This write up is clever propaganda, but it collapses under the weight of its own exaggeration. It takes the genuine historical wound of June 12, mixes it with Northern domination anxieties, then uses that emotional memory to manufacture a saintly image of President Tinubu as Nigeria’s misunderstood economic liberator. That is not analysis. That is political perfume sprayed over hardship.
Yes, Nigeria has a long and ugly history of sectional power games. Yes, June 12 exposed the deep fear of a free Southern mandate. Prof. Omo Omoruyi indeed argued that the annulment revealed a structural resistance to Southern ascendancy and the old “permanent North, permanent South” logic in Nigerian politics. But to drag June 12 into today’s Tinubu debate as if every criticism of Tinubu is a Northern conspiracy is intellectually dishonest.
The central lie in the piece is this: that opposition to Tinubu is mainly because he is “independent, bold, and difficult to control.” No. Many Nigerians are angry because food, transport, rent, school fees, energy costs, insecurity and survival itself have become unbearable under policies implemented with arrogance, poor sequencing and weak cushioning. Reuters reported that Tinubu’s subsidy removal, electricity subsidy cuts and naira devaluations triggered Nigeria’s worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, with inflation above 23% at the time of assessment. That is not Northern propaganda. That is lived Nigerian reality.
The article says Tinubu is dismantling entrenched privilege. But where is the evidence that the ordinary Nigerian has become the beneficiary of this dismantling? Subsidy removal saved government money, yes. Tinubu himself said over ₦1 trillion was saved in just over two months after subsidy removal. But the real question is not whether money was saved. The real question is: who is enjoying the savings? The market woman? The student? The civil servant? The farmer? The truck driver? The small business owner running on diesel? Or the same political class sharing FAAC windfalls while asking hungry citizens to “endure”?
A reform that punishes the poor first, protects the political elite, and explains itself later is not courage. It is policy brutality.
The writer claims Tinubu’s reforms are “for everyone,” yet even the World Bank, while acknowledging stronger growth and better fiscal numbers, warned that high inflation remains a major challenge. Reuters reported that Nigeria’s economy grew strongly in 2024 and government revenue improved, but also noted that subsidy removal and naira devaluation added pressure on prices. In plain language: the government’s books may look better, but the people’s kitchens look worse.
That is the difference between macroeconomic applause and household suffering.
It is also laughable to present Tinubu as an outsider fighting the system. Tinubu is not a political orphan. He is one of the grand architects of the very system that produced today’s Nigeria. He helped build the APC machine. He helped install Buhari. He negotiated with Northern power blocs when it suited him. He benefited from the same patronage politics, godfatherism, elite bargains and electoral machinery that have kept Nigeria trapped. To now portray him as some lone revolutionary battling a mysterious cabal is political theatre.
If Northern elites were so determined never to allow Tinubu, how did he emerge from the APC primary? How did he win under a ruling party heavily populated by Northern governors, Northern legislators, Northern power brokers and Buhari-era political structures? The argument contradicts itself. Tinubu cannot simultaneously be the product of a grand coalition that brought him to power and the innocent victim of the same coalition simply because Nigerians are now asking questions.
The comparison with Goodluck Jonathan is also lazy. Jonathan was undermined by power blocs, yes. But Jonathan also made mistakes. Buhari was marketed as a messiah, yes. But Buhari failed spectacularly. Tinubu should not now be immunised from criticism because Nigeria has a history of elite sabotage. Governance is not a pity party. A president must be judged by outcomes, not by the enemies his supporters imagine for him.
The article says “if they remove Tinubu, they remove our last chance at progress.” That is cultic language, not democratic reasoning. No individual is Nigeria’s last chance. Not Tinubu. Not Atiku. Not Obi. Not Kwankwaso. Nigeria’s last chance is institutional reform, credible elections, accountable spending, productive federalism, security, industrial policy, local manufacturing, power supply, food security and leadership that does not ask citizens to die slowly so politicians can boast of “reforms.”
The most dangerous part of the write-up is its attempt to ethnicise economic pain. It tells hungry Nigerians that their suffering is a necessary sacrifice and that anyone questioning it is either misled, sponsored or anti Southern. That is wicked. Hunger has no tribe. Inflation does not ask whether you are Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Fulani, Ijaw, Tiv, Efik or Kanuri before it destroys your purchasing power.
Tinubu should be defended where he is right and challenged where he is wrong. But to wrap every criticism in the banner of Northern conspiracy is to insult Nigerians who are simply asking why reform must always begin with the stomachs of the poor and end with the comfort of the political class.
So let us be clear: the issue is not whether some forces want Tinubu weakened. In politics, every president has enemies. The real issue is whether Tinubu’s government has delivered enough relief, transparency, security, productivity and fairness to justify the pain it has imposed. On that question, propaganda cannot substitute for evidence.
Nigeria does not need another emperor protected by praise singers. Nigeria needs a president accountable to the people. Tinubu is not June 12. Tinubu is not Abiola. Tinubu is not a martyr. Tinubu is the sitting president of a suffering country, and he must be judged not by mythology, but by measurable results.
By Hon. Chima Nnadi-Oforgu
Duruebube Uzii na Abosi
OBLONG MEDIA GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE 
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