Opinion

A Confused President, Confusing People

Published

2 months ago

June 28, 2026

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s electricity promise has come under fresh examination as his administration grapples with persistent power challenges more than three years into his tenure

THERE are some things obvious about President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that are so weird that they are unbelievable. They are like spells cast on Nigerians – they believe Tinubu with all the discrepancies that have become his badges of honour.

Also read: Wike Criticises David Mark, Defends Tinubu’s Road Record

What can we say about Tinubu that would be certain and when tested can be confirmed as true, reliable, useful for reaching a decision on Tinubu. We have come to know nothing about the man we call President.

It is. sometimes uncertain if Tinubu knows anything about himself. Is the much-vilified Tinubu the same as the one who is President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? The one who speaks for Nigerians, though there is a lot of quietness around him?

Each week is spent in denying promises that Tinubu made on the discovery that he cannot fulfilled those promises in a 10-year tenure. He must deny the promises.

An example is electricity which Tinubu explicitly promised. He anchored his re-election on it. Tinubu asked his audience at a meeting in Lagos, in December 2022, not to re-elect him if he failed to provide electricity.

Electricity supply deteriorated to a point that the immediate past Minister of Power was openly called “Minister of Darkness”.

He is also famously remembered for accusing Nigerians of wasting electricity by not turning off our air-conditioners and refrigerators.

Bayo Onanuga, presidential media adviser, who is likely to be seen these days praising state governments for using the generous federal allocations from Tinubu in developing the States, is very generous in recounting how Tinubu is developing Nigeria. He is quickly running out of ideas.

He has never been happier than in the past week when he believed he had navigated his sinking skills out of the electricity quagmire.

“Tinubu did not promise anyone 24 hours electricity,” Onanuga announced on television.

Triumphant, Onanuga finished off by paraphrasing Tinubu’s quote which all of them in the presidency had forgotten until the public nudged them into a frightening realisation that electricity was a major area of woeful failure.

From December 2022 when Tinubu made the promise till June 2026 it was not an issue. Tinubu thought his poverty alignment programmes would have hammered the people to the point that electricity would be of little importance in their lives.

Did Tinubu say, “If I don’t give you constant electricity for four years, when I come back for a second term, don’t vote for me.”? He did. The shock on the faces those listening to him showed that they never believed him.

At the time he made this promise, Tinubu was so desperate that he could have promised anything. He is back to that desperate mode.

He is throwing anything into a 2027 election that is slipping out of his control.

No conditions were attached to Tinubu providing “constant electricity”. If “constant electricity” did mean “24 hours of electricity” what does it mean?

How many How many hours of electricity are we getting daily?

All Onanuga could do was to ramble about meters, new electricity law, poor infrastructure and challenges of gas supply.

Obviously, the master strategist Tinubu knew nothing about the issues of the electricity sector. He found out and did something that shocked Nigerians.

Tinubu detached the presidential villa from the national power system and built a power system for himself – by all means possible. Several government establishments are following the example, including the Ministry of Power.

When the national grid collapses, Tinubu is no longer affected. When we call his attention to rising costs of living, killing costs of generating our own electricity with fuel and diesel purchased at outrageous costs, they blame the closure of the Strait of Hormuz or manufacture a more compounding excuse.

An Onanuga who lives on a budget that makes the cost of living irrelevant, dismisses our pains, claiming that we were bellyaching.

Nigeria was liveable, according to a Kenyan who possibly lives in the Rift Valley.

With the millions who support the President, there wasn’t one Nigerian from who Onanuga could extract a testimony of the bounteous goodness of Tinubu’s administration.

When Onanuga “opened his phone” on Arose TV, the fuller Tinubu quote stared at him. “By all means necessary, you must have electricity and you will not pay for estimated bill again.

A promise made, is a promise kept. If I don’t provide you with 24 hours electricity, and I come for second term, don’t vote for me”.

Onanuga panicked.

He decided to mutilate the quote so that he could delve into poor electricity infrastructure while Tinubu never mentioned any reason why he would not provide electricity.

Why was Onanuga labouring to deceive himself? Nigerians know what Tinubu told them. Tinubu must be ashamed of Onanuga about now.

There is a difference between failure and lying about a promise. For Onanuga, they mean the same thing.

Tinubu’s desperation is a child’s play compared to 2023. Mrs Remi Tinubu is on also centre stage insulting Nigerians for not being more industrious by engaging in street trading – prohibited in most States – which must have been how she made the billions she boasts the family has.

She wants Nigerians to engage in roasting corns, frying kuliku and survive on other menial jobs for which she claimed to have made billions of Naira available.

How does she get the billions and how does she allocate it? The money is hers. It’s hers to spend as she wills.

