When First Lady Oluremi Tinubu stood before women in Owerri and appealed for votes for her husband in 2027 with the words “I want to enjoy Nigeria at old age,” she said more than she perhaps intended. The statement was not merely a personal wish. It exposed a troubling mindset: that the presidency can be extended so that one family may later savour the comforts of a country still struggling under the weight of hardship.
The contrast is stark. While the First Lady speaks of enjoying Nigeria in her later years, millions of ordinary citizens are struggling to survive the present. The cost of living remains crushing. Food prices have eroded household budgets. Insecurity continues to claim lives and livelihoods.
Young people face limited opportunities or leave the country in search of better prospects. Against this backdrop, the call for another term framed around the First Family’s future comfort lands as tone-deaf at best and self-serving at worst.
What, precisely, has this administration delivered since 2023 that now justifies an automatic extension? Nigerians were promised reforms that would eventually ease suffering and create shared prosperity. Instead, the early years of the administration have been marked by painful adjustments whose benefits remain uneven and, for many, still invisible.
When the First Lady asks citizens to “vote for Mr. President” so that she and her husband can continue working for a better Nigeria they themselves hope to enjoy later, the question that follows is inevitable: at whose expense is this long-term enjoyment being purchased?
The presidency is not a family inheritance. It is not a private estate to be managed until the owners are ready to retire in comfort. It is a public trust granted by the votes of citizens who expect measurable improvement in their daily lives.
Framing a second-term campaign around the personal desire of the First Lady to “enjoy Nigeria at old age” reduces a national decision to a private aspiration. It suggests that the suffering of the majority is an acceptable price for the eventual ease of a few.
Empowerment programmes and cash gifts distributed during political tours do not erase this fundamental disconnect. Temporary palliatives cannot substitute for structural relief. They cannot restore the purchasing power of salaries, secure communities, or create sustainable jobs.
When such gestures are paired with a request for another four years so that the First Family can later enjoy the fruits of power, the message received by many citizens is clear: their present pain is secondary to the future comfort of those in power.
Nigeria does not exist to provide a comfortable old age for any particular household. It exists for the collective well-being of its people.
If the current administration believes its record merits another term, it must make that case on the basis of tangible results experienced by the majority, not on the First Lady’s personal timeline for enjoyment. Citizens are not obliged to mortgage their present so that those in power may later harvest the rewards.
The 2027 election will not be a referendum on anyone’s desire for a peaceful retirement. It will be a judgment on performance, accountability, and whether the lives of ordinary Nigerians have improved under this leadership.
The First Lady’s appeal may have been intended to humanise the request for continuity. Instead, it has sharpened the question many are already asking: whose Nigeria is being built, and who is expected to endure the cost while a few plan to enjoy it later?
Power is temporary. The suffering of the people is not. Any second-term ambition that fails to confront this reality will struggle to persuade a nation still waiting for relief.
Signed:
Comrade James Onifade
Media Executive,
Office of the Obailukan Strategic Support Group for Atiku — OSSAT
