SYMBOLISM MATTERS

Symbolism matters in leadership. Many members of the Nigerian ruling class do not realize this. In three weeks of being acting president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has not done anything substantively different from what President Buhari has been doing for almost two years. He has not healed a broken economy, tamed inflation, stemmed the collapse of the naira, improved power, or engineered a miraculous infrastructural renaissance. Nor has he dealt a final, decisive blow on Boko Haram. In other words, he has not changed the governing paradigm of the APC/Buhari administration and has thus not fundamentally altered how the administration is perceived and evaluated. It is still a calamitous administration on several fronts.