In future, how will history also remember President Bola Tinubu among world leaders? The answer lies in how far his policies will positively affect the greatest number.
Ademola Adegbamigbe
Every country, at some point in history, has had leaders who knew what to do at the right time to make their countries great. That is why President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who clocked two years in office on 29 May 2025, believes strongly -and he works feverishly at it- that he carries a historical assignment. He believes that by the time he completes his ‘tour of duty,’ his name will be etched among the pantheon of great world leaders whose tenures conformed to John Stuart Mill’s philosophy, particularly Utilitarianism, which revolves around the idea of maximising the “greatest good for the greatest number”.
Examples of such countries abound, but a few will suffice here. The history of Turkey in Anatolia or Asia Minor has never ceased to amaze historians. It is a country almost turned into a yo-yo among conquering empires and major world regions until the coming of Mustapha Kamal Atatürk.
Among the earlier empires that ruled the region was Persia. After the murder of Julius Caesar and his areas of control splintered, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire ruled over the country with its capital in Constantinople, now Istanbul. It was then a Christian country containing all seven churches in Asia (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicia) mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. It was a time when a church, the Hagia Sophia, was built. When the Ottoman Empire took charge and introduced Islam, it turned the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Turkey was in this political and religious topsy-turvy leading to World War 1 when Atatürk came and transformed the country into a modern, secular and industrialised state. Apart from promoting and initiating policies that made the real sector thrive, he introduced reforms in education, law, and politics. Above all, it was to Atatürk’s credit that a democratic system developed firm roots in that country.
Let us take a look at Singapore, a low-income country with more than two-thirds of the population living in slums and overcrowded conditions after independence from Malaysia in 1965 and focus on Lee Kuan Yew, who ruled the country from 1959 to 1990. The magic of Yew was that he implemented strict, long-term economic and social policies to move his country from a third to a first-world country.
In the United states, during the Great Depression, caused by, among many factors, the stock market crash of 1929, banking panics, the gold standard, a decrease in international lending and tariffs and drought that lasted throughout the 1930s, the country was lucky to have Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR’s, for style) who gave the lack luster Herbert Hoover the drubbing, to become the 32nd President.
As the new helmsman, FDR introduced the New Deal programs, which helped the United States recover from the Great Depression by introducing policies that promoted economic growth, job creation, and social welfare, “shaping America’s economic and social landscape.” As published in Carol Berkin’s Making America, Volume 2: A History of the United States: Since 1865, pages 629–632, “During Roosevelt’s first hundred days in office in 1933 until 1935, he introduced what historians refer to as the ‘First New Deal’, which focused on the ‘3 R’s’: relief for the unemployed and the poor, recovery of the economy back to normal levels, and reforms of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression.” With these, the US bounced back.
Before the coming of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, China’s economy suffered due to what experts called centrally planned policies, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, resulting in stagnation, inefficiency, and poverty.” Before the reforms, the Chinese economy was dominated by state ownership and central planning. However, Xiaoping came in the late 1970s, he introduced economic reforms that shifted China from a planned to a market-oriented economy, thus making possible foreign investment, innovation, entrepreneurship, massive employment and an improvement in the people’s social development index.
Although Obafemi Awolowo did not rule Nigeria as President, he made a big difference in his corner of the world, the old Western Region, where he was Premier. His free education Program catapulted the region to one of the best educated in Nigeria; his agric policy created wealth for the people and government; his other feats of first made the region a big benchmark for others. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela, who suffered imprisonment for 27 years, came out to become the first black President who, apart from healing the nation’s primordial cleavages, promoted economic growth, land reform, and social welfare.
Virtues That Keep Tinubu Going
Certain traits set President Tinubu apart from the pack. One of these is that he is bold in making decisions which may seem unpopular (and will attract flak) but will achieve results.
As a man who makes bold decisions to tackle serious problems, President Tinubu is like how Hercules, in Greek mythology, cleansed up the dirty stable where their king kept his over 1,000 horses, sheep and cows. For over 30 years, the house was left in a dirty condition as maggots, microbes, rats, and cockroaches did their acrobatics there! Worse still, Tinubu shared with Hercules the same treatment by enemies over the big task ahead: hatred, cynicism, evil plots, derision, planting of landmines on the way or a combination of all.
To clean up a bad system does not require the application of brawn but brain. Tinubu and Hercules also share this in common. The latter was a powerful legend, a gift that attracted enemies the way nectar would a swarm of bees. King Augeas and Hercules’ enemies wanted him to clean up the stable in one day! They wondered how he could clean up the accumulation of over three decades of excrement and effluvium with his big biceps, tendons, and heavy bones. They waited. The minutes ticked into hours. But Hercules surprised them, a development that showed that the application of intelligence is greater than a pig-headed or nose-thumping show of force. What did he do? He drilled holes in the walls of the stable, not minding the olfactory-wrenching stench emanating from the place. He then rerouted two rivers, Alpheus and Peneus, into the facility. The heavy jet of water cleaned up the place in a few hours. It was like when Cameroon released the waters from its Lagdo Dam, swelling up Nigeria’s River Benue!
Before the coming of Tinubu, the financial and oil (importation) sector in Nigeria was a cesspool of skulduggery. Carpetbaggers were in charge, cheating, creating monopolies, ceaselessly profiteering, and, most disastrously, cutting corners here and there so much that when the nation’s kitty bled, because they deepened their hands in our commonwealth, the scoundrels were smiling from ear to ear to their banks. The government decided that the situation could not continue like that.
Like the way Hercules rerouted two rivers to clear the stable, Tinubu, from the get-go, came with two shock therapies: removal of fuel subsidy and harmonisation of the foreign exchange markets. In its recent editorial, here is how the Financial Times put it: “On day one, Tinubu removed a ruinously expensive fuel subsidy. More important still, the central bank has restored monetary policy orthodoxy after a shambolic era in which only cronies with access to cheap dollars benefited. After a dangerous overshoot, the naira has stabilised, with the gap between the official and black market rate shrinking to almost nothing. The central bank has stopped printing money to pay for government profligacy.”
In two years, President Tinubu has covered a lot of ground in the following areas: Removal of subsidy, floating of the Naira, introduction of NELFund students loan, Credicorp (credit facilities for workers), LG autonomy, rail/road Infrastructure, youths empowerment (3 MTT, Skilledup Artisan, etc) and introduction of CNG to cut fuel prices by 80%.
The Tinubu government has also doubled money disbursed by the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), increased oil production, initiated tax reform, contactless government services, eliminated ASUU strike, increase minimum wage, reduce debt ratio from 97% to 62%, stopped ways and means, approved 22 Federal Universities, increase pensioners’ monthly payments, engaged in massive IT fibrotic infrastructure for rural inclusivity, provided better welfare to Nigerian security agencies, brought better agricultural practice, eliminated price control using market, brough up free education for technical schools.
Apart from the integration of NIN across databases for easy synchronisation, the Tinubu government created Development Commissions for all six Geo-political Zones of Nigeria, initiated livelihood support for poor households, tax relief to the poor and minimum wage earners, and removed tariffs from essential goods and pharmaceuticals.
In the area of infrastructure, Tinubu, in two years, embarked on projects roads, bridges, railways, power, oil and gas developments. Among these, the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Sokoto-Badagry Highway projects stand out as signature projects.
If the government does not derail on all the above, there is no doubt that Tinubu will have a front-row seat among global leaders who, throughout history, have become positive reference points.