Politics is often less about the event itself than about the timing of the event. A document released today may have been written weeks earlier, but when it surfaces at a politically sensitive moment, it immediately acquires a meaning far beyond its contents. That is the context in which the recent exchange involving President Bola Tinubu, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the administration of President Donald Trump should be understood.
For weeks, reports had circulated that lobbyists engaged by Atiku were intensifying efforts in Washington to draw renewed attention to the decades-old American civil forfeiture case involving Tinubu. Whether those efforts ultimately succeed or not is almost secondary. Their immediate objective appears to be to keep alive a narrative that has trailed the President since before the 2023 election.
Then, almost on cue, emerged a letter from President Trump commending the Tinubu administration’s efforts against insecurity and reaffirming the importance of Nigeria to American strategic interests. That is the question political observers cannot ignore. This is not the first time Nigeria’s political class has sought advantage through Washington.
Ahead of the 2015 presidential election, the then-opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) vigorously cultivated relationships within the Barack Obama administration and the wider American policy establishment. At the time, relations between Abuja and Washington had become strained over a number of issues, including the Jonathan administration’s handling of the Boko Haram insurgency and the enactment of the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act, which drew strong criticism from the Obama administration. Those developments fuelled a widespread perception in Nigerian political circles that Washington had become increasingly uncomfortable with President Goodluck Jonathan’s government.
Whether that perception accurately reflected the position of the Obama White House is a matter historians may continue to debate. What is beyond dispute is that the APC recognised the importance of international opinion and invested considerable effort in engaging influential American policymakers and opinion moulders. It was a strategy aimed not necessarily at securing foreign intervention but at shaping the international narrative around Nigeria’s democratic tran…
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