By Sylvester Odion Akhaine

Good morning, Mr President. It can be recalled that I had earlier advised you in this column that the value of leadership lies in his/her ability to divorce his/her selfish personal interests from those of the public. To be sure, a leader cannot be divorced from his class belonging. He/she is molded in a socio-political context that pigeonholes him/her within a class category. This is what often inclines us in radical scholarship to classify the state as nothing other than the executive committee of the dominant class in society.

The leadership can rule in that context, earning legitimacy only from the dominant class interests that he/she represents. In such a context, the spectre of revolution from the class below hangs perpetually over the leadership. However, the leadership can free itself from this bind by steering the ship of state in a manner that allows its relative autonomy as conceived by Nicos Poulantzas and Bob Jessop among others.

I mean that the institutions of the state can be allowed to fulfil their roles without bending to the diktat of the executive arm of government. The ultimate legitimacy derives from the majority of the population usually subordinated in the production relations. A decisive intervention in matters concerning them earns leadership legitimacy. Mr President, take heed; you will be popular and venerated by the governed.

Today, I am applauding you for a few edifying steps you have taken, namely, the effective coordination of the release of the Ogbomosho abductees on July 10. The main concern across the country is that insecurity should not be allowed to envelop every enclave of this country. A push-back on banditry/insurgency is imperative. The prevalent concern has been somewhat assuaged. For nearly two months, all stratagems were brought to bear on the criminal elements, including what somebody calls “the Beirut Doctrine”, a twentieth-century deployment of “eye for an eye” justice, courtesy of the Soviets. It awed the jihadists, despite huge human cost, in the game of wits. Our children and their surviving teachers were back to safety. Well done, Mr President.

The Osun off-cycle gubernatorial election presented another challenge, with the charge of wanting to turn Nigeria into a one-party state, including state capture; one expected the worst side of the Nietzschean human binarity, good and evil. You chose good over evil when some state institutions in a blind act of loyalty to the incumbent central authority brazenly freeze the account of a federating state via a judicial order.

The act came on the heels of calls for partisan killings over transient power.  Your words echoed both personal and public outrage: “It has come to my notice that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) obtained a court order on August 5, 2026, freezing the accounts of the Osun State Government. I must state that I feel deeply embarrassed not by the EFCC’s exercise of its mandate backed by a court order, but by the timing of the agency’s action. This is so because every action taken by an institution of State, especially at the Federal level, is always credited to me, as the President, even when I may not have had any prior knowledge of the action.”

Mr President, you then order a return to status quo ante. In your words: “…I am not in the slightest doubt that the timing of the action of EFCC is inauspicious, and therefore I feel compelled to intervene…Osun State is only a few days away from its gubernatorial election. Therefore, nothing ought to be done to give an impression that the EFCC or indeed any other agency of the federal government is being used to interfere with the election…Based on the foregoing premise, I am duty-bound to issue a directive on this issue in consonance with the overriding public interest in preserving public confidence and the integrity, credibility, and fairness of our democratic process… Accordingly, I have directed the EFCC to immediately proceed to the court to vacate the order and discontinue whatever action it has instituted against the Osun State Government in this regard.”

Your timely intervention endears you to many of us whose blood pressure had already shot above 200 mmHg over what may have turned out to be an unnecessary destabilisation of the state by the power-that-be. To re-echo the words of Niccolo Machiavelli, it is always wiser to conciliate with the people than self-interested politicians, because the people are the most powerful.

Mr President, you have unknowingly begun a journey of statesmanship. Your party lost the Osun election, and you followed the outcome with a congratulatory message to the victor. While the build-up to the 2027 general election continues, more expressions of statesmanship are required. It is crucial to the making of electoral capital than you could imagine. There should be no turning back.

Professor Akhaine lectures at the Lagos State University.