Nigeria Now Family Business Under Tinubu, Says Adeleke’s Aide

The Senior Special Assistant to Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, on Bureau of Social Services, Mr. Akintunde Bello Sheriff, on Monday launched a scathing attack on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, accusing him of running Nigeria as a “family business” with his son, Seyi Tinubu.

Sheriff, in a statement posted on his Facebook page, likened the Tinubu administration to a dictatorship and insisted it is “worse than the military regimes” Nigeria has endured.

According to him, Tinubu has not only repeated but exceeded the excesses of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, including what he described as a deliberate override of the constitution.

“Bola Tinubu is a pretentious moralist and pseudo-democrat. Everything he accused Obasanjo of, he has demonstrated to be worse off,” Sheriff wrote.

He cited Lagos and Osun as clear examples of the President’s alleged meddling in state affairs. While the Supreme Court had dissolved Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs), elections were still held in Lagos, he noted, accusing the Attorney-General of the Federation of “toothless silence” in the face of constitutional breaches.

On Osun, Sheriff alleged that Tinubu authorised the diversion of public funds into private accounts of party loyalists who had been removed from office by the courts, despite ongoing litigation at the Supreme Court.

“To imagine that this brazen action happened during the pendency of subject litigation before the Supreme Court of Nigeria makes it alarming. In the belief of an average Nigerian, Tinubu is an anathema to democracy,” he declared.

The governor’s aide also criticised what he described as the unusual prominence of Seyi Tinubu in national affairs, saying it gives the impression that the president had effectively handed over state power to his son.

“Obasanjo was President. Late Yar’Adua was President. Jonathan was President. Buhari was President. None abdicated state powers to their sons. Seyi Tinubu follows his father everywhere, even on official missions. There was a time he was sighted at the Federal Executive Council chamber. Unarguably, Tinubu has taken Nigeria’s democratic gains backward. Sadly, the military was nicer,” he said.

The comments reflect the increasingly strained relations between Governor Adeleke and the Tinubu-led federal government, particularly over control of local government structures and alleged interference in the state’s affairs.