Now I know Tinubu’s Policies Aren’t the Problem, By Farooq Kperogi

As I pointed out in my Saturday Tribune column, a common refrain among online devotees of Nigerian opposition figures is that they would rather endure Tinubu until 2031 than support any opposition politician other than their preferred candidate, even as they denounce Tinubu’s policies day and night.

That is both mystifying and clarifying. It suggests that, for many of them, the quarrel is not really with Tinubu’s governance, ideology or policies. It is with the fact that their favorite politician is not the one presiding over them.

They would tolerate, rationalize, perhaps even loudly defend the very policies they now condemn if those policies came wrapped in the colors of their own candidate.

If you are prepared to live through four more years of what you claim to find intolerable simply because you cannot bear the thought of another opposition figure succeeding Tinubu, then Tinubu’s policies are not your problem. Tinubu himself is.

More precisely, your problem is Tinubu’s occupancy of a seat you believe belongs to someone you admire, worship or share the same identity with.

And that is fine. I only appreciate the clarity. Opposition infighting has stripped many people’s politics of its costume and shown that what often disguises as principle is merely identitarian investment.

Since many, perhaps most, people don’t really have a problem with Tinubu’s policies and can tolerate them for four more years as a price to deny the ascendancy of people they don’t like, I think it’s more psychically liberating to make peace with his second term