LEADERSHIP AND THE BURDEN OF COMMUNICATION (2)
Tinubu, Jingir, NHRC, the Politics of Religion and the Business of Advocacy
Thursday, 13th August, 2026
By Citizen Bolaji O. Akinyemi
Apostle & Nation Builder
Leadership is not merely the authority to speak.
It is the responsibility to understand what one’s words, silences and signals may produce.
A President speaks, and markets react.
A Governor speaks, and communities interpret.
A Senator speaks, and the constitution comes under scrutiny.
A religious leader speaks, and followers may mobilise.
A regulatory institution speaks, and citizens draw conclusions about what the state considers acceptable.
An advocate speaks, and the public expects not merely outrage, but direction.
This is the burden of leadership communication.
And it is precisely why the current controversy surrounding President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Sheikh Sani Yahaya Jingir and the National Human Rights Commission deserves to be examined beyond the immediate headlines.
The issue is not simply what Jingir said.
It is what his statement reveals about the politics of religion in Nigeria, what the response of the state communicates to citizens, and whether those of us who call ourselves advocates are prepared to move beyond condemnation into constitutional solutions.
WHEN A LEADER’S SILENCE BECOMES COMMUNICATION
One of the greatest misconceptions about leadership communication is that only spoken words communicate.
They do not.
Silence communicates.
Inaction communicates.
Selective intervention communicates.
The question is not whether a leader intended a particular interpretation.
The question is what the people reasonably understood from the conduct of the leader.
That is why the controversy surrounding religious and political rhetorics cannot be isolated from the conduct of the political leadership.
President Tinubu’s decision to run on a Muslim-Muslim ticket was constitutionally permissible.
It was politically controversial.
There is nothing inherently unconstitutional about two Muslims occupying the presidential ticket.
But leadership does not end with what is legally permissible.
Leadership must also consider what a political signal communicates in a deeply religious and ethnically sensitive society.
The same principle would apply if the ticket were Christian-Christian.
The constitutional question is one thing.
The leadership responsibility is another.
THE TINUBU SIGNAL
Before Jingir’s recent intervention, Nigerians had already been engaged in an intense conversation about religious arithmetic and political power.
The Muslim-Muslim ticket became a political signal.
Supporters interpreted it as competence over religious balancing.
Opponents interpreted it as a dangerous departure from Nigeria’s informal tradition of religious balancing.
Both sides were entitled to their political interpretations.
But the burden of leadership communication required something more from the President: an unmistakable reassurance that the ticket was not a declaration of religious ownership of the Nigerian state.
That reassurance matters because political symbolism matters.
A President may win an election with a particular political coalition.
But after victory, he becomes President of those who voted for him and those who did not.
He becomes President of Muslims, Christians, traditional believers and citizens of no faith.
The Presidency must therefore constantly communicate one message:
No Nigerian is a guest in Nigeria.
THEN CAME JINGIR
This is where Sheikh Sani Yahaya Jingir enters the conversation.
His reported intervention in Kano has brought the politics of religion back into the centre of national discourse.
The disturbing proposition is not simply that a religious leader has expressed an opinion.
Religious leaders have the right to speak.
The problem begins when religious identity is presented as a determinant of political entitlement.
If political office must belong to whoever has the greater religious numbers, then we have moved away from citizenship and towards religious majoritarianism.
That is dangerous.
Not because Muslims are dangerous.
Not because Christians are innocent.
But because majoritarianism of any kind is dangerous when it becomes the basis for citizenship.
Today the numbers may favour one religious community.
Tomorrow they may favour another.
The principle will remain poisonous.
JINGIR’S WORDS ARE A SYMPTOM
This is where I differ from those who want this conversation to end with Jingir.
Jingir’s statement deserves scrutiny.
If it violates the law, the law should take its course.
If it amounts to incitement, the appropriate institutions should act.
But Nigerians should not deceive themselves into believing that arresting one Sheikh will cure Nigeria’s religious politics.
It will not.
Jingir is a symptom of a larger political culture.
That culture has been developing for years.
Religious identity has increasingly become a political instrument.
Politicians court religious leaders.
Religious leaders endorse political actors.
Political actors exploit religious anxieties.
Communities interpret government appointments through religious lenses.
And citizens increasingly ask not:
Who can govern well?
but:
Who is one of us?
That is the disease.
THE BURDEN OF THE NHRC
And then comes the National Human Rights Commission.
The NHRC’s call for action against Jingir sounds reassuring.
It suggests that the state is finally taking inflammatory communication seriously.
But here again, leadership communication raises a difficult question:
Why now?
Where was this urgency when other public actors made statements that appeared to diminish the citizenship of Christians?
Where was the institutional alarm when religious and political voices made inflammatory statements in other contexts?
