Microphone, motorcade, and the message in between
By Ebuka Ukoh
“Stop singing, or I will switch off the microphone,” cut in the First Lady, Sen. Olurei Tinubu. Watching her interrupt Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State on stage, cutting short his time, despite his being the host, I struggled to recognise the democracy we claim to practise. It felt less like constitutional order and more like a senior prefect shouting down a junior student.
By the political script: the governor is the elected representative of the people, the chief security officer of his state, and the host in his own domain. The First Lady is none of the above. Her position has no constitutional mandate; any influence she wields is derived from social or political capital, not from law.
So why does a guest feel empowered to “switch off the mic” of the host? What democratic handbook authorises such a thing?
What happened in Osun was more than bad etiquette. It exposed how power is increasingly performed rather than constrained. A democracy without boundaries becomes a dictatorship in slow motion. A nation without servant-leaders becomes a place where the people serve leadership, instead of the other way around.
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If we treat that as a “minor” offence, we miss the danger. Power that disrespects protocol will eventually disrespect the people.
A Lagos Motorcade and the Cost of Privilege
Then, consider a second scene unfolding not on a stage, but on a street in Lagos and across the country’s public conscience. On that street, the son of the president moves under a “battalion-size” security escort. Heavily armed operatives follow a private citizen as if they were crossing a war zone. Meanwhile, countless Nigerians walk daily through real danger with zero protection.
That display draws public attention because the nation is hurting. Many Nigerians live under the shadow of insecurity: kidnappings, banditry, rural violence, and stretched police. Yet the same security formations that lack manpower to protect communities find enough personnel to protect privilege.
Nigeria’s insecurity crisis is not theoretical. Between January and June 2025, armed groups killed more Nigerians than in the entire previous year, with over 2,266 deaths recorded in those six months. Millions of citizens rely on overstretched police formations, yet convoys of state-funded protection follow a privileged few through cities already struggling with limited security coverage. This mismatch between public need and private shielding exposes how badly resources are allocated in a nation that desperately needs safety.
Prof. Wole Soyinka’s snide remarks about Seyi Tinubu’s armed motorcade cut deep. The heavy deployment around one individual while many remain vulnerable is a misallocation of state assets.
Is this a question of envy? No! It is about fairness, principle. It is about what the state owes its citizens. It is about whether power remains a public trust or becomes a private toy.
A protocol exists for order and public security for safety. Even close family members of a president need credible protection. Some moments on a public stage require direction. The point is not to deny this. The real concern is when those structures lose proportion and overshadow the people they exist to protect. When personal influence overrides public authority, the rules help the powerful and leave citizens behind. That is where abuse begins.
When Boundaries Erode, Democracy Drifts
Both scenes share a common thread: power performed as spectacle, not responsibility.
These scenes flourish because institutions are weak, accountability is selective, and inequality shapes who receives respect and who gets ignored. When offices carry less weight than personages and when consequences rarely follow breaches, privilege becomes the only real protocol. That is how a democracy drifts, not through dramatic coups, but through small, constant exceptions granted to the powerful few.
In Osun, authority becomes a personal prerogative. Protocol bows to social standing. In Lagos, security becomes a privilege of proximity. The state becomes private barracks.
In both cases, the message to citizens is clear, not in words, but in posture and policy. Some people matter more than others. Some lives are protected. Others left to chance.
That is the real danger. Not one interruption. Not one escort. The problem exists in the gradual normalisation of the abnormal: the slow erosion of dignity, equality before law, and public trust.
A democracy built on performance — speeches, appearances, red carpets, armed entourages — is already halfway to autocracy. Performance always needs an audience. And when the applause fades, what remains is people bearing the cost.
Citizens Must Be the Guardrail
We must challenge this, not out of partisanship, but out of principle. Protocol must not become optional. Public resources must not be private honoraria. The elected office must not become a stage show.
Nigeria needs leaders who serve, not who perform. We need systems, not spectacles. We need dignity for every citizen, not special privileges for a few.
When power is performance, the people suffer. And when the people suffer, democracy loses meaning.
Nigeria needs power that stays humble, a protocol that treats every office with dignity, and security that protects every life with fairness. The people own the power, after all. Leadership only borrows it for a while.
When those who borrow power stop honouring the source, democracy starts to break. The warning signs are visible. A microphone was taken. A motorcade inflated. Authority bending to status.
Change begins when citizens stop clapping for a performance that costs them their dignity. And Nigeria will move forward only when the people remind every office holder that the seats belong to the public and the stage disappears the moment the people stop watching.
Mr Ukoh, an alumnus of the American University of Nigeria, Yola, and PhD student at Columbia University, writes from New York.
