Tinubu’s damning Buhari verdict and why the President shouldn’t be Moses

Last Monday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu finally emptied his chest about his now late, latter-day political partner and presidential predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari. He called him a ruinous fellow, who handed him a decrepit Nigeria. Tinubu was justifying petrol subsidy removal to a band of youths herded and sheltered under the City Boy Movement umbrella by his son, Seyi, and rationalising, using a popular biblical story as an anecdote, why the policy of government helping the citizenry lift the affordability burden a bit should never return.

Recalling the Nigeria handed to him, the President alleged: “We owed money to airlines. They were almost cutting their flights to Nigeria. Our foreign reserve was nothing. We printed currencies as if there were no tomorrow.”

He, however, said he chose not to dwell on the comatose country given to him to run, deciding to embrace the responsibility and liability of his predecessor. You may want to say at this point, what are friends for? In those few words, the President demolished whatever nation-building legacy his predecessor’s men have been perspiring to hew for the Daura soldier.

With none of the former president’s associates and aides defending his shredded legacy, especially his two main spokespersons, Messrs Garba Shehu and Femi Adesina, or even the in-law and former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, and a close relative like Hadi Sirika, the aviation minister, the President’s words should be taken as the material facts of the matter.

That would also mean that on those occasions the incumbent promised to carry on with the “policies” and “legacy” of his predecessor, he was just doing what the Yoruba would describe as calling a madman the bridegroom to allow one a thoroughfare. At least on about four occasions, Tinubu, either as the candidate of the ruling party angling to succeed Buhari or later as president, publicly vowed to be in lockstep with his predecessor in the administration of the country.

In October 2022, while campaigning as the presidential candidate of their party at the 3rd Ministerial Performance Review Retreat in Abuja, Tinubu promised to continue Buhari’s projects and governance reforms if elected. In December 2024, on Buhari’s 82nd birthday, Tinubu, as president, penned a personal tribute, reaffirming that his administration would continue building on the infrastructure and developmental foundation laid by Buhari. In December 2025, at the State House Conference Centre during the public presentation of the book “From Soldier to Statesman – The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari” by Dr Charles Omole, Tinubu stated that honouring the former president meant sustaining his ideals of discipline, integrity, and public trust.

Even as recently as April this year, the President, while defending his administration’s trajectory, claimed his government represents a continued vision of the APC’s foundational goals, started by Buhari!

Alas, the seemingly solemn vows turned out to be what the street would capture as sakamanje (trickery). That viral online evangelist with a talking drum would say “lori iro” (unadulterated lie). Asiwaju was clear about the path his presidency would chart, and it wasn’t anything like Buhari’s. So, if the President received a wonky nation from his party man whom he helped to power in 2015 and the incumbent didn’t want to continue on the destructive path that offered no hope for tomorrow, a rebuild or, at least, a reset, was certainly inevitable.

And that is where I will start with the biblical analogy employed by the President in justifying the stoppage of the subsidy, which in the actual sense, was by Buhari in his very last budget as president, before whatever hurrying spirit moved the heart of the new man on his first day on the job to jump the June gun and become too impatient to wait just 32 days for the Buhari subsidy stoppage to naturally kick in. Now, practically nobody remembers the Buhari part in the ever-festering subsidy trouble. The tears from homes with empty pantries now flow like a river to Asiwaju’s doorstep.

Reason one shouldn’t be a reckless hero.

The President demonstrated a poor knowledge of the liberation struggle of the children of Israel against the Egyptian tyranny by saying you can’t ask Moses to return to Egypt as a response to the clamour by his main rival for the presidency next year, Atiku Abubakar. Looks like the Nigerian leader isn’t big on any religion’s understanding, though that won’t make him unspiritual. People worship in different ways and worship different stuff.

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Mr President, Sir, Moses actually returned to Egypt from self-exile to lead his people to, at least, the wilderness. So, if the Nigerian leader believes his people were in bondage and slavery pre-subsidy removal, then his party man whom he helped elect twice would be the Pharaoh who didn’t know Joseph and who began oppressing the children of Israel, the kindred of Joseph who saved Egypt from famine that could have ended them.

