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For over three decades, the South Carolina Republican became one of Washington’s most recognisable political figures, surviving scandals, ideological earthquakes, party revolutions and presidential feuds with the resilience of a cactus in a drought
When Prime Minister Andy Burnham called for a cross-party "consensus" on social care, you could practically hear the collective sigh of relief from Westminster’s pundit class. “Ah, marvelous,” they purred. “The grown-ups are finally taking their seats.”
In the southern forests, priests and priestesses of the goddesses in the rivers that run through them, are known to demand bottles of Fanta to open consultations or before any water infrastructure project commences. In the northern forests, gangs of bandits - usually ethnic Fulani - who use them as operational bases, crave bottles of Fanta as well.
The performance requires a villain. Africa has been performing that role for free, and at some cost to itself for considerably longer than it should have.
In that sense, Tinubu may be regarded as the most “Nigerian” of Nigerian presidents—not necessarily as a compliment, but because he appears to encapsulate many of the contradictions, ambiguities and controversies that have long defined Nigerian politics.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 