I will not use terrible words in this column. You can let your children read it out to you at Sunday school or after iftar.

To assure you of my commitment to deploying my best manners, I declare in this second paragraph that Tinubu is not, has never been, and will never be a terrible president.

Now that we have gotten that out of the way, we can relax and enjoy it as I marshal out my points.

Twelve years ago, I advised young Nigerians on how to properly insult David Mark, then Nigeria’s Senate president. I appealed to Nigerians to use the same template for all other Nigerian political leaders.

But apparently, it has been a while. A Nigerian like Lagos-based youth corper Ushie Rita Uguamaye, who was then in primary school, did not get to read the article. 

So, it has become necessary to update that same article. And this time, teach Nigerians how to insult President Bola Tinubu properly. I could have replaced David Mark’s name in the article with Bola Tinubu, and it would still make sense. But I will dive deeper to respect the nuances between the two political officeholders. In the former article, I predicted that David Mark would go into oblivion and one day die away, and nobody would cry for him or celebrate his accomplishments in Nigeria.

That would not be the same for Bola Tinubu. The president has taken care of that by renaming streets, army barracks, and universities after himself. Unless, in the future, Nigeria has a George Floyd moment, those buildings, streets, and institutions will continue to have his name on them until eternity, just like some have the name of Ibrahim Babangida despite his terrible autobiography.

Explaining to the young how to properly insult President Tinubu has become necessary, considering what Ushie Uguamaye is going through because she called President Tinubu a terrible president. It is more urgent now that we have heard the warning from Seyi Tinubu, the son of President Tinubu, as he declared war on those he perceived as people who have pulled hair from their heads and eaten it in a vow to ruin the unprecedented work his father is doing for Nigeria. To avoid a lot of casualties in the war to come in the next two years, here are the ways to properly insult President Bola Tinubu.

So, here we go.

President Tinubu is not a terrible president. He is not