PEBEC DG Names Tinubu Nigeria's Greatest-Ever Leader
- Princess Zahrah Mustapha Audu, Director-General of PEBEC, published a piece arguing President Tinubu deserves recognition as Nigeria's greatest leader
- The PEBEC DG pointed to the fuel subsidy removal, business environment reforms, and Tinubu's pre-presidential career as evidence of his historic significance
- Audu acknowledged the hardship Nigerians have faced under current reforms but argued the cost of continued postponement would have been far greater
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The Director-General of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), Princess Zahrah Mustapha Audu, has publicly declared President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to be Nigeria's greatest leader to date, making the case that consequential leadership is often only recognised long after it occurs.
Audu, who also serves as National Publicity Secretary of the City Boy Movement, published the assessment on Saturday, September 12, framing her argument around the idea that true statesmanship is measured by the institutions a leader builds and the difficult decisions he takes rather than by immediate public approval.
Source: Twitter
Tinubu's career before the presidency
Audu argued that many analysts make the mistake of treating May 29, 2023 as the starting point of Tinubu's political significance.
She traced his record back three decades, citing his time as a senator during the Third Republic, his role in the pro-democracy movement during military rule, a period of exile, and two terms as Governor of Lagos State beginning in 1999.
She said that after leaving government, Tinubu helped build the political coalitions that eventually formed the All Progressives Congress and produced Nigeria's first democratic transfer of federal power in 2015, a demonstration, in her view, of a capacity to shape institutions even without holding formal office.
Subsidy removal and the argument for reform
On the removal of the petrol subsidy, Audu acknowledged directly that the policy transition "has imposed genuine hardship on Nigerians."
She did not attempt to dispute that. Her argument, instead, was that previous administrations understood the problem but lacked the political will to act, and that the question was never whether reform would be painful but whether the old arrangement could have been sustained indefinitely.
She also pointed to the work being done through PEBEC and the broader business-facilitation agenda as evidence of reform happening within government itself, arguing that every unnecessary bureaucratic procedure imposes a real economic cost and that reducing those costs is central to Tinubu's stated goal of building a one trillion dollar economy by 2030.
A call for historical fairness
Audu closed her argument with a broader point about how Nigerians tend to assess their leaders.
She said the country has a pattern of recognising consequential leadership only in retrospect, once a leader has died and the controversy has faded. She said this habit should be resisted.
"We should not require death to become historically fair," she wrote.
She added that giving Tinubu recognition now does not mean suspending scrutiny or ceasing to demand better living conditions, infrastructure, and social services.
Audu said history's final verdict on the president cannot yet be written, but maintained that his place in Nigerian history is already "impossible to ignore" given the range of political eras his career has shaped.
Group hails Tinubu
Previously, Legit.ng reported that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was praised for his achievements in the oil and gas sector.
The Citizens Connect Conference said President Tinubu has restored national confidence in the oil and gas sector.
Source: Legit.ng
