A public affairs analyst, Mahdi Shehu, has accused President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of acting out of fear and political self-preservation rather than genuine concern for Nigeria’s worsening security situation in his recent shake-up of the service chiefs.
In a post shared on his official X handle on Saturday, Shehu alleged that the President’s decision was driven by “fear and personal survival instincts” following alleged reports of a possible coup attempt.
Okay News reports that President Tinubu on Friday announced a major reshuffle in the nation’s security architecture, relieving some service chiefs of their duties and appointing new ones. According to a statement from his media aide, Sunday Dare, General Olufemi Oluyede was named the new Chief of Defence Staff, replacing General Christopher Musa.
Reacting to the move, Shehu wrote, “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice,” quoting James 3:16 of the Bible to illustrate his claim that Tinubu’s actions stemmed from selfish motives.
He added, “The scriptural references to man’s selfishness are well narrated and documented with visible confirmation by man himself. Man’s greed and insatiable economic desires give further credence to his infinite capacity for selfishness.”
The Kaduna-born activist accused the President of ignoring multiple incidents of violence and killings across several northern and central states while maintaining the same set of service chiefs.
“The ongoing wanton killings nationwide did not prick Tinubu’s conscience to rejig his security architecture,” Shehu wrote. “The daily sacking of villages and killings of hundreds in Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto, Niger, Yobe, and Borno states, as well as mass killings in Benue, Taraba, Kogi, and Nasarawa, were not enough reasons for Tinubu to summon the courage to sack the service chiefs.”
He further claimed that Tinubu only acted when his political interests appeared threatened. “But the moment his brand of democracy came under what was officially denied yet unofficially confirmed as a coup, he acted swiftly and panicky,” he stated.
Shehu described the move as “a coup shrouded in darkness and left to everybody’s imagination,” insisting that the President’s sudden decisiveness stemmed from self-interest rather than national security priorities.
Turning to the economic situation, the analyst accused Tinubu of retaining what he called “a wizardly economic team” despite the deepening hardship in the country. “With 139 million Nigerians facing abject poverty and hunger, and other gory economic failures, Tinubu is yet to sack his economic team,” he lamented.
He concluded by saying that the President’s actions “once again confirm man’s selfish nature, even on the face of glaring failures, until such a time when he is finally subsumed by the earth.”
