Must Onanuga Always Speak?

by Mohammed Bello Doka 

When Bayo Onanuga speaks, he does not do so as a private citizen enjoying opinionated liberty. He speaks as the public voice of a government elected on 25 February 2023, sworn in on 29 May 2023, and now struggling to convince Nigerians that it understands the weight of their daily suffering. That is why every dismissive tone, every intellectual lecture, and every moral rebuke aimed at the public carries consequences far beyond social media.

This is no longer about free speech. It is about judgment. And judgment, right now, is failing.

Onanuga’s latest intervention—framed as a lofty meditation on democratic maturity and electoral reform—lands not as wisdom but as condescension. It is a familiar pattern: when Nigerians raise concerns, the response from power is not empathy, explanation, or reform, but instruction. The people are told to be calmer, more mature, more restrained. The state, meanwhile, remains unexamined.

This is not an isolated comment. It is part of a troubling habit.

Again and again, legitimate grievances are reduced to emotional excess, opposition bitterness, or civil society “buzzwords.” Demands for transparency are recast as psychological crutches. Electoral safeguards are dismissed as legislative tinkering. The message is consistent: the problem is not the system; it is the people who question it.

At some point, the question must be asked plainly: is this ignorance—or is it feigned?

Nigeria’s electoral controversy did not arise in a vacuum. During the 2023 presidential election, the electoral umpire publicly promised real-time electronic transmission of results to the IReV portal. That promise mattered because it was meant to reduce the well-known vulnerabilities between polling units and collation centres. When that promise faltered, trust faltered with it. Trust is not rebuilt by lectures about accepting defeat; it is rebuilt by honouring commitments.

To insist, years later, that the absence of “credible counter-results” settles the matter is to shift responsibility away from institutions and onto citizens. Transparency is not proven by silence. It is proven by compliance. The duty to demonstrate credibility lies first with Independent National Electoral Commission, not with voters, observers, or losing parties.

Yet the pattern persists: blame the sceptical public; absolve the system.

This same reflex defines the broader posture of the administration led by Bola Tinubu. On the economy, Nigerians are told to be patient while the ground beneath them collapses. Inflation has hovered around historic highs, with food inflation far outpacing wages. Staple items that cost a fraction two years ago now consume entire incomes. Transport costs exploded following fuel subsidy removal. Electricity tariffs rose. The naira has endured brutal depreciation. For millions, survival has become improvisation.

Yet official messaging oscillates between denial and academic reassurance.

When citizens protest hunger, they are reminded of long-term reforms. When they complain of shrinking purchasing power, they are warned against pessimism. When they demand relief, they are accused of lacking discipline. The gap between lived reality and official rhetoric grows wider by the day—and Onanuga’s tone sits squarely on the wrong side of that divide.

Insecurity tells the same story. From the highways of the North-West to communities in the Middle Belt and parts of the South-East, kidnapping, banditry, and violent crime remain persistent features of daily life. Mass abductions, ransom payments, and communal displacement are no longer shocking headlines; they are recurring anxieties. Families plan journeys around fear. Farmers abandon fields. Schools shut intermittently. Markets empty early.

Yet even here, public communication often feels detached—heavy on reassurance, light on accountability.

What emerges is a government that appears confident but disconnected; assertive but unsure; vocal but unconvincing. Confidence without empathy reads as arrogance. Certainty without understanding reads as blindness.

The most dangerous element in this posture is not policy failure alone; it is contempt. When those in power repeatedly suggest that citizens are too emotional, too immature, or too unserious to grasp the bigger picture, they poison the very democratic soil they claim to defend. Democracies do not collapse only through rigging or coups. They erode when governments stop listening and start lecturing.

No country sustains legitimacy by talking down to its people.

Onanuga’s essays may be elegantly written, but elegance cannot substitute for empathy. Intellectual framing cannot mask economic pain. Philosophical arguments about democratic restraint cannot quiet empty stomachs, unsafe roads, or broken trust.

Sometimes, the most responsible act of power is restraint. Sometimes, leadership means listening more than speaking. Sometimes, silence is not weakness—it is wisdom.

So the question remains, not as insult but as national reflection: must Onanuga always speak? Or would Nigeria, in this fragile moment, be better served by a government that pauses, listens, and finally confronts the reality its people live every day?

Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]

Abuja Network News