At the Presidential Panel of the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali last week, President Bola Tinubu said something that, if he truly meant it, should keep any politician awake at night.
During the session, where Tinubu spoke alongside his Gabonese counterpart, Brice Nguema, the moderator, Zeinab Badawi, asked how African leaders could be persuaded to think beyond their borders.
Somewhere in his response, the President made a confession that very few African leaders ever make in public. If he does not provide an enabling environment for the youth, he said, they will vote him out.
Here is how he put it: “I am very optimistic. We have a very dynamic, youthful population. They are restless, very restless, and not ready to take excuses. I’m a politician. If I don’t get them ready for that, they’ll vote me out. A politician is a critical member of your society. He must listen to you, respond to you, and answer to the public.”
Let us hold those remarks up to the light. It is a remarkable thing for an incumbent to say a few years before an election. The President did not say the youth must be patient or continue enduring hardship. He said they could fire him, and that this was right and proper.
Tinubu cast himself not as the indispensable man, but as a hired hand whose contract is up for renewal. His employers are over 200 million Nigerians, most of them under 30. And by his own admission, they can decide not to renew his contract.
Listening to the session that Thursday evening, one could not help wondering whether this was reverse psychology at play. A president who admits his mandate is fragile adopts a posture of humility, and such humility strokes the ego of even the most hostile voter.
The response might have been very different had he climbed the stage to declare that no one could remove him, or that the youth were lazy.
That last possibility brings to mind another Nigerian president who travelled abroad and spoke about the same young people in a very different manner.
In 2018, also a pre-election year, President Muhammadu Buhari addressed the Commonwealth Business Forum in London. He told an international audience that many Nigerian youths had not been to school, yet wanted everything for free because Nigeria is an oil-producing country.
The exact phrase, “lazy Nigerian youth,” never appeared in the official transcript. But the country heard it that way. And it stuck like a stubborn stain for the rest of his tenure, even though, to the dismay of many youths, he won the 2019 election.
One president was scolding the youth. The other is daring them to sack him if he fails. Whatever else separates the two men, the tone, at least, has shifted.
Still, none of this means Tinubu is unsure of a second term. On the second day of the forum, he told his audience exactly what a second term would look like. Asked what he would prioritise if re-elected, he said, “Do more work. More challenges are there. The world won’t wait for anybody. You have to continue to reset and rethink.”
He described the hallmark of a transformative leader as “the ability to take decisions, do what you’ll do, at the time it has to be done, on behalf of the people.”
So, in the space of two days, the President said three things: he is accountable; he can be voted out; and he will work harder to make sure the second thing does not happen. Put together, that is either great confidence or reckless exposure. Time, as they say, will tell.
Speaking of time, the President spent much of last week travelling, advocating and, of course, meeting new and old friends like kindergartners in preschool.
In Nairobi, at the Africa Forward Summit co-hosted by Emmanuel Macron and William Ruto, he called for the reform of a global financial architecture he described, memorably, as “an instrument of industrial disarmament for Africa.”
The President offered Nigeria’s Deep Blue maritime infrastructure as a shared data hub for Gulf of Guinea states.
Tinubu also pointed out, with the weary air of a man ignored by waiters at a feast while holding up an empty plate, that Nigeria would spend $11.6bn on debt servicing in 2026, nearly half of its projected revenue.
Then he asked: “ How is an African manufacturer expected to compete when borrowing costs are five to 10 times higher than those of his European rival?
Tinubu also welcomed the 10th France-Nigeria Business Council meeting, with bilateral trade now standing at $4.7bn.
From there, he flew to Kigali, where he met the slender President Paul Kagame, agreed to revive the dormant Joint Permanent Ministerial Commission, and hinted at reciprocating Rwanda’s 30-day visa-free policy for Nigerians.
But something felt strange about the photographs of Tinubu’s arrival in Rwanda. The background had been so heavily edited out that the President and the officials on the receiving line appeared to be floating in a white void, the kind of weightless, heavenly nothingness often seen on “Gone Too Soon” obituary posters.
After the meetings came the promises. The IFC promised a mission on livestock, energy and housing. APM Terminals pledged $600m for Apapa.
The OECD offered support with reform data. And somewhere in between, Tinubu told Nigerians in Rwanda that “our reforms are working, and the economy is bright and stable.”
It was, by any measure, a week of summitry.
Now the President is back to the reality he left behind. His first 24 hours at home, however, yielded some good news.
United States President Donald Trump announced a joint operation with the Nigerian Armed Forces that eliminated a top ISIS leader, Abu-Bilal al-Manuki.
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