When the Cameras Keep Finding a Lone Figure at the Summit of a Crisis Authored by Many Hands

.....Nigeria’s Burden of Blame: When a Nation Pretends One Man Holds All the Answers

In seasons of national tension, public perception sharpens. Every photograph, every expression, every moment captured by the presidential lens becomes evidence in the courtroom of public opinion. Recently, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has appeared visibly strained, and those reading his body language draw their own conclusions: he looks like a man carrying a country alone.

But leadership is not sainthood, and Nigeria’s troubles are not the work of one man.

This nation is a mosaic of responsibilities, federal, state, and local, yet when crises erupt, our political culture seeks only one face to crucify.

The irony is painful.

For decades, Nigeria has crumbled under the weight of collective negligence, yet accountability has followed only a single direction, upward. Governors enjoy staggering security votes, yet remain curiously absent from public interrogation when violence sweeps through their states. Some appear only to commission projects; others vanish entirely when blood is shed.

Still, we chant the familiar refrain:

“Let the president fix it.”

Leadership, yes, demands answers. A president must face the storm when the nation aches. But a leader cannot battle insurgency, banditry, economic restructuring, border vulnerabilities, infrastructure decay, and political sabotage, while state executives sip immunity under the shade of federal scapegoating.

If Nigeria must heal, then our federation must function in truth, not theory.

Power must meet accountability.

Security votes must meet visible security.

Governance must stop being theatre.

And round pegs must finally find round holes.

Until then, the cameras will keep capturing a lonely figure at the top, not because he is alone in authority, but because he is alone in blame.

Nigeria needs honesty, not selective outrage.

Call the president to account - yes, but call the governors too.

This nation’s redemption will not come from Abuja alone; it will rise from every statehouse that remembers it was elected to govern, not to hide.

Abioye Tosin Lawrence is the publisher of Oriontimes Online Newspaper and author of Voices From The Fire: My Journey Through a Hollow Empire