One thing she should desist from is insulting Nigerians. We know what to do under a President who knows what to do.

Are those she dashes jeeps being rewarded for their enterprise in roasting corn?

When Nigerians are lifting themselves up from the oppressions of the Tinubus we are blamed for searching for our survival when we have a President who cannot protect us, cannot provide for us, and largely behaves as if we are an inconvenience to him.

Tinubu, you can keep your electricity, by all means possible. It seems that 2027 is coming too fast. Onanuga will need more time to tell us about Tinubu – the Tinubu he does not even know.

Finally…
MAJOR-GENERAL Rabe Abubakar died in captivity with his kidnappers still free, with crocodile tears that the government is shading over the death.

There is a lot of deceit in the management of deaths, whether in battle or in “peace” time. If the General was too big to be rescued, what about thousands of “ordinary” people that kidnappers are still holding?

In this group are the elderly, women, children – the vulnerable as they are called? What tears are the government shedding for them? When will they be rescued?

THE deceit continues with the positioning of state police as the elixir to insecurity in Nigeria. If state police fail, as it could with the rush in implementing it, Tinubu’s docility and mismanagement of security can be explained as an indication of the enormity of the problem.

No matter how he fails, no matter how badly he fares, he must be seemed as infallible.

KILLINGS continue in Borno, Plateau, Benue, Kaduna, Katsina and Zamfara, where the state governments spend a lot of resources making excuses for the killers.

It is no longer surprising that governments offer no hope that the killers would be apprehended and punished for killing Nigerians, and increasingly, in the most brutal manners.

HUNGER is driving thousands of Nigerians to engage in propagating the sugar-coated achievements of the Tinubu administration.

Here is a government that has achieved so much that its latest research is on why hunger persists in the land.

MY sympathies go to all families that lost members in the past week to bandits, particularly the family of All Progressives Congress, APC, in Koko Besse Local Government Area of Kebbi State, Alhaji Muhammadu Besse, who was abducted with his friend, Muhammed Maibarga, said to have died weeks earlier in the bush.

Also read: Abba Yusuf Backs Tinubu, Seeks Kano Support for 2027

THE Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, was on Friday ruled “unregistered party” by the same court that ordered INEC to register it. All hands should be on deck to see our democracy survive as we look up to the courts again.

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Opinion

From Lagos to Germany: How Rotary Youth Exchange Transformed Arnold Faranpojo

Published

3 days ago

September 7, 2026

Mariam Balogun

By Ehi Braimah and Victor Ojelabi,

At 16, Arnold Faranpojo had already completed his secondary education, earned impressive examination results and begun charting a path towards an international future.

Also read: Olayinka Babalola shares Rotary vision on Arise News

But his participation in the Rotary Youth Exchange Programme, facilitated by Rotary International District 9111 during the tenure of then District Governor Henry Akinyele, would take his education beyond the classroom, giving him an experience that would reshape his outlook on life, culture, independence and the world.

Born in Lagos on 28 July 2009, Arnold is the second of three boys in the Faranpojo family. Although his roots are in Ile-Ife, Osun State, he grew up in Lagos, where he completed his secondary education at Nigerian Navy Secondary School, Abeokuta.

He graduated in 2025 with his WAEC and NECO certificates and recorded an impressive 319 in the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board examination the same year.

Rather than immediately proceeding into university, however, Arnold embarked on an 11-month Rotary Youth Exchange experience in Germany, an opportunity he describes as one of the most memorable chapters of his young life.

A Family’s Leap of Faith

News of Arnold’s selection was met with excitement in the Faranpojo household, although it also came with understandable concerns.

For his parents, sending their son away for almost a year was a major decision. For his two brothers, the prospect of having the middle child away from home was initially unsettling.

“Knowing that the middle man of the three boys was going to be away for a year was at first unsettling with uncertainties,” the family recalled. “But with some clarification and explanation, the news was later greeted with faith and hopes for better things.”

For Arnold himself, the selection brought a mixture of gratitude, excitement and pride.

“It was a very exciting and memorable moment for me,” he said. “I felt extremely grateful, excited and proud because it was an opportunity to experience a completely different country and culture.”

His parents shared his excitement and were proud of the opportunity, even as they recognised that their son was about to take a significant step towards independence.

Arnold is the son of Rev. Alexander Faranpojo mni, a business consultant, clergyman and member of the National Institute.

He is the founding pastor of Virtues Christian Centre in Lagos and London and president of Virtues Life Foundation, an organisation focused on humanities, societies and governance.

His mother, Pastor Mrs Funmilola Faranpojo, is also a business consultant with interests in educational advancement and international agency services.

