To understand contemporary Nigerian politics, it is no longer enough to ask who Bola Ahmed Tinubu is. The more useful question is: what method has he normalized?
“Tinubulitics” is a shorthand for a distinctive style of power-building associated with Tinubu’s career, from his days as governor of Lagos (1999–2007) through his role in creating the All Progressives Congress (APC) and ultimately to his election as president in 2023. It is not a formal doctrine. There is no published manifesto titled Tinubuism. Instead, it is a pattern of practice: a way of approaching institutions, money, coalitions, and people at the margins.
This piece unpacks that pattern into ten “rules”, not because Tinubu wrote them down, but because they describe consistent choices seen across his trajectory. Each rule blends three lenses: 1) what Tinubu did in practice; 2) what that behavior implies about his underlying political philosophy; and 3) what it means for Nigeria’s democratic project.
The aim is not hagiography or demonization, but analysis. Many of these techniques are impressive in a purely strategic sense; several are deeply troubling for anyone concerned with equity, accountability, or democratic deepening.
*Rule 1: Never Chase Power, Build the Machine*
Most Nigerian politicians treat office as a destination. Tinubu treats it as infrastructure.
As Lagos governor, he did what every governor does, build roads, fight opponents, run elections, but he also did something more durable: he turned the governorship into the hub of a long-lived political machine. By the time he left office in 2007, he was arguably more powerful outside Alausa than inside it.
Key elements of this machine include: 1) tight control over the state party structure; 2) the positioning of loyalists in local government, the civil service, and the legislature; 3) a media and consultancy ecosystem orbiting his political centre; and 4) a dense network of personal obligations; appointments, contracts, bailouts that bind people to him far beyond one electoral cycle.
“Godfatherism” is the popular label. In Tinubulitics, godfatherism is not an occasional favour; it is a designed architecture of dependence and influence.
The philosophical assumption is that episodic power is fragile. A politician who merely “wins” elections can easily fall from grace. A political entrepreneur who builds a machine that produces winners, and can also destroy them, remains relevant no matter who occupies formal office.
For Nigerian democracy, the machine has a double edge: 1) it imposes a degree of stability and continuity; 2) but it also hollows out internal party democracy and narrows the range of truly independent actors.
*Rule 2: Control the Money, Then Control the Politics*
Tinubulitics begins from a simple insight: whoever controls the flow of money, controls the game.
When Tinubu took office in Lagos, the state’s fiscal capacity was weak relative to its economic potential. Instead of accepting dependency on federal allocation, he prioritized: 1) reforming the Lagos Internal Revenue Service; 2) expanding the tax net into the informal economy; 3) tightening collection and plugging leakages.
The result was a massive increase in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). Lagos became less hostage to Abuja’s whims and more able to finance its own programmes—and, crucially, its own political warfare.
Fiscal power translated into: the ability to sustain a ruling coalition without relying entirely on federal patronage; leverage in clashes with the federal centre (as seen in the dispute over Lagos’ new local council areas); and resources to fund campaigns, media, and a network of loyal operatives.
As president, the same mindset surfaces in the rush to remove fuel subsidies and unify exchange rates: reclaim “wasted” funds, expand the fiscal room for manoeuvre, and then redistribute from a stronger centre.
At its best, this rule reflects a serious concern for fiscal sovereignty and state capacity. At its worst, it becomes a license to impose regressive shocks on citizens in the name of “hard decisions,” with limited accountability for how the recovered funds are actually used.
*Rule 3: Turn Street Chaos into Structured Loyalty*
Tinubulitics is notable for its treatment of informal power especially the world of bus parks, motor unions, and “area boys.”
Where many elites see “touts” and disorder, Tinubu appears to see latent organisation. In Lagos, the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and park tout networks were not dismantled; they were co-opted and structured: some gained formal roles in transport unions; some became recognised revenue collectors in parks and markets; many became reliable mobilizers during elections and street demonstrations.
The political logic is clear:
- These actors already command numbers and fear at the local level.
- Bringing them into a regulated patronage network turns potential enemies into clients.
- Their ability to mobilize crowds and intimidate rivals becomes a resource rather than a threat.
The price is paid by ordinary citizens: drivers squeezed by multiple levies, commuters harassed in parks, opposition supporters intimidated on election days. In Tinubulitics, this is framed as the cost of order.
Philosophically, Rule 3 tells us that the border between “state” and “non-state” is not moral but functional. If a non-state actor can be made to serve the machine, it is a tool, not a problem.