So, if the President believed Nigeria needed saving and he was/is the chosen Moses to emancipate it, then he would have to dismantle everything his predecessor left (like visiting the plagues of justice on the Buhari administration’s top state and non-state actors) to make the freedom rounded, and not simply focus on making more money for government from the same people he confessed his party man and political “friend” already traumatised and emasculated.

When the children of Israel were emptying out of Egypt, God saw to it that all their years of labour were requited them as they left the land of bondage in abundance. So why is ours different under this latter-day Moses? So why is the President allowing those who plundered Nigeria, especially the subsidy thieves under Buhari, to go scot-free? So why is nobody really and truly answering for the billions of dollars allegedly looted in the numerous scams and scandals trailing the subsidy claims and payments? Is it because the same people fund electoral contests for major players and parties?

Is it not the one who ate gbi (the Yoruba onomatopoeic way of describing participating in illegality or criminality) that should die the same way?

Different legislative probes and oversights indicted numerous players in the oil sector. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission claims from time to time to be prosecuting so-called subsidy thieves, claiming huge fund recoveries. Where is the money? Why were the recovered looted funds not reinvested into a well-monitored subsidy arrangement under this administration as Atiku Abubakar is suggesting now?

It was the Egyptians who lost out when the moment of liberty came. Why does it look like it’s Nigerians, cast now by the President as the favoured children of God being rescued from captivity, who seem to be losing out big time?

Since the President would really want to be the Moses of our time who divinely rescued a nation, let’s take it his analogy was about the exodus, which is the movement from Egypt, the land of bondage, to Canaan, the Promised Land.

One, Moses didn’t make it to the Promised Land. His foible saw to that. May that not be the President’s portion.

Two, the journey to the Promised Land from Egypt that should take 11 days, took 40 years, and even if one agrees with the President that the exodus to Canaan had begun for Nigerians, where we are now, in the last three years, bears all verisimilitude to the Wilderness.

For emphasis, Israel spending four decades in the wilderness wasn’t entirely Moses’s fault. The people were stiff-necked, the same way nonsensical reasonings dictate voting decisions and other courses Nigerians take in the name of race, region and religion.

About Moses as a person not wanting a return to Egypt after the exodus began, Mr President was correct. But planning to return is about a nation, a people who relapsed into a longing for a past they thought was better. That is the same reason Nigerians are now listening to Atiku Abubakar, who can be said to be promising a forward march to yesterday.

Yes, God was angry with the Israelites for desiring Egypt again and her fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic, but it would be wrong for the President to assume that Nigerians desiring a return to a well-monitored, fraud-free subsidy (including this writer) are incurring the wrath of God.

Nah, far from it.

One, the children of Israel might be in the wilderness, but there was manna. Their provisions were met, only that they were covetous. There were no constant country-wide cries of ebi n pawa (we are hungry) like we have in Nigeria today. Moses wasn’t providing delinquent leadership even in the face of constant provocation by the led. The people were just blatantly ungrateful and found it difficult to cast off a slavery mentality.

In Nigeria’s current situation, the cries are about real hunger, not indulgences like not having onions. Nigerians can only be deemed ungrateful if they are living above the poverty baseline and now looking for what the Yoruba would call bekun bekun (over-pampering). Right now, they just want the affordability/cost-of-living crisis ameliorated. That can’t be too much to ask.

As for Atiku calling the President Pharaoh, I doubt it. Nigerians can only be held for as long as they want to. This is another election cycle, and if people are determined to free themselves from mental slavery, no earthly force will stop them.

If the President says he is on the path of leading Nigerians to the Promised Land, I feel he should be given the opportunity to explain what the movement from the wilderness where we currently are, to the land flowing with milk and honey, would look like. Unfortunately, he says he isn’t really in a talking mood.

As our modern-day Moses, he would have to reconsider shutting two-thirds of the country out of his ‘Assurance’ tour for mandate revalidation. The biblical Moses constantly engaged with his people even when his leadership was constantly challenged.

But unfortunately, all his efforts, by human projection, ended in vain. He didn’t make the Promised Land. That is why I don’t want the President being Moses. The exodus/emancipation story is much more than just Moses not turning back. The next time the handlers of Mr President are considering biblical analogies to drive home his policies, they should consider the whole story and choose characters wisely.

Well, ending on a cheering note, Moses still ended well in a way, because God didn’t allow the devil ultimately to have him. His main problem was anger. May Mr President end well.