10-8-2025.

We have the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu syndrome (urge to STEAL from the public purse) hidden in majority of us, but we often display a holier-than-though indignation at the mention of the amount of money some others steal, only for us to show our true selves when we get the opportunity  to be on the saddle.

Minus his tribal jingoism of course, many of us have the Tinubu syndrome waiting to explode on the surface, if given the chance to manage the public purse.

A lot of us are sycophants for the reason that we expect something out of it, not because the praise we lavish upon someone, or something is truly from our hearts. More often, we are as sincere as the euphoric post election address of President Tinubu, where he once urged Nigerians not to elect him for a second term if he did not provide electricity to all.

Muslims in Nigeria enter the Mosque with shoes clutched in arms for safe keeping inside, because of the fear that they might be stolen by some ‘rogues’ (they often are) if left outside. Some of the ‘rogues’ appear so well dressed that they looked every inch like ‘gentlemen’, but are actually shoe thieves.

Some daredevil, or drugged thieves, even arrange scared books, such as the Holy Quran, and mount on them and reach at the ceiling fans, which they remove without second thoughts. For that reason, all the Mosques provide shelves from within for shoe keeping.

A pure water vendor was once trusted to make twice-a-week delivery to an orphanage, but unknown to the person who ordered for the delivery, the vendor never supplied the water. But he never missed one moment without calling to claim that he has made the delivery. One day, the person who placed the order, went to the orphanage and asked about the drinking water situation at the place. The management of the orphanage said that the person was the last one who delivered pure water to the children in the orphanage.

The kind person there and then called the pure water vendor that was given the assignment to take the water to the orphanage twice a week and told him a piece of his mind, and left him to God for his ‘misplaced’ love for ‘free’ money. The water vendor never delivered as was ordered, but never failed to call and falsely claim of making the delivery.

The N712 billion monumental scam at the Lagos Murtala Mohammed International Airport under the Tinubu Minister of Aviation, the hitherto saintly, Festus Keyamo, is a typical Tinubu syndrome shenanigan. The Airport Terminal has been renovated by his immediate predecessor, yet the word was informed that a repair of the same terminal was being carried out at the cost N712 billion. 

Or the trillions of naira borrowed from foreign banks, with practically nothing appreciative on the ground to show for all the money.

Unfortunately, many of the people whose business is to mind other people’s business (journalists) are not free of this syndrome. They are are found CELEBRATING, instead of, CONDEMNING the people who pauperise them, but later turn around to ‘DONATE’ an insignificant amount to the ‘grateful’ people whose Commonwealth was stolen by the ‘benevolent’ donors.

Today, hardly an hour passes without the airwaves, the air spaces and the traditional or new media, filled with the stories of their ‘donations’. Most of them were as poor as the proverbial church rat, but are today so stupendously rich that they are ‘donating’ millions of naira to their constituency, periodically.

These days, for one to be considered ‘enlightened’, or ‘smart’, in Nigeria, one has to be a scammer, or pretend to be a very successful scammer. Otherwise, one is seen as a dull or illiterate person, who many would rather not to be associated with.

Even siblings, relatives, acquaintances, friends and colleagues most often tend to be on the take at your expense, ala the Tinubu syndrome. While some of them were born with the Tinubu syndrome, many others were forced into it by the harshness of the times caused by the syndrome.

May God prevent us from joining the Tinubu syndrome, however poor our financial situation may be.

Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.