*Rule 4: Convert Offices into Power Bases, Not Retirement Plans*
Most Nigerian governors fade after leaving office. Tinubu did the opposite: he turned the end of tenure into a new beginning.
The pattern in Lagos is illustrative: handover to a capable protégé (Fashola) whose own legitimacy enhances the brand; assert influence over key decisions, budgets, appointments, nominations, without carrying the burden of day-to-day governance; punish deviation decisively (Ambode), signalling to everyone else that formal office is subordinate to the machine.
The lesson to his political class is stark: your survival depends less on voters or constitutional term limits than on your standing within the network that made you.
This rule has two important implications: 1) It encourages technocratic governors: individuals can be chosen for competence or technocratic appeal, as long as they accept the underlying hierarchy. 2) It discourages institutional independence: state assemblies, local councils, and party organs are less likely to function autonomously if they owe their positions to the same central patron.
As president, he attempts something similar at the federal scale: populate key institutions (party, legislature, security apparatus, economic team) with people who both have their own credibility and accept the primacy of the presidential machine.
*Rule 5: Coalitions Win Countries, Not Individuals*
Tinubulitics is deeply coalitional. It rejects the myth of the singular “strong man” who can single-handedly capture a diverse federation.
Tinubu’s genius during the pre-2015 period lay in recognizing and exploiting the limits of Muhammadu Buhari’s candidacies:
– Buhari had a solid northern base and an austere anti-corruption image, but he was toxic in much of the South.
– Rather than compete with him, Tinubu completed him, offering southern organizational strength, media rebranding, and a running mate acceptable to southern Christians.
The merger that birthed the APC was the culmination of this philosophy: multiple parties and factions brought under one roof, not because they share ideology, but because they share an enemy and a minimal programme for power-sharing.
In 2023, he redirected the same logic toward himself: secure the South-West via longstanding networks; build a bridge to the North via a running mate and elite bargains; treat other regions as fields for tactical gains rather than deep programme-building.
Rule 5 reveals a belief that Nigerian politics is primarily a negotiation among power blocs, not a contest of ideas. To win the centre, you must persuade enough blocs that you are a more reliable broker of their interests than your rivals.
For democratic development, this is both realistic and limiting. It recognises Nigeria’s diversity and the need for coalition, but it also foregrounds elite pacts over citizen-driven programmes.
*Rule 6: Own the Delegates Before You Inspire the Masses*
Tinubulitics is obsessed with infrastructure before spectacle.
The 2022 APC presidential primaries illustrate this rule: while rivals focused on public messaging, Tinubu reportedly focused on delegates and deciders: nights spent visiting state capitals, governors, and party chairs; long-standing debts and favours quietly redeemed; promises made and future positions pre-allocated.
By the time he delivered his famous “Èmi l’ókàn” speech, much of the outcome was already structured. The speech mattered symbolically; the math had been done earlier.
The same logic applied in the general election: identify the polling units and districts that matter most for constitutional spread; ensure local coordinators, ward chairmen, and brokers are on side; let opponents expend energy on enormous rallies and online trends that may not translate into votes where they matter.
Rule 6 does not despise mass enthusiasm; it simply regards it as secondary. The core philosophy is that institutions that select candidates and count votes are more decisive than crowds that cheer them.
This can be read as a cold-eyed realism about how Nigerian elections actually work, but it also entrenches a narrow circle of brokers and deepens citizens’ sense that their participation is merely decorative.
*Rule 7: Use Identity as a Tool, Not a Religion*
One of the more controversial aspects of Tinubulitics is its deployment of ethnic and religious identity as instruments, not absolute loyalties.
He has:
– invoked Yoruba sentiment (“Èmi l’ókàn”) to galvanise South-West support;
– entered into alliances with northern Muslim elites, including the choice of a Muslim–Muslim ticket in 2023, despite predictable backlash;
– courted Christian leaders and communities when necessary to soften perceptions of bias.
Seen from within his logic, identity is neither sacred nor irrelevant. It is an available lever in a complex machine:
– You emphasise ethnic ownership when you need to lock down a base.
– You downplay identity and emphasize national unity when seeking broader legitimacy.
– You adjust religious optics depending on the configuration of opponents and allies.
Critics see this as cynical. Supporters see it as an honest recognition that Nigerian politics cannot yet transcend identity, only manage it.