Where was the same determination when communities were being killed, displaced and humiliated?
Human rights advocacy cannot be selective.
If hate speech is wrong when a Muslim cleric speaks, it is wrong when a Christian cleric speaks.
If religious incitement is dangerous from a Sheikh, it is dangerous from a Pastor.
If political intimidation is unacceptable from an opposition politician, it is unacceptable from a government supporter.
The law must not have a religion.
THE SELECTIVITY PROBLEM
This is why the NHRC must be careful.
A human rights institution derives its authority not merely from the powers granted to it by law, but from public confidence in its impartiality.
When citizens begin to perceive enforcement as selective, the institution loses moral authority.
The question therefore is not:
Should Jingir be held accountable?
The question is:
Will everyone who crosses the same legal line be held accountable?
That is the standard.
THE EL-RUFAI AND GUMI TEST
Nigeria has witnessed inflammatory interventions from many quarters.
Nasir El-Rufai has made statements over the years that have generated serious controversy, including statements capable of deepening political and religious tensions.
Sheikh Ahmad Gumi has also made controversial interventions concerning terrorism, banditry and the conduct of government and security agencies.
The issue here is not to place every statement by every individual in the same legal category.
They are not the same.
The issue is consistency.
If the state establishes a standard for dangerous communication, that standard must apply irrespective of who speaks.
The moment citizens conclude that some people can say anything because they belong to the right political or religious camp, while others are prosecuted because they belong to the wrong camp, the state ceases to communicate justice.
It communicates power.
And that distinction matters.
THE REAL VICTIMS ARE LISTENING
While political actors debate Jingir, the victims are listening.
The families who have lost loved ones in Benue, Plateau, Southern Kaduna and in politically ignited crisis States like Osun are listening.
The displaced are listening.
The communities that believe they have been abandoned are listening.
Christians who feel increasingly insecure are listening.
Muslims who have also suffered violence and displacement are listening.
They are asking a very simple question:
Does government see us?
This is where leadership communication becomes more than rhetoric.
People do not merely listen to what government says.
They listen to what government does after it speaks.
POLITICS OF RELIGION
The deeper problem is therefore the politics of religion.
Religion is not the enemy.
Islam is not the enemy.
Christianity is not the enemy.
The enemy is the weaponisation of religion for political domination.
A Muslim has every right to bring his faith into politics.
A Christian has exactly the same right.
But neither has the right to convert the state into an instrument of religious superiority.
The state must remain the common ground.
That is what constitutional democracy means.
THE OIC AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
Jingir’s intervention has also revived the debate about Nigeria’s membership of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
Nigeria has been an OIC member since 1986.
That fact should neither be denied nor exaggerated.
Membership of the OIC does not, by itself, establish Nigeria as an Islamic state.
But it is legitimate for citizens to ask whether Nigeria’s international religious affiliations and domestic constitutional commitments are adequately reconciled.
The Constitution expressly prohibits the adoption of a state religion.
It also contains provisions relating to Sharia Courts of Appeal.
These provisions deserve honest constitutional examination.
Not because Islam must be removed from Nigeria.
Not because Christianity must dominate Nigeria.
But because Nigerians deserve clarity about the constitutional character of the state they share.
THE 1999 CONSTITUTION QUESTION
This takes us to a much deeper issue.
The 1999 Constitution emerged from military rule through Decree 24 of 1999.
That history cannot be ignored indefinitely.
Nigeria’s constitutional development was interrupted by military intervention in 1966.
The country moved from the 1960 Independence Constitution to the 1963 Republican Constitution and subsequently through military decrees and constitution-making processes under military rule.
My advocacy for constitutional reform therefore goes beyond Jingir.
It goes beyond Tinubu.
It goes beyond the NHRC.
The real question is:
Who owns the Nigerian Constitution?
Can a people genuinely own a constitutional order they did not freely negotiate and enact?
This is why the 1963 constitutional experience deserves serious national reconsideration—not as a nostalgic return to the past, but as a source of lessons about federalism, republicanism and constitutional ownership.
THIS IS WHERE ADVOCACY MUST BECOME SERIOUS
And now I come to my colleagues in the business of advocacy.
Advocacy is not the business of shouting the loudest.
It is not the business of choosing a villain and mobilising outrage against him.
It is not the business of defending one’s tribe while condemning another tribe.
It is not even the business of permanently opposing government.
Advocacy is the business of identifying a problem, naming it courageously, educating the public about it and pursuing a solution that survives the personalities involved.
If Jingir disappears tomorrow, the problem of religious politics will remain.
If Tinubu leaves office tomorrow, the problem will remain.
If the NHRC changes its leadership tomorrow, the problem will remain.
Therefore, our advocacy must outlive all three.
FROM CONDEMNATION TO CONSTITUTIONAL SOLUTION
This is why I am uncomfortable with an advocacy model that celebrates the arrest of one person as victory.
What happens after the arrest?
Do religious leaders stop weaponising religion?
Do political parties stop mobilising voters through religious fear?
Do citizens become more equal?
Does the Constitution become clearer?
Do victims become safer?
Does Nigeria become more genuinely federal?
If the answer to these questions is no, then we have achieved punishment without reform.
Nigeria does not need perpetual cycles of punishment.
Nigeria needs institutional correction.
THE PERMANENT SOLUTION
The permanent solution is constitutional.
We need a constitutional settlement that makes religious neutrality, equal citizenship and federal democracy unmistakable.
We need a Constitution that Nigerians can genuinely claim as theirs.
We need institutions whose enforcement is consistent.
We need laws against incitement that apply equally to every citizen.
We need political parties that compete for citizens rather than religious blocs.
We need public appointments understood as exercises of constitutional authority rather than gifts from one religious community to another.
And we need a political culture in which a citizen’s religion is neither a qualification for power nor a disqualification from it.
That is the conversation advocacy must now pursue.
THE BURDEN OF LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION
President Tinubu carries the burden of communicating that Nigeria belongs to all Nigerians.
Sheikh Jingir carries the burden of understanding the power of religious speech.
The NHRC carries the burden of impartial enforcement.
Political parties carry the burden of refusing religious manipulation.
Religious leaders carry the burden of restraining their followers from translating rhetoric into hostility.
And advocates carry the burden of refusing to turn national pain into political merchandise.
Every leader communicates.
Even silence communicates.
Every institution communicates.
Every action communicates.
And every failure to act communicates.
THE QUESTION BEFORE US
So, should Sheikh Jingir be held accountable if his words violate Nigerian law?
Absolutely.
But that is only the beginning of the conversation.
Should the NHRC enforce the same standard against everyone?
Absolutely.
Should President Tinubu communicate clearly that his administration belongs equally to Christians, Muslims and every Nigerian?
Absolutely.
Should religious leaders be free to participate in public life?
Absolutely.
Should religion determine political citizenship?
Absolutely not.
Should Nigeria finally confront the constitutional contradictions that have allowed religious politics to become such a powerful instrument of mobilisation?
Absolutely.
THE BUSINESS OF ADVOCACY
This is the point at which advocacy must distinguish itself from activism for its own sake.
The activist may ask:
Who is guilty?
The advocate must ask:
What produced the problem?
The activist may ask:
Who should be punished?
The advocate must ask:
How do we prevent recurrence?
The activist may celebrate the arrest.
The advocate must remain awake to the system.
Because if the system remains unchanged, another Jingir will emerge.
Another religious controversy will come.
Another community will feel threatened.
Another government will issue another statement.
And another generation of Nigerians will inherit the same problem.
That is not advocacy.
That is repetition.
NIGERIA NEEDS A NEW COMMUNICATION ETHIC
We need a new ethic of leadership communication.
Presidents must understand that their choices carry symbolic consequences.
Religious leaders must understand that their words can mobilise both faith and fear.
Institutions must understand that selective action destroys credibility.
Advocates must understand that outrage without architecture is temporary.
And citizens must understand that democracy is not merely the right to vote.
It is the responsibility to hold every wielder of public influence accountable.
CONCLUSION: THE ANSWER MUST BE BIGGER THAN JINGIR
The Jingir controversy should not become another episode in Nigeria’s endless theatre of outrage.
It should become a national teachable moment.
Let us ask the bigger questions.
What kind of republic are we building?
What does equal citizenship mean?
What is the proper place of religion in democratic politics?
What should be the constitutional relationship between faith and the state?
Who owns our Constitution?
And what permanent reforms will prevent religion from becoming an instrument of political domination?
These are the questions that matter.
Because the burden of leadership communication is not merely that leaders should speak responsibly.
It is that their communication should help build a society in which citizens can live without fear of what another leader’s words may provoke.
The answer to Jingir cannot simply be Jingir.
The answer to Tinubu cannot simply be Tinubu.
The answer to the NHRC cannot simply be the NHRC.
The answer to Fadahunsi shouldn’t be Fadahunsi.
The answer must be bigger than personalities.
The answer must be Nigeria.
And the business of advocacy is to help Nigeria find that answer—and build it into the Constitution.
Citizen Bolaji O. Akinyemi
Apostle & Nation Builder
Watch out for:
Leadership And The Burden of Communication (3)
A Nation of Selective Amnesia:
Fadahunsi’s “Miss Yarn” and the Crisis of Political Memory.
