As Tinubu Continues to Throw Buhari Under the Bus,
By SKC Ogbonnia.
September 29, 2026
The Nigerian electorate is frequently dismissed as gullible, but President Tinubu’s blatant exploitation of this vulnerability represents an unprecedented level of impunity. What we are witnessing in real time is the greatest political bait-and-switch in modern Nigerian history.
During the grueling 2023 presidential campaign, Bola Ahmed Tinubu stood shoulder-to-shoulder with President Muhammadu Buhari, aggressively selling a narrative of seamless continuity. He showered praise on his predecessor. The sensation was palpable. It was a classic political ideophilia, a political limerence—an ideological infatuation where Tinubu appeared to blend romanticized passion with Buhari’s political beliefs and visions. On one occasion, Tinubu declared that “Buhari is me; he was my partner.” He confidently promised to erect a monument of prosperity on the foundation laid by the outgoing general.
But fast-forward past the inauguration! That carefully manufactured ocean of brotherhood and love has profoundly evaporated—left completely dry. The brother has become the executioner, and the love has turned to venom. Yet, this is completely understandable.
Trapped in a corner by a raging economic firestorm, President Tinubu chose an easy route: just throw Buhari under the bus. His regime has conveniently sacrificed his predecessor’s legacy in a desperate bid for political survival.
This sudden pivot from worship to warfare is a masterclass in political Machiavellianism. For months, Tinubu’s campaign machinery weaponized Buhari’s record to secure the APC apparatus and lock down vital northern votes. The message then was clear: the foundation was solid. Yet, the moment the keys to Aso Rock changed hands, the script was violently shredded.
But blame Buhari all he wants, the problem squarely lies in Tinubu’s hands. It was Tinubu, not Buhari, who removed the fuel subsidy and floated the naira in a manner that triggered record-shattering inflation and the worst economic mess in recent Nigerian history. The glowing Buhari legacy that Tinubu promised to protect was rebranded overnight as a toxic wasteland of “inherited liabilities,” a “near-insolvent” treasury, and economic ruins.
A convenient narrative has taken root. Tinubu’s loyalists quickly joined the demolition derby, tearing down Buhari’s reputation with shocking public bluntness. High-profile figures dropped all pretense of party solidarity to insulate Tinubu from the public’s rage. Former Central Bank Governor Charles Soludo, a former economic adviser to that same Buhari administration, went on national television to declare that Tinubu did not just inherit a bad economy, but a “macro-economically dead economy.” He described it as a decaying carcass artificially propped up to look alive. Senate President Godswill Akpabio openly claimed the nation’s finances were left in unmitigated shambles. Senator Adams Oshiomhole, a former APC party chairman under Buhari, followed suit by hammering the past administration for reckless financial mismanagement that left the country on life support. There were many more.
By systematically throwing Buhari under the bus, the Tinubu presidency is trying to execute a high-stakes blame-shifting maneuver. The strategy is obvious: reframe the crushing economic hardship endured by everyday citizens not as a failure of current leadership, but as the inevitable agony of major surgery on a terminal patient.
The next level has become to promote the narrative that Tinubu is merely a courageous leader dealing with a hidden financial time bomb—a disaster characterized by a depleted foreign reserve and trillions of Naira secretly printed via controversial “Ways and Means” central bank loans.
From this perspective, public betrayal is framed as unavoidable transparency. However, this aggressive blame game has backfired, sparking intense public cynicism and outrage. Critics and everyday Nigerians see through the theater. They see a damning, inescapable hypocrisy. If the economy was truly a “dead horse,” how did a political titan like Tinubu, with his army of economic strategists, fail to notice it during a year-long campaign? Why and how?
The public is left with a disturbing conclusion: either Tinubu failed to do the most basic fiscal due diligence before making his grand promises, or he knowingly sold the nation a lie just to seize power.
Ultimately, watching the current regime routinely cannibalize the legacy of its own party predecessor exposes the raw, unforgiving nature of Nigerian power politics. While throwing Buhari under the bus might buy the Tinubu administration some temporary political cover, a starving and exhausted population cannot eat excuses.
But President Bola Tinubu knows how Nigerian politics works. He has known from the onset that it comes down to a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. Yet, he wants to make the best of both choices. He wants to eat his cake and still have it. We are talking about the Northern vote.
In a calculated move to curry favor with the powerful Northern voting bloc, Tinubu himself continuously paints an outward picture of an unbreakable, lifetime partnership with his predecessor, framing his administration as a respectful continuation of Buhari’s legacy. Yet, in a glaring political contradiction, he stands idly by while his closest loyalists, spokesmen, allied socio-political groups, and key economic figures aggressively blame the Buhari administration for wrecking the nation’s systems and leaving behind a socioeconomic mess. Furthermore, under President Bola Tinubu’s administration, several close associates of former President Muhammadu Buhari—including individuals who actively helped facilitate Tinubu’s rise to power—have faced targeted and severe witch-hunt. By maintaining this dual narrative, Tinubu seeks to inherit Buhari’s formidable Northern popularity while simultaneously using him as a political shield to deflect public outrage over skyrocketing inflation and harsh economic reforms.
Be that as it may, as the “Renewed Hope” agenda continues to collide with a grim economic reality, the administration will eventually run out of predecessors to blame. True leadership is measured by resuscitation, not just by performing a loud, sensational post-mortem on the past.
SKC Ogbonnia, a leadership scholar, writes from Ugbo, Awgu LGA, Enugu State, Nigeria