Philosophically, Rule 7 rests on the idea that identity politics cannot be wished away; it must be instrumentalised and balanced. The danger, of course, is that treating identities as tools risks inflaming them in ways that are difficult to control.
*Rule 8: Emotions Are for the Crowd; Strategy Is for the Table*
One striking feature of Tinubulitics is its emotional distance.
While opponents rage, his method has been to: allow others to monopolize moral outrage and populist language; avoid being trapped into reactive moves driven by media cycles; focus instead on cold calculations: which states, which votes, which institutions, which individuals.
This is not to say he ignores narratives. On the contrary, his camp carefully curates slogans, symbols, and viral moments. But those are outputs of strategy, not the drivers of it.
In the 2023 cycle:
– the Obidient movement channeled youth frustration into a moral crusade;
– the PDP tried to reassert itself as the “natural” ruling party;
– Tinubu’s team concentrated on turnout structures, local bargaining, and everyday mobilizers, market leaders, ward chairmen, transport union bosses.
Rule 8 assumes that politics is not decided by who shouts loudest, but by who counts best. The risk is a widening disconnect between a strategic elite and a citizenry whose emotions are constantly stirred but rarely translated into durable institutional leverage.
*Rule 9: Take Painful Decisions When Your Machine Can Absorb the Anger*
Tinubu’s willingness to make high-cost economic decisions, such as removing fuel subsidies on day one and allowing sharp currency devaluation, reflects a distinct timing philosophy:
– act early, before opponents consolidate and while your victory aura still holds;
– move fast enough that resistance is disoriented;
– rely on the machine (party, governors, security agencies, patronage networks) to dampen or channel public anger.
He has lived through the other side of such reform attempts: during the 2012 Occupy Nigeria protests, he and his allies capitalized on public fury against Jonathan’s subsidy removal to weaken the presidency’s legitimacy. Having seen how protests can be weaponized, he moves now with pre-emptive awareness:
– he knows opponents will try to do to him what he did to Jonathan;
– he trusts that his apparatus will blunt that effort better than Jonathan’s did.
Morally, Rule 9 is disturbing: it treats citizens’ suffering as a variable in a larger economic–political equation. Intellectually, it is coherent: if you believe the reforms are inevitable and the timing is yours to choose, you may choose the moment when your capacity to absorb blowback is highest.
*Rule 10: Wait Out Your Betrayers*
Finally, Tinubulitics is structured around a long memory and a slow clock.
When elites in Buhari’s first term tried to sideline him, cutting him out of inner circles, nurturing alternative power centres, he did not dramatically defect, split the party, or wage media war. He preserved his network in the South-West; waited for Buhari and the APC to need him again in 2019; traded his renewed support not for immediate offices, but for positioning toward his eventual presidential bid.
The same logic applies to allies who break ranks at state or local levels. A central tenet of his method is do not declare total war at every slight. Let people move. Let situations ripen. Then re-enter when your leverage is maximal and theirs is thin.
Rule 10 reveals a mindset that treats politics as a multi-decade game, not a sequence of one-off battles. That perspective allows for flexibility but also keeps the system in constant expectation of future retaliation or reward.
In conclusion, Tinubulitics serve as Blueprint and Warning
The ten rules outlined in this piece do more than describe one man’s career. They map a general method that many younger politicians, admirers and adversaries alike, are studying.
On the positive side, Tinubulitics: takes fiscal capacity seriously; understands the importance of building lasting structures rather than chasing headlines; and recognizes the need for coalitions in a fractured federation.
On the negative side, it entrenches machine politics at the expense of open competition; normalizes the use of informal coercive actors as governance tools; treats citizens primarily as objects to be taxed, mobilised, or pacified, rather than as co-authors of policy; and leans toward shock therapy in economic policy, with the poorest absorbing the heaviest blows.
Whether Tinubulitics will be remembered as a transitional scaffolding toward a more institutional, citizen-centred democracy, or as a blueprint for a refined but exclusionary hegemony, will depend less on Tinubu himself and more on how Nigerians respond, whether they accept the machine as the natural order; whether they build alternative, more accountable structures; and whether they can appropriate some of the method, discipline, long-term planning, coalition-building, without its most corrosive elements.
In that sense, to study Tinubulitics is not to celebrate it. It is to understand the rules of a game that already shapes the political field, and to decide, collectively, which of those rules must be rewritten.
Garbs
Nov 22, 2025