Oyewole O. Sarumi PhD
When Leadership Is Misread as Silence and Strategy Is Mistaken for Weakness
Nations do not merely suffer from poor leadership; they also suffer from poor understanding of leadership. One of the most damaging pathologies in fragile democracies is the inability to distinguish strategic restraint from indecision, institution-building from weakness, and long-term reform from short-term populism. This is the context in which President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) has governed Nigeria before and after the 2023 elections, in an environment saturated with malignment, misinformation, and politically motivated narratives that mistake noise for competence and theatre for leadership.
The assertion by Prof. Sandra Duru, “The lies not told against Tinubu are only those the losers have not yet manufactured, for when facts fail, fabrication becomes their refuge”, is not mere rhetoric. It reflects a recurring historical pattern: transformational leaders are often resisted not because they fail, but because they disrupt entrenched interests. From Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, to Deng Xiaoping in China, to Paul Kagame in Rwanda, the common denominator is not applause at the moment of reform, but resistance, distortion, and delegitimisation while reforms are underway.
This rejoinder advances a central argument: Bola Ahmed Tinubu represents a model of strategic leadership that Nigeria has failed to intellectually domesticate. Consequently, his methods are misread, his patience is caricatured, and his long-game governance style is interpreted through the shallow lens of performative politics which has been our babe since independence. Nigeria is not merely debating policies; it is struggling to comprehend power, strategy, and statecraft in complex societies. Even, those who are well read are lilliputians when it comes contextualising the intent strategic leadership in any transformational agenda.
“History Rewards Those Who Learn Before They Lead”: PBAT as a Product of Institutional Memory, Not Accidental Power
The phrase “History rewards those who learn before they lead” is the philosophical core of Tinubu’s political method. PBAT is not an accidental leader. He is a product of decades of apprenticeship in power, governance networks, negotiation platforms, and political institution-building. Unlike leaders who arrive in office propelled by populist sentiment or emotional waves, Tinubu’s political evolution reflects:
- Long exposure to democratic institution-building, particularly in the post-military transition era.
- Strategic cultivation of elite consensus, party machinery, and political ecosystems.
- Deep familiarity with statecraft, compromise, and coalition management, the real currency of governance in fragmented polities.
Leadership scholars consistently show that leaders with strong institutional memory outperform those driven by charisma alone. Institutional memory allows leaders to understand not just what must be done, but what has failed before, why it failed, and how power structures respond to reform. This explains why Tinubu’s leadership is not reactive, emotional, or performative. It is calculated, phased, and often counter-intuitive to populist instincts.
Nigeria’s tragedy is that its public discourse celebrates loud conviction over quiet competence. Tinubu’s leadership style clashes with this culture. Yet history suggests that nations rise through leaders who think in systems, not slogans.
The Strategic Silence of Power: Why Tinubu Governs Through Quiet Authority Rather Than Performative Politics
In fragile democracies, leaders are often pressured to govern through theatrics: constant media appearances, rhetorical grandstanding, and symbolic gestures designed to satisfy the news cycle rather than build institutions. I think that Tinubu’s style rejects this tradition. As one must have observed, his authority is quiet, patient, and precise, aligning with what political theorists call “strategic restraint in executive leadership.”
This approach rests on three principles:
- Power is more effective when it is not constantly announced.
- Negotiation is weakened when leaders personalise conflict.
- Institutional reform requires insulation from populist emotional cycles.
When you consider the above, it’s clear why Tinubu’s critics often misinterpret this restraint as aloofness or detachment. However, in comparative political studies, leaders who survive intense political opposition while implementing painful reforms tend to share this trait: they depersonalise hostility and personalise outcomes. In other words, they absorb attacks while keeping institutions moving.
This is why malignment thrives around Tinubu:
- He does not offer emotional spectacle for easy political consumption.
- He does not engage opponents on the terrain of insults or performative outrage, except for some excessses of his media handlers.
- He focuses on processes, not optics.
In political psychology, this frustrates adversaries. When leaders do not mirror emotional attacks, opponents escalate misinformation. Hence Prof. Duru’s insight: “fabrication becomes refuge when facts fail.”
“Every Untold Lie Is Still Pending”: The Political Economy of Malignment and the Industry of Delegitimisation
In our present political space, Tinubu is not merely criticised; he is systematically maligned. This is not unique to Nigeria. Comparative political history shows that leaders who attempt to restructure economic rents, political privileges, or patronage networks attract an organised ecosystem of delegitimisation. This ecosystem includes:
- Politically aligned media platforms.
- Digitally mobilised outrage economies on social media.
- Opinion entrepreneurs who profit from moral panic.
- Displaced elites whose influence is threatened by reform.
The intensity of the attacks on Tinubu before and after 2023 must be understood in this context. Nigeria’s political economy has long thrived on arbitrage, subsidy rent-seeking, opaque FX regimes, and fiscal leakages. Leaders who disrupt these structures inevitably confront a coalition of the wounded and the displaced whose cyanide is all over Twitter and wherever they can vituperate their exasperation with him and the system in the offing.
This explains the paradox:
- Reforms that attract international validation provoke domestic hostility.
- Policies praised by development economists are framed locally as betrayal, but when otherwise, it is echo beyond the wall of the galaxies.
Let me state that this tension is not ideological; it is material, because reform redistributes power. Those losing privilege weaponise narrative. This is why Tinubu’s leadership is a case study in navigating reform under delegitimisation pressure, a competence Nigeria has never institutionalised in leadership training. We all can’t forget the well orchestrated political agenda campaign against the tax reforms laws with deployment of arsenals and misdiles from all angles to kill this great reform policy.
Transnational Power Literacy: Why Tinubu’s Diplomatic Competence Confounds His Critics
I will like to from afar rightly emphasise Tinubu’s fluency in global power, capital, and alliance-building. This is a rare asset in Nigerian leadership. Many African leaders approach diplomacy as ceremony rather than strategic negotiation within global power hierarchies.
Tinubu’s transnational exposure, particularly across Nigerian and American power spheres, has cultivated what may be termed “power literacy”:
- Understanding how global capital flows are structured.
- Recognising how geopolitical alliances shape domestic fiscal space.
- Navigating development finance without surrendering sovereignty.
Leaders with power literacy do not mistake visibility for influence. They prioritise access to decision-making corridors, not applause at home. This is why Tinubu’s diplomatic engagements are often misunderstood locally: Nigerians expect performative patriotism; but the reality is that global governance rewards strategic positioning.
Nigeria’s global positioning under Tinubu has also evolved significantly. A notable milestone is the announcement that President Tinubu will undertake a state visit to the United Kingdom, the first by a Nigerian leader in nearly 40 years, on 18–19 March 2026, hosted by King Charles III.
State visits of this nature are not ceremonial; they signal institutional trust and strategic partnership on the world stage. Hosting Nigeria at Windsor Castle alongside other major world leaders demonstrates a recognition of Nigeria’s geopolitical importance and the credibility placed in its leadership and reform agenda. It symbolises something deeper than ceremony: Nigeria’s repositioning as a credible interlocutor in high-level state diplomacy after years of reputational erosion. Such invitations are signals of institutional trust, not personal affection.
Diplomatic engagement, when structured around economic cooperation rather than symbolic theatre, can mobilise foreign investment, secure strategic partnerships, and elevate a nation’s voice in global governance arenas.
Leadership Without Noise: Why Strategic Governance Offends Performative Political Culture
The phrase “Leadership at this level demands competence, not noise” is a profound indictment of Nigeria’s political culture. Nigerian politics has historically rewarded:
- Loud defiance over institutional discipline.
- Moral posturing over policy coherence.
- Emotional mobilisation over technical competence.
May I submit that Tinubu’s governance style subverts this culture. He does not campaign in office as he governs. He does not moralise every policy; he structures outcomes. This inevitably creates cognitive dissonance in a polity accustomed to leaders who speak more than they build.
In governance theory, this is known as the competence paradox: The more technically competent a leader becomes, the less emotionally legible they appear to populist audiences.
This is why Tinubu is not celebrated in real time. From yearscof experience studying strategic leaders, they are rarely loved while governing. They are understood after consequences mature and even when they have left office.
Why “Tinubunomics” Should Be Institutionalised: Studying Power, Reform, and Governance Under Hostility
After studying PBAT for almost a decade and three years in the saddle as a strategic leader, I have a proposition that “Tinubunomics” should become a course of study, and this is intellectually defensible. Let me clear, this is not as propaganda, but as case-based leadership education. (we already putting an academic paper together in our institution) Nigeria’s institutions fail to teach:
- How leaders govern under delegitimisation.
- How reforms survive hostile media ecosystems.
- How political coalitions are built in fragmented societies.
- How long-term state-building differs from electoral popularity.
A serious curriculum on Tinubu’s leadership would examine:
- Leadership Under Systemic Distrust and orchestrated hostility.
- Reform Politics in Rent-Seeking Economies
- Strategic Patience as Governance Competence
- Coalition-Building in Ethno-Political Pluralism
- Transnational Diplomacy and Domestic Legitimacy
Please note thst this would not canonise Tinubu as infallible. Rather, it would equip future leaders with literacy in power, resistance, and institutional reform. Nigeria’s leadership crisis is not about lack of passion; it is about lack of strategic training in governance under complexity.
Nigeria’s Crisis Is Not Merely Leadership Failure, But Leadership Illiteracy
As I conclude, let me emphasise that the tragedy of Nigeria’s political discourse is not that leaders are imperfect; all leaders are. It is that the nation lacks the intellectual architecture to understand leadership when it is strategic rather than performative. Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s presidency exposes this deficit brutally.
He is maligned not simply because he is flawed, (and is not flawed among the opposition), but because he governs in a way Nigeria has not learned to read. He operates through institutional memory, strategic silence, coalition management, and transnational power literacy, all competencies that thrive quietly and mature slowly.
History indeed rewards those who learn before they lead. But societies must also learn before they judge leadership. Until Nigeria develops the intellectual discipline to study power, reform, and institutional strategy, it will continue to punish competence for lacking theatrics.
Tinubu’s leadership is therefore not merely political, it is pedagogical. It reveals what Nigeria does not yet know about how nations are rebuilt under hostility.
Oyewole Sarumi is a Professor of Strategic Leadership and Digital Transformation, and Faculty, ICLED Business School, Lekki and Prowess University, US, and writes from Lagos
