By Stephen Angbulu
What is the difference between being patient in Nigeria and being patient elsewhere? Being patient in Nigeria requires diligent practice. It’s like the Olympics. The patience it takes to wait for NEPA to restore light is not the same patience required to sit in Lagos traffic on a Monday morning. Which is why we say, “Please, EXERCISE patience.”
In 2015, Nigerians learned a new kind of patience. It was the patience of watching a president take nearly six months to tell us who would run his government. Former President Muhammadu Buhari was inaugurated on May 29, 2015, but his ministers were not sworn in until November 11. One hundred and sixty-six days later!
By the time Nigerians met their new Minister of Finance, the economy had already begun its slow descent toward recession. His spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu, later explained that the President had been “sitting at long meetings with teams led by Permanent Secretaries.” In other words, the man was behind the wheel, studying the manual on how to apply the brakes while the car raced downhill.
To his credit, Buhari recognised this absurdity before leaving office. So, in March 2023, he signed the Fifth Alteration (No. 45) to the Constitution, mandating that presidents and governors submit their cabinet nominees within 60 days of taking the oath of office. It was, in effect, a law to ensure that no other President breaks his record.
However, his creative successor has found innovative ways to beat that feat. When Bola Tinubu took office on May 29, 2023, the new 60-day rule was in Aso Rock waiting for him. And to be fair, Tinubu submitted his ministerial list within the window. His cabinet was inaugurated on August 21, and a week later, the new Federal Executive Council sat for the first time. But just to outdo his predecessors, the council eventually grew to nearly 50 ministers.
Nigerians complained but then sighed with relief, hoping Tinubu would break the cycle. Instead, he proved no different. Like everyone with their own failings, this President is only slow in new ways. What Buhari did with ministers, Tinubu surpassed with ambassadors.
The mass recall of envoys began in September 2023. What followed was a diplomatic drought that lasted over two years. For 27 months, Nigeria’s missions around the world operated without substantive ambassadors, some without even chargés d’affaires, while the President compiled, vetted, revised, shelved, and recompiled his list. I know this because I covered it. Obsessively!
Between December 2023 and this week, I have written no fewer than 11 exclusive stories tracking the ambassadorial saga, from the first set of names handed down to me by sources, through the endless false starts, the growing frustration, and the eventual nominations in November 2025 that included Femi Fani-Kayode, Reno Omokri, and former INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega.
The posting of those 65 ambassadors to their countries, which finally came on Friday, is a personal relief.
The politics behind the delay is an open secret. Tinubu himself admitted it. “I still have some slots for ambassadorial positions that so many people are craving for. I couldn’t appoint everybody at once…It’s not easy stitching those names,” he confessed to a delegation led by former Nasarawa State Governor, Sen. Tanko Almakura, at the Villa last September.
Both Buhari and Tinubu struggled with political debts and egos, causing costly delays. These qualities continue to slow progress under Tinubu, just in different areas.
But while the President was doing his political arithmetic, a generation of diplomats was sacrificed on the altar of indecision. Several eligible career ambassadors who should have represented Nigeria abroad either died waiting, retired from service, or ran out of time to serve meaningful tenures. That is the cost no one talks about, the human toll of the new brand of Baba Go Slow.
It took, quite literally, an external force to break the inertia. As I wrote in my column last November, when Donald Trump designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern and threatened to “move in, guns a-blazing,” Isaac Newton’s First Law stormed into Aso Rock. It says an object at rest—in this case, the president and his ambassadorial list—will remain at rest until acted upon by an external force. After Trump’s threats, suddenly, the long-stalled nominations were expedited, press conferences by the Federal Government intensified, and the Federal Executive Council reconvened after a three-month hiatus.
Now, when Buhari’s six-month ministerial delay became a national embarrassment, the system self-corrected. The National Assembly passed a constitutional amendment, and Buhari, to his eternal credit, signed it into law before leaving. He fixed the hole he fell into so that the next president would not fall into it. Thanks to him, Tinubu dodged that hole but fell into a different one.
As of today, I am not aware of any constitutional provision requiring a president to appoint ambassadors within any timeframe after recalling the old ones. The 60-day rule covers ministers and commissioners. For ambassadors? The president can take 600 days. Nobody can compel him. Well, except for an eternal force.
If Buhari could sign a law to cure his own go-slow affliction, I humbly suggest that President Tinubu consider doing the same. A simple amendment like “upon the recall of ambassadors, the President shall submit nominees for confirmation within 120 days.” Not 60, we are not unreasonable. But not 27 months either.
Mr President, you can do it!
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