The Tinubu Enigma: Power, Strategy and the Nigerian State [Part 9]: Transparency, Accountability and Limits of Power Systems, By Lanre Ogundipe

If the earlier parts of this series examined the rise of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the architecture of his political influence, the intelligence behind it, the economics of that structure, and the challenge of converting power into governance outcomes, the next question is both more delicate and more decisive: what restrains power once it becomes durable?

This is the question of legitimacy.

Power can be acquired through strategy, sustained through networks and reinforced through institutional reach. But democratic legitimacy demands something more. It requires that power be subject to limits, visible processes and public accountability. No political system—however efficient—can sustain constitutional authority if it appears answerable only to itself.

This is where transparency ceases to be a moral slogan and becomes a functional necessity.
Democracy is not merely about who governs. It is equally about how power is restrained.

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In highly networked political systems, this question becomes especially important. Influence often extends beyond formal office. Authority may be exercised through relationships, strategic alignments and informal structures that do not always appear on official charts of government. Such systems can be effective. They can produce continuity, discipline and political stability. But they also create a difficult institutional question: where exactly does accountability reside?

Formal office carries formal responsibility. Informal influence does not. This distinction matters.

A minister can be questioned. A governor can be held to constitutional standards. A public agency can be subjected to scrutiny. But when significant influence exists outside formal institutional boundaries, public trust begins to depend less on visible process and more on assumptions. That is rarely sustainable in a democracy.

This is not an argument against political influence. Influence is inseparable from politics. It is an argument for clarity. Citizens must know where authority sits. Where decisions are made.
Who bears responsibility when policy succeeds—or fails.

Without such clarity, governance becomes vulnerable to suspicion, and suspicion, once normalised, weakens institutional confidence.

This is where the argument from the previous parts returns with greater urgency. A political machine designed for efficiency naturally prefers speed, loyalty and internal discipline. It rewards cohesion and punishes fragmentation. It survives because it is organised. But institutions operate differently. They require procedure, independence and sometimes resistance. The presidency demands not only command over systems, but the willingness to be constrained by them.

This is the real test of democratic maturity.

Can the same machine that sustains power also submit itself to restraint? Can a structure built for political durability tolerate institutional independence without reading it as disloyalty?

That is where legitimacy begins. Transparency, therefore, is not cosmetic. It is not a press conference, a slogan, or a carefully managed public appearance. It is the structural visibility of governance itself—the ability of institutions to function in ways that are understandable, reviewable and defensible.

Economic policy illustrates this clearly.

Citizens may disagree with reforms such as subsidy removal, taxation changes or fiscal restructuring, but disagreement is not necessarily destabilising. What creates instability is uncertainty, when people do not understand the rationale, the process or the intended outcome. Policy without explanation breeds resistance. Policy without accountability breeds distrust.

This is why the economics of power discussed earlier must now confront the discipline of transparency. Resource mobilisation without visible accountability quickly becomes public suspicion. In democracies, opacity is never neutral. It is interpreted.

The same applies to appointments, procurement and regulatory decisions. Where systems appear closed, competence is often judged through the lens of loyalty. Where public institutions seem indistinguishable from political structures, confidence in both declines.

This is where the distinction between party structure and state structure becomes critical. Political loyalty is legitimate within parties. Governments are elected through partisan organisation, and no serious observer expects politics without loyalty. But the state is larger than the party. Institutions of government must serve constitutional purpose, not merely political convenience.

When the boundary between the two becomes blurred, governance weakens. Appointments begin to be read as political rewards rather than administrative choices. Regulatory bodies lose perceived independence. Public confidence shifts from trust in institutions to trust in personalities—and personalities are never a stable democratic foundation.

This is one of the great tests of any durable political system. Can it strengthen institutions without reducing them to instruments of internal control? Can it tolerate independent centres of competence without reading them as threats? Can it allow scrutiny without interpreting it as sabotage?

These are not abstract democratic ideals. They are practical requirements of state stability.
At the federal level, this question becomes even more serious. The presidency is not Lagos politics.

Federal institutions must carry a weight beyond political management. The judiciary must inspire confidence beyond partisan interpretation. Anti-graft bodies such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission must be trusted to investigate without selective courage. Procurement systems must be transparent enough to survive scrutiny. The National Assembly must function as oversight, not ornament. These institutions are not inconveniences to power.

They are the architecture of republican stability.

Where they weaken, governments may still survive temporarily, but states become fragile.
Nigeria’s political history offers repeated warnings. Many administrations entered office with enormous political capital and left behind weakened institutional credibility. The problem was not always corruption in the narrow criminal sense. Often, it was the gradual substitution of systems with personal authority. Once institutions begin to depend on proximity to power rather than process, decline becomes slow but certain.

This is why anti-corruption cannot be reduced to rhetoric. It is not enough to speak of discipline or integrity. The real test lies in systems, procurement transparency, audit credibility, regulatory independence and the ability of institutions to investigate without selective permission.

A government does not prove accountability by declaring it. It proves it by building processes that can survive leadership.

This is where comparisons with earlier political figures become useful. Obafemi Awolowo believed in ideological institutions; structures anchored in doctrine and disciplined organisation. Olusegun Obasanjo governed largely through command authority shaped by executive force and military discipline. Tinubu’s model, by contrast, is best understood as networked institutional power, less ideological, less command-driven, but deeply strategic.
Each model has strengths. Each carries risks.

The relevant historical question is not which model was most powerful, but which leaves the strongest democratic inheritance. Power that depends entirely on personal mastery becomes fragile once the individual exits the stage. Power that strengthens institutions outlives its architect.

This is where legacy begins.

For President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the legacy question is no longer about political victory. That chapter is settled. The presidency changes the standard of judgment. History does not ask how power was won; it asks what power protected.

Did it deepen institutions or personalise them? Did it expand transparency or normalise opacity? Did it create confidence strong enough to survive succession? These questions are more difficult because they cannot be answered by immediate headlines. They are answered slowly in judicial confidence, in bureaucratic independence, in whether future governments inherit functioning institutions or merely inherited loyalties.

Public perception also matters more than political actors often admit. Even where processes are lawful, legitimacy can weaken if citizens consistently believe that institutions are inaccessible, selective or politically filtered. Perception is not always truth, but in democratic governance, perception shapes compliance, trust and stability. Governments that ignore this do so at long-term cost.

Transparency, then, is not weakness. Accountability is not hostility. Institutional scrutiny is not sabotage. They are the disciplines that protect power from destroying itself. This is the deeper lesson of every durable republic.

No leader governs forever. No political arrangement remains untouched by time. What survives is not strategy, but structure. The ultimate test of power is not how effectively it controls the present, but how securely it protects the future from depending on one man. That is where history becomes final.

And that is where every serious presidency must eventually stand.

● Lanre Ogundipe, Public Affairs Analyst, former President Nigeria and Africa Union of Journalists, writes from Abuja.