My Take Over Tinubu’s Appearance At Chatham House By Wumi Akintide

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……Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s appearance at Chatham House Town Hall Meeting in London was his best Public Appearance Performance I have seen in this Election Season.

If I were to give him a grade, he would probably get a C minus overall.

As a History and English teacher at Queen’s School Ede under Ms. Ruby Dunn as Principal and at Aquinas College, Akure under Rev Father Hoshea as Principal and at Igbobi College, Lagos under Revd Olatubosun as Principal, I knew enough to tell and grade a good and eloquent speaker when I see one.

I put on my English teacher cap as I carefully watched that Town Hall Meeting on YouTube in the comfort of my living room in New York.

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Tinubu after speaking for roughly 40 minutes without committing any major gaffe had grudgingly agreed to take 3 rounds of questions from the audience randomly selected by the very kind white Moderator or Master of Ceremony who allowed Tinubu the freedom to not answer questions directly but to pick a member from his big Entourage to be the one to speak for him, while his role was reduced to merely embellishing the points his hand-picked surrogates from the audience have made.

I recall Tinubu picking one Ayade, one Dele Alake, Governor El Rufai of Kaduna State and one Mr. Edun to be the one to fully answer all of the questions and to articulate his Governing policies in so doing if he is lucky enough to be elected President in 2023. The surrogates and El Rufai in particular had done a good job trying to bail out Tinubu from the Cul de Sac he has found himself on that hot seat.

It was an awkward moment which tells me that Tinubu’s handlers who accompanied from Lagos were scared to death to leave him alone to be the one to answer all of those questions without some help from them.

If that is what Tinubu is going to do if he is elected, I think Nigerians must get ready for a very rough ride when Tinubu has to attend overseas Conferences like making an appearance at the United Nations or African Union or ECOWAS or when he has to hold and address Press Conferences with visiting or hosting Heads of State or when he has to hold Press Conferences with Journalists drawn from all over the World.

I am a little bit concerned about that to tell you the truth, and based on his performance at the Chatham House in London.

I don’t know who is going to be worse between Buhari and Tinubu when they go overseas to represent Nigeria.

I do know, however, that their performances constitute a far cry from the performances of the pioneer Prime Minister of Nigeria from 1959 to January 15, 1966.

I am talking of Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, the golden voice of Africa who spoke English with the accent and dexterity of a Winston Churchill when he addressed the Joint Session of Congress in the United States while JFK was President and when Balewa addressed the UN General Assembly on his maiden visit to that August Body as I recall

Neither Buhari nor Ahmed Bola Tinubu could match the performances of Tafawa Balewa in eloquence or Public Speaking. Not by a long shot!

Peter Obi, or Atiku Abubakar or Kwankwaso could have performed better than what I saw play out today at the Chatham House Town Hall Meeting.

I personally have strong reservations on the speaking ability and competence of Bola Tinubu to be President of Nigeria, but if Buhari could do it, it will be discriminatory to argue that Tinubu does not qualify to be President based on his inability to express himself and to speak impromptu in Public.

I rest my case.