubu controversy. Not buried, denied, worshipped, weaponised, but understood and placed in its proper legal and historical context. Then Nigeria must return to the work that actually matters; holding the President accountable for what he is doing with power now. This is because, the future of Nigeria will not be determined by how many times we replay the past. It will be determined by whether we are intelligent enough to confront the present and perhaps that is the most difficult question of all. Not what we heard about Tinubu, but a question of if we have become so politically addicted to what we want to believe that we no longer recognise the truth when it stands before us. That question should disturb all of us.
The day truth becomes negotiable in politics is the day every citizen becomes vulnerable. Today, the target is Tinubu. Tomorrow, it will be somebody else. The crowd will always find another victim. The accusation will always find another headline. The mob will always find another reason. But truth has only one defence; those who are prepared to stand with it, even when it is politically inconvenient.