She serves alongside her husband in ministry and has close to two decades of experience spanning banking and human capital development. She holds a postgraduate qualification in Human Resources from the University of Winnipeg.

Together, they have supported Arnold and his brothers while encouraging their educational and personal development.

Eleven Months That Changed Everything

Arnold spent approximately 11 months in Germany, living and studying in Wuppertal and attending Wilhelm Dörpfeld Gymnasium.

The experience exposed him to an education system different from the one he had known in Nigeria, while also placing him in an environment where communication, adaptation and independence became part of everyday life.

“Everything was different — the language, culture, school system, food and daily lifestyle,” Arnold recalled of his initial experience.

The early days were challenging. Adjusting to a new country, learning to communicate in another language and understanding unfamiliar social and educational systems required patience.

But gradually, the unfamiliar became familiar.

Arnold improved his German language skills, became more comfortable communicating with people and learnt to navigate daily life with increasing independence.

Beyond Wuppertal, the exchange opened the door to travel and cultural discovery. He visited Düsseldorf, Cologne, Dortmund, Hamburg, Berlin and Munich, as well as Paris in France.

Each journey offered a different perspective, allowing him to experience new cities, cultures and ways of life.

Yet, for Arnold, the exchange was about much more than travelling.

He spent considerable time at school, participated in Rotary activities, built friendships with Germans and young people from other countries and learned how to interact with individuals from different backgrounds.

“Overall, the exchange helped me become more independent, adaptable, confident and open-minded,” he said.

More Than a Language

One of the most significant outcomes of Arnold’s exchange year was the development of his confidence.

Living away from his family required him to take greater responsibility for himself. Communicating in a foreign language pushed him outside his comfort zone, while interacting with people from different cultures broadened his understanding of the world.

By the end of the programme, Germany no longer felt like the completely unfamiliar environment he encountered when he first arrived.

“I had developed a strong appreciation for the country and its culture,” he said.

The experience also gave him something that cannot easily be measured by academic certificates: an international perspective.

For Arnold, learning German became part of a much larger lesson about communication, tolerance and adaptability.

“My exchange year taught me much more than just a new language,” he said. “It taught me how to adapt, communicate with different people, become independent, and appreciate different cultures.”

The strongest placement is immediately after the “More Than a Language” section and before “Building Towards the Future”. It creates a natural bridge from Arnold’s return to Nigeria into what comes next.

A Special Homecoming

Arnold’s return from Germany brought another memorable Rotary moment.

On 18 August 2026, he had the rare privilege of joining Rotary International President Olayinka Hakeem Babalola and other Rotary leaders at a special reception in Lagos held in Babalola’s honour.

The reception, jointly organised by Rotary International Districts 9111 and 9112 under District Governors Bukola Bakare and Layi Abidoye respectively, brought together Rotarians and other guests to celebrate Babalola’s historic leadership of the global service organisation.

Arnold did not attend the reception alone. His parents, Rev. Alexander Faranpojo mni and Pastor Mrs Funmilola Faranpojo, accompanied him, giving the family an opportunity to share another significant Rotary experience together following his return from Germany.

Babalola was full of praise for Arnold and the journey he had undertaken through the Rotary Youth Exchange Programme.

He noted that about 7,000 young people around the world are offered the opportunity to participate in Rotary Youth Exchange each year, placing Arnold’s experience within a global programme that enables young people to live in another country, experience different cultures and develop a broader understanding of the world.

For Arnold, meeting the Rotary International President so soon after returning from an 11-month exchange provided a fitting connection between the opportunity Rotary had given him abroad and the organisation’s leadership at home.

Babalola’s emergence as the second Nigerian and second African to serve as President of Rotary International also carried particular significance.

For a young Nigerian whose worldview had been broadened through a Rotary programme, his leadership offered another powerful example of how service, opportunity and exposure can transcend geographical boundaries.

Building Towards the Future

With his exchange year behind him, Arnold is now focused on the next stage of his journey.

He is continuing to improve his German language skills as he prepares for university, with plans to study Business Informatics (Wirtschaftsinformatik) in Germany.

The field sits at the intersection of business and technology, an area that aligns with Arnold’s growing interests and his ambitions for the future.

But his aspirations extend beyond technology and business.

He hopes to combine his interests in business, technology and fashion to create something that contributes positively to humanity.

His Rotary experience, he believes, will remain an important foundation as he pursues these ambitions.

Looking back on the opportunity, Arnold is clear about what the experience has given him: greater confidence, independence, adaptability and a broader understanding of the world.

It has also taught him not to be afraid of unfamiliar territory.

“I am very grateful for the opportunity and believe the experience will continue to influence my education, career, and personal development,” he said.