Tinubu And The Last Stand Against Nigeria’s Entrenched Order (Part 1)

Let us call it what it is: a last stand by beneficiaries of a broken system.

To understand the ferocity of the pushback, one must revisit history. Nigeria’s political elite have long treated power not as a democratic trust but as a guarded inheritance. The June 12 tragedy remains one of the most revealing case studies. Historical accounts from that era recount how, in the lead-up to the annulled 1993 election, warnings were allegedly conveyed to the military establishment under Ibrahim Babangida.

One such recollection references a caution attributed to the Sultan of Sokoto, deposed Ibrahim Dasuki —then a towering moral authority—warning against the emergence of a Yoruba presidency under MKO Abiola. The concern was not ideological, nor religious. It was structural. The fear was simple: once power shifted symbolically, it might permanently disrupt long-standing political hierarchies.

That moment exposed a truth many Nigerians have since learned the hard way—power blocs in Nigeria rarely surrender influence without resistance.

Today, the parallels are impossible to ignore.

In Tinubu, the old establishment sees a familiar threat in a new form: a Southern leader with deep political intelligence, independent networks, and an instinct for disruption. Unlike those who rose through elite endorsement or quiet consensus, Tinubu clawed his way through decades of opposition, persecution, and political isolation. He did not inherit a structure—he built one. He did not wait for acceptance—he forced relevance.

And now that he sits at the apex of power, he refuses to govern like a placeholder.

That is the real offence.

But the resistance is not driven by symbolism alone. It is powered by economics. For decades, Nigeria’s dysfunction was not accidental—it was profitable. Entire ecosystems of privilege were built around opacity: subsidy rackets, regulatory arbitrage, fiscal leakages, and institutional complacency. A system where chaos enriched the connected and punished the compliant.

Tinubu’s early reforms struck at the heart of that ecosystem.

The removal of fuel subsidy was not just a policy decision; it was a seismic rupture. It severed one of the most lucrative pipelines of elite rent extraction in Nigeria’s post-military history. The shockwaves were inevitable. Those who fed fat on systemic distortion suddenly found themselves displaced by reform.

Predictably, they did not retreat quietly.

Instead, the familiar playbook resurfaced. Coalitions of convenience began to emerge. Strange bedfellows discovered shared outrage. Media ecosystems amplified despair. Economic pain—real and undeniable—was weaponised into political ammunition. The goal was not reform of policy but reversal of power.

This is not dissent in its pure democratic form. It is resistance driven by displacement.

Nigeria has seen this movie before. Every attempt to recalibrate the nation’s political economy has triggered organised backlash. The strategy is always the same: personalise hardship, amplify anger, manufacture inevitability, and delegitimise authority until reform collapses under pressure.

But this moment is different.

For the first time in years, the presidency is occupied by a man many entrenched interests cannot summon into submission. Tinubu is not waiting for whispers from shadowy corridors. He is not calibrating governance to appease invisible veto holders. Whether one agrees with every policy or not, one reality is undeniable: this presidency is not choreographed by backroom consensus.

And that alone has rattled the foundations of Nigeria’s old order.

Let us be clear—no government is perfect. Tinubu’s administration is not beyond criticism, and the economic pains Nigerians face are real. But honesty demands that we separate discomfort from sabotage. Reform is rarely painless. Structural correction often arrives clothed in hardship. Nations do not reset decades of distortion without turbulence.

The real question Nigerians must confront is this: Are we witnessing policy failure—or elite resistance to lost privilege?

Because beneath the noise lies a deeper struggle: a contest between a Nigeria struggling to evolve and a Nigeria desperate to remain familiar to those who benefit from its dysfunction.

This is why the stakes are far higher than one presidency. What is unfolding is a defining confrontation between reform and regression. If the forces now circling succeed in breaking this presidency through orchestrated delegitimisation, the message will be unmistakable: no leader who dares disrupt entrenched privilege will survive.

And Nigeria will retreat once again into the suffocating comfort of recycled dysfunction.

This is the danger of the moment. Not merely political instability, but institutional cowardice—the silent surrender of reform to coordinated outrage.

Tinubu’s greatest test may not be policy execution but political endurance. Reformers in fragile democracies are rarely defeated by ideas; they are exhausted by resistance. The system fights back—not always with ballots, but with narratives, coalitions, and attrition.

Which is why this moment demands clarity from citizens.

Democracy is not sustained by elections alone. It survives on public discernment—the ability of citizens to distinguish between genuine accountability and weaponised discontent. Between organic dissent and elite orchestration. Between temporary pain and generational correction.

Nigeria stands at an inflection point.

We can either allow the old order to reassemble under the guise of rescue, or we can endure the discomfort that often precedes national recalibration. History teaches that transformative moments rarely announce themselves with comfort. They arrive noisy, contested, and polarising.

This is one of those moments.

And so, the question before Nigerians is no longer simply whether Tinubu succeeds or fails. The real question is whether the country has the courage to outgrow the very forces that have kept it perpetually on the brink of promise.

Because in the end, this is not merely a presidency under pressure. It is a system under interrogation.

History will remember whether Nigeria chose renewal—or retreated into the arms of the familiar.