The Tarmac Republic

Nigeria is a constitutional democracy and a federation. Yet, whenever the President leaves the country and returns, the nation often stages something that looks less like routine protocol and more like a small coronation on the tarmac.

The latest spectacle came on Tuesday, when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu returned to Lagos after spending about four weeks in Europe on what the Presidency described as a working vacation. He was received at the Presidential Wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport by Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Kwara State Governor and Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, Speaker of the House of Representatives Tajudeen Abbas, Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin and other political figures.

There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with receiving the President at an airport. Courtesy is part of public life, and political leaders can legitimately welcome one another.

The question is not whether a governor may welcome the President.

The question is: why has the Nigerian political system turned the President’s arrival into a recurring display of political attendance?

That distinction matters in a federation.

Under Nigeria’s Constitution, a state governor is not a subordinate of the President. The governor is the chief executive of his or her state, with executive powers vested in the office by the Constitution. State executive authority is exercised through the governor, subject to the Constitution and the laws of the state.

That constitutional arrangement makes the optics of the airport reception interesting.

A governor standing on the tarmac to receive the President is not performing a constitutional duty comparable to the duty of a minister, presidential aide, security official or other federal functionary whose work directly relates to the President’s arrival.

It is therefore difficult to look at these gatherings simply as administrative protocol.

They are political theatre.

And political theatre communicates.

When courtesy becomes ritual

The pattern is not new, nor is it unique to President Tinubu.

In 2023, former governors and senior political figures repeatedly appeared at airports to receive or see off Tinubu, prompting public criticism of the elaborate airport receptions. The Cable, for example, reported criticism surrounding the presence of former governors and other political figures at presidential airport ceremonies.

What makes the practice particularly striking is the selectivity of attendance.

Not every governor turns up.

Those who do are often politicians who have strong relationships with the President or belong to his political camp. That does not prove that attendance is demanded, nor does absence necessarily prove independence. But it does raise a reasonable question about what these ceremonies are actually communicating.

If the purpose were simply to receive the head of state, why should the composition of the receiving line matter so much?

Why governors?

Why party figures?

Why political heavyweights?

And why should a president require a line of elected politicians waiting on the tarmac to welcome him home?

There is another way of doing it.

Protocol officers can receive the aircraft. Federal officials whose responsibilities require them to be present can attend. The President can proceed with his programme.

No constitutional principle requires governors to form a welcoming committee.

The symbolism of the tarmac

Politics is not conducted only through laws, budgets and executive orders. It is also conducted through symbols.

A governor waiting at the airport to greet the President may intend nothing more than respect. But when such scenes become habitual, the symbolism becomes larger than the individuals involved.

The President begins to appear as the political centre around which everyone else must arrange themselves.

The governor, who constitutionally leads a separate tier of government with his own electoral mandate, appears in the visual language of a subordinate waiting to receive a superior.

That is the uncomfortable part.

Federalism is supposed to distribute political authority. It is supposed to prevent all meaningful political power from flowing from one centre.

Yet Nigeria’s political culture frequently behaves as though political power flows in precisely that direction.

The contradiction is difficult to miss.

Governors invoke state autonomy when challenging federal encroachment. They defend the constitutional authority of their states when federal policies interfere with state responsibilities. They negotiate fiercely over federal allocations and other financial matters.

But when the President’s aircraft lands, the language of federalism can suddenly become less visible.

The governor is back on the tarmac.

The politics behind the handshake

There is an economic dimension to this ritual as well.

Nigeria’s federal structure does not operate in a vacuum. State governments remain heavily dependent on federally distributed revenue, while the Federal Government exercises considerable influence over national institutions, agencies, projects and political networks.

That creates an environment in which proximity to the centre can have political value.

It would be too strong to claim, without evidence, that a governor who fails to attend an airport reception will be punished.

But one does not need to establish an explicit punishment system to understand the incentive structure.

In politics, sometimes the possibility of losing favour is sufficient to influence behaviour.

The airport therefore becomes more than an airport.

It becomes a stage on which loyalty can be displayed publicly and cheaply.

A handshake costs little.

An appearance costs a few hours.

A photograph lasts much longer.

And everybody understands what the photograph can communicate.

But there is another side

There is a legitimate defence of these ceremonies.

Nigeria is a country where personal relationships, hospitality and political courtesy carry considerable cultural weight. A governor may genuinely believe that receiving the President is simply an appropriate gesture of respect.

Many governors also belong to the same political party as the President. There is nothing constitutionally improper about political allies maintaining cordial relationships.

Nor does appearing on the tarmac automatically mean surrendering constitutional independence.

Indeed, Nigerian governors have demonstrated that political cooperation and institutional disagreement can coexist.

Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde, for example, has publicly challenged claims and decisions emanating from the Federal Government over matters concerning his state. That kind of disagreement is entirely compatible with a federal system.

The problem, therefore, is not a single governor’s handshake.

It is the cumulative culture.

When political courtesy becomes a repeated ritual, when the same political class repeatedly gathers around the President, and when the spectacle becomes sufficiently predictable that citizens begin to expect it, the distinction between courtesy and political signalling becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.

Nigeria is not Turkey

There are useful international comparisons, although they must be handled carefully.

Turkey provides one example of a more centralised state structure. Its provincial governors are appointed rather than elected in the Nigerian sense; President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for example, has appointed provincial governors through presidential decrees.

That makes the appearance of appointed provincial governors in presidential ceremonies structurally different from the appearance of Nigeria’s elected state governors.

The comparison with Zimbabwe is also revealing.

In 2021, President Emmerson Mnangagwa returned from the COP26 climate conference to find hundreds of ZANU-PF supporters waiting at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport. Government and senior party officials were also present, and the occasion included speeches and political celebration.

But again, Zimbabwe’s experience should not simply be transplanted onto Nigeria.

The point of the comparison is narrower: political systems often use public receptions to communicate loyalty, authority and proximity to power.

Nigeria’s question is whether a constitutional federation should increasingly resemble such political cultures in its public rituals.

What should change?

Nothing prevents a governor from welcoming the President.

But neither should political culture make the governor feel that he must.

There is a simple distinction Nigeria could recover: respect does not require submission, and courtesy does not require ceremony.

A President does not need a receiving line of governors to demonstrate the authority of his office.

Governors do not need to stand on airport tarmacs to demonstrate their loyalty to the federation.

Their more important responsibility is elsewhere: in their offices, their state assemblies, their ministries, their schools, their hospitals, their roads, their budgets and, ultimately, before the citizens who elected them.

If a governor chooses to welcome the President, so be it.

But it should be possible for another governor to remain in his state without anybody interpreting his absence as disloyalty.

That is what political independence looks like.

And perhaps the most powerful reform would be the simplest one: let protocol officers handle protocol.

Let elected governors govern.

Let the President be received as the President.

And let Nigeria stop confusing a political photograph with a constitutional obligation.

The tarmac is not the problem by itself.

The problem is what the tarmac has come to represent.

Opinion