Tinubu’s Imperial Drift and the Gathering Storm Over Nigeria’s Democracy – By Dare Adeleke

It is no exaggeration to argue that, at this moment, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu represents the most potent threat to Nigeria’s fragile democracy.

Elected as a democratic leader, Tinubu increasingly conducts himself not as a president bound by constitutional restraint, but as an emperor presiding over a pliant court. His recent claim that he is “not the problem of the opposition” was met with disbelief. The assertion would be amusing were its implications not so grave. Across the country, even political novices understand the long-standing tactics of divide, infiltrate and destabilise – strategies that have defined Tinubu’s political ascendancy and now appear weaponised at the national level.

The president’s grip extends beyond the opposition. Within the ruling APC, power is centralised to a suffocating degree. Decision-making radiates from the presidency; dissent is muted. Nigeria increasingly resembles a system where authority flows downward from a single source, rather than upward from the electorate.

His frequent foreign trips – often to countries with limited diplomatic consequence to Nigeria – are undertaken with minimal transparency or public accountability. Yet, in scenes reminiscent of Africa’s long-buried authoritarian past, governors, ministers, and agency heads abandon pressing state duties to line airport tarmacs, queuing for a presidential handshake. The spectacle is demeaning. It diminishes both the offices they hold and the republic they serve.

Nigeria, once proud of its democratic resilience, is again being caricatured as a banana republic – a nation where power is personalised and institutions bend to the will of one man. Tinubu’s defenders hail him as a master strategist. His critics see something more troubling; a leader increasingly consumed by a god complex, mistaking political calculation for democratic legitimacy.

For Tinubu to dismiss accusations of destabilising rival parties suggests either supreme confidence that he is untouchable, or a troubling underestimation of the Nigerian electorate.

It is widely perceived that the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, operates as the administration’s political enforcer. The ‘Malamugu’ of Tinubu’s administration. History offers cautionary parallels – strongmen rarely soil their own hands. Allegations abound that through political proxies, opposition parties are fractured, police powers are selectively deployed, and judicial processes are pressured. The recent controversies surrounding local council elections in Abuja, alongside disputed court interventions in party affairs, have only intensified these suspicions.

When Supreme Court pronouncements appear disregarded and internal party matters are subjected to judicial interference, questions naturally arise about the health of institutional independence. Courts are meant to be guardians of constitutional order, not instruments in partisan chess games.

The crisis within the PDP, many argue, deepened after resistance to pressures to align with Tinubu’s political calculations. Party conventions and stakeholder decisions have been challenged in court in ways critics view as inconsistent with established jurisprudence that limits judicial intrusion into party structures. Whether coincidence or design, the optics are corrosive.

In Rivers State, political realignments and unexpected alliances – including flirtations with alternative platforms such as the SDP – have fuelled speculation about broader strategies aimed at neutralising opposition strongholds. Yesterday’s adversaries have become today’s tactical partners, reinforcing the perception of politics devoid of principle and driven solely by survival.

Even the Labour Party’s internal turbulence and INEC’s controversial recognition of factions have fed suspicions of orchestration beyond party walls. The timing of discussions around deregistration of political parties, with 2027 approaching, further deepens anxiety. In a democracy, electoral competition should expand choices; not narrow them.

A nation’s strength lies not in the might of its president but in the independence of its institutions. If the judiciary, the electoral commission, and security agencies are perceived as compromised, then Nigeria faces more than partisan disagreement – it confronts a democratic emergency.

Tinubu may believe his manoeuvres are subtle. Nigerians are not so naive. The perception of a do-or-die ambition for 2027, coupled with widespread dissatisfaction over governance, creates a combustible mix. Power consolidated too tightly has a way of slipping through clenched fists.

Democracy is not destroyed in a single dramatic act. It erodes slowly, steadily, under the weight of unchecked ambition and weakened institutions.

The president would do well to remember that no strategist, however shrewd, outruns the verdict of history.

Dare Adeleke writes from Ibadan.