Thirty days on: Tinubu’s Triads and Trials

One month gone!

So, it’s not a dream.

Maybe, it’s a dream come true.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s been the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for a month, and we’d like to review how he’s fared in his policies, politics and policing in the first month in charge of the Federal Republic.

From rumour to rigour to reality, Senator Tinubu proceeded into federal consciousness in a treble of triads – in the rumour of his presidential ambition, the rigour of his presidential campaign, and the reality of his presidential dream. 

Looking back, we noticed that even on the pages of your beloved newsletter, he’s emerged in a treble of triads, and trials.

The First Time

We noticed the Lagos-borne politician for the first time last year May, in the series “Made in Lagos: Star Boy, State Boy, Street Boy and Tinubu’s Other Lifebuoys.

Being our first attempt at measuring political figures, we developed objective metrics rather than popularity to measure possible candidates for the presidency from Tinubu’s political gymnasium in Lagos.

A lighthearted piece – we even measured the musical prowess of the Made in Lagos politicians, unwittingly providing free promotion for many musicians, especially the Star Boy, Wizkid, in the allusion to his popular album, Made in Lagos.

In the first part, we wrote:

“Like Wizkid, many shining stars in Nigeria’s national politics today were made in Lagos. And a good number of them apprenticed under Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT), the erstwhile governor of Lagos State.

“The challenge, however, is that some of the Made in Lagos politicians want to move on to bigger things than what the Tinubu fortune machinery could offer. They crave the freedom to fly as high as their unclipped wings could reach.

These ambitious lot just want to be like Star Boy, whose emancipation to international stardom came after he left Banky W’s Empire Mates Entertainment (EME), where he had recorded his first two hit albums, ‘Superstar’ in 2009, and ‘Ayo (Joy)’ in 2014.

From Raji Fashola to Akinnwunmi Ambode, from Yemi Osinbajo to Rauf Aregbesola, and from Jide Sanwoolu to Musiliu Akinsanya, many of these Old Boys from the Foremost Political Academy of Lagos have been labelled and mislabeled as daring and disloyal, traitors and ingrates, or lickspittle and loyal to their Godfather, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the State Man of Lagos politics.

And on Tinubu, specifically, we wrote in the second part:

Tinubu comes by more as a music critic than a performer. His musical taste unveils a man with a deeply reflective cultural core. Even when he dances, he listens more than he moves – his pulse and pauses, the emotive response to a griot’s lyrical invocations.

“Really, besides his obvious ageing signs, the major odds against Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s presidential aspiration for 2023 are the same factors that position him in the 3rd position behind Mr Sanwo-Olu, at a middling level among the 5 sampled Made in Lagos political brands.

“Going by some of his achievements while he was the Governor in Lagos State, Mr Tinubu could be a good candidate to run for the next presidency. But the problem always sets in when his conduct out of office is held under close scrutiny by other politicians and the informed section of the electorate.

“Why could a person of such political stature not simply emerge as a consensus candidate of the party he fused and funded to work? Why does he seem to have more than 6 Judas among every 12 of his political disciples?

We moderated that public question at the closing of that edition. But that would become an introduction to President Tinubu’s triads and trials.

The First Triad: Glimpses, Glitches, and Glints

Tinubu’s triads and the accompanying trials first featured this February in our post-election Data Dive, President-elect Tinubu: Glimpses, Glitches, and Glints.

Two weekends before this, in President Tinubu: Predilections and Predictions, Dataphyte had predicted that Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress would win the 2023 Presidential elections in Nigeria with a clear win in the first round without a tie or a need for a run-off election.

We predicted that Senator Bola Tinubu will win the presidential race, followed by Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi. We arrived at this conclusion by analysing past voting patterns, voter turnouts, voter choice homogeneity, and religious homogeneity.

However, the piece on Tinubu’s likely emergence as the President also highlighted the problematic nature of identity-based voting and its negative impact on social cohesion, interethnic harmony, and peacebuilding in Nigeria.

The research concluded that religion, region, or ethnicity have historically decided presidential elections in Nigeria, not necessarily the candidates’ fitness for office.

It turned out Dataphyte’s prediction of the election results was too close to the eventual election results that it felt a little scary to the Dataphyte researcher who constructed the predictive model. 

Far from a “We told you” bragging piece, it’s a scary revelation of the power of patterns and the predictive strength of a simple trend objectively measured, he said.

We also predicted that there could be possible glitches in the elections, in the election morning piece: February 25: Calm Down. This was proven true when INEC reported technical glitches afterwards in their IREV transparency initiative, which brought the commission under heavy criticism for its failure to transmit the election results efficiently and transparently.

“On account of this, some have called for a cancellation of the results while some insist on a judicial review of the results,” Dataphyte noted.

This is where Tinubu’s trials really began.

Yet, despite Tinubu’s statistically foreseen win in the presidential elections, each candidate showed popularity in certain parts of the country. 

So, while we acknowledged Tinubu’s “Presidential glint” at the federal level, we acknowledged the “individual glint” of each candidate at the state level too:

“Peter Obi’s popularity gleamed in 8 states, Anambra, Enugu, Abia, Ebonyi, Imo, the FCT, Edo and Delta, where he scored over 50%. He also scored below 50% in 8 other states but above 25% lower popularity threshold.

The election results showed that Peter Obi was not popular in the rest 21 states of the 36 states and the FCT.

Atiku Abubakar’s popularity glimmered in 4 states, Gombe, Adamawa, Yobe and Kebbi, the only parts where he scored above 50% of the votes. He also scored below 50% in 17 other states but above the 25% lower popularity threshold.

The election result showed that Abubakar Atiku was not popular in the rest 16 states of the 36 states and the FCT.

Bola Tinubu’s popularity was apparent in 8 states, Ondo, Ekiti, Zamfara, Ogun, Kwara, Oyo, Borno, and Kogi, where he scored above 50% of the votes. He also scored below 50% in 21 other states but above the 25% lower popularity threshold.

The election result showed that Bola Tinubu was not popular in the rest 8 of 36 states and the FCT.

The Second Triad: Liberties, Leadership, and the Limits of Age 

In the second triad, Tinubu’s Turn: Liberties, Leadership, and the Limits of Age, we informed that Tinubu is one of the 45 oldest presidents among 187 presidents of countries in the United Nations, and Nigeria situates among partly free countries, according to Freedom House ratings.