Former Presidential aide and veteran journalist, Laolu Akande, has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take decisive action in his remaining two years in office to rekindle the national hopes and expectations ignited by the 2015 Buhari wave, which he says, fell short of delivering true change.
Speaking during the My Take segment on his weekly political analysis programme, Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, aired on Channels Television on Friday, Akande offered a candid reflection on the legacy of the late President Muhammadu Buhari and the state of Nigeria’s political and socio-economic landscape.
Akande lamented that despite the anti-establishment sentiment that brought Buhari and the APC to power in 2015, many former power brokers within the then-opposition PDP eventually returned to dominate the same ruling party.
“In between then and now, many of the PDP top-notchers, who the 2015 wave of change ought to have blown away, came back and joined the APC ruling party, so much so that today no one can say that there is any significant ideological difference between the APC and the PDP.
“But 10 years after all of that, and the exciting national groundswell of 2015, and those early feats that I mentioned, so much more was expected of the Buhari administration, and those have not actually happened,” Akande said.
“The big change that we all expected hasn’t happened yet,” he stated.
He noted that although a new political movement, the African Democratic Congress (ADC), has emerged as a potential third force, it lacks the national momentum that characterised the 2015 elections. “The fervor is certainly not as it was in 2015, mainly because once beaten, Nigerians are now twice shy,” he observed. “The leaders of the opposition have not been able to rally a national clamor.”
Akande, however, was unequivocal in his call to President Tinubu to rescue the APC’s legacy by delivering on the 2015 promise of real change. “What will be useful for the Nigerian people now is for the Tinubu presidency to move decisively to rekindle the hopes and the expectations that the Buhari wave of 2015 represented, but didn’t quite manage to deliver in eight years,” he said.
“At least, it is still the same political party that is in power at the center. Like I have said here over and again, the presidency has two years. If the APC and the Tinubu administration manage to do this, it will be the best tribute to the memory of Buhari, who certainly meant well for Nigeria, but didn’t quite manage to deliver as much as was promised and as much as was expected.”
Akande, who served as spokesperson to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, offered a historical perspective, describing 2015 as a rare moment of national unity driven by a collective yearning to end corruption, insecurity, and weak governance. “It was a rare opportunity. The nation was stuttering on the verge of incredible corruption, scandals, worsening insurgency, and an unimpactful, even marginal, economic growth,” he recalled.
He praised former President Goodluck Jonathan for conceding defeat honorably in 2015 and credited the Buhari-Osinbajo administration with key achievements in its early months — including state bailouts, the liberation of 17 local governments from Boko Haram, and the launch of the largest social safety net programme in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“Inside the government, the president and his deputy, Professor Osinbajo, they were looking for money to pay the salaries of over 20 states where the workers had not been paid for several months… and they did,” Akande noted.
Reflecting on the recent passing and state burial of President Buhari, Akande commended President Tinubu for what he called a dignified farewell. “Buhari’s burial was rightly described by ThisDay newspaper as ‘a blaze of glory’… The grandson of late President Shehu Shagari, Mr. Nura Muhammad Mahi, even publicly complained that Shagari did not receive such a height of honor.”
Yet, Akande argued that speeches and ceremonies are not enough. “The best tribute every political elite who spoke glowingly about Buhari can pay to him now is to work hard and fulfill the promise of change which Buhari was the arrowhead of in 2015,” he stated.
In a final charge, Akande said Nigerians are still yearning for genuine change — and it is not too late for Tinubu to deliver it. “All that Nigerians want is a true change, and I line up right behind that with anyone truly committed to that change. It’s the change that we’ve been searching for.
