So the President lost weight, too?
On Sunday, May 24, the All Progressives Congress handed President Bola Tinubu its 2027 presidential ticket. He had just beaten his sole challenger by nearly 11 million votes.
Moments later, likely riding on the high, he confessed that he had lost some weight since assuming office three years ago.
However, this weight loss was not by design but by hardship. I would say “vicarious hardship.” Having thrown millions of Nigerians into labour pains, he attempted to offer a sense of solidarity.
To say he shared in the compulsory post-subsidy weight-loss programme and sleepless nights his reforms had imposed on millions.
Tinubu said, “I know what it takes to reform this nation we met in tatters. If you lost sleep, I’ve lost some too. If you’ve lost weight, I’ve lost some too. But I’ve always remembered one thing: in 2022, I asked for this job. You all supported me, and I got it. So, I must do it.
“That is like raising your shirt to reveal your belly and saying, ‘I feel your pain, and I have the waistline to prove it.”
Now, looking at the President’s physique, imagining him ever needing to lose weight on purpose is like trying to picture a pink elephant.
Contrast that with the acclaimed leader of the free world, who is being advised to slim down. Two days after Tinubu’s comments, his American counterpart, President Donald Trump, underwent his routine physical examination, during which the doctor said the nearly 80-year-old was in “excellent health” but should lose weight.
Trump’s doctor, US Navy Captain Sean Barbabella, worded it this way: “Preventive counselling was provided, including guidance on diet, recommendation to take a low-dose aspirin, increased physical activity, and continued weight loss.”
In Tinubu’s case, weight loss only makes sense if there was weight to lose in the first place. And, arguably, losing weight is the most honest summary of the past three years for Nigeria’s hardest-hit citizens.
But whatever else one thinks about this President, he has a knack for making his mark on everything he touches. He leaves marks that can be good, not-so-good, or genuinely weird. And he does it in a manner that guarantees the history books will remember him.
Think with me. On his very first day, before he had even stepped into the Villa, he declared that “subsidy is gone.” Those three words threw the nation into panic and would later rewire the economy. Killing a decades-old petrol subsidy with a sentence was jarring enough. Yet, he also unified the exchange rate that had, for years, been the playground of arbitrageurs.
If we had all day, I would dwell on the arbitrage part. But we don’t. Because while Nigerians were still reworking their budgets to survive Tinubunomics, the President waxed nostalgic. Likely missing his school days as a boy, he reached back into the past and resurrected the “Nigeria We Hail Thee” anthem. With almost no time to think it over, a whole generation of Nigerians went back to learning a song that only their parents knew.
He remains the only President to change the country’s anthem since 1978. And this was only one year into office.
If we had all the time, I would describe the chaos the anthem change caused in schools nationwide the next day. But we don’t. Because while Nigerians were still learning the new song, Tinubu assembled a 48-member cabinet, arguably the largest in our history, and dared anyone to call it excess.
Then came new ministries such as the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy and the Ministry of Livestock Development, as though Buhari’s cows had filed a petition.
What followed were some of the most random meetings of the Federal Executive Council. Where Buhari would hold FEC meetings at 10 a.m. on Wednesdays, Tinubu convenes his cabinet “as the spirit leads.” First, it was Mondays. Then, as necessity demanded, it became every other day, except Saturdays and Sundays, for now.
On a normal week, I would tell you how Tinubu’s late-night meetings became disorienting for many journalists covering the seat of power. But this is an anniversary piece. So, let’s keep it holy.
Then came the most sweeping rewrite of Nigeria’s tax code in living memory.
He changed the vital VAT arrangement and scrapped the Federal Inland Revenue Service in favour of a brand-new Nigeria Revenue Service.
He told Nigerians that the old laws had made them poor, a curious thing to say about laws a previous government he helped install had upheld for nearly a decade.
It is like speaking through one set of lips today and another tomorrow. But again, let’s not make too much noise at the party. Shhh… the President is celebrating his third anniversary.
Speaking of different lips, one cannot ignore those I once called “Tinubu’s army of town criers.” For the first time in our history, one President speaks through three official mouths: Messrs Bayo Onanuga, Sunday Dare and Daniel Bwala.
It is a trinity that either signals Tinubu has so much worth talking about or simply a need to make enough noise to drown out criticism.
And beyond the three musketeers, he keeps a harem of about 12 media officials, by far the largest assembly of media aides.
How about the staggering 1,062 national honours he dispensed in just three years? It is more than Buhari managed in eight years. It also surpasses the honours conferred by Presidents Jonathan, Yar’Adua and Obasanjo combined.
And he is only three years in. Then there is the screening waiver that merely continued an APC tradition for incumbents seeking a second term.
Of course, let’s not forget the appointment of Mr Ayodele Olawande to his cabinet at age 34, making him the youngest cabinet member in the Fourth Republic.
Tinubu’s initial cabinet in 2023 was composed of several thirty-somethings. Then he made the 39-year-old professor the youngest-ever registrar of JAMB.
Time would fail me to talk about the student loan scheme, the Renewed Hope housing programme, and how Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima spent 344 days, just three weeks shy of a year, travelling abroad since assuming office.
Some of these firsts will age into legacy. Others will age into cautionary footnotes for his successors. But that is not for me to decide, any more than it is for me to work out how much weight the President lost in these three years.
Having told us about his weight loss, though, I believe it is only fair that he now tells us how much he weighs. Much like an asset declaration, but for weight this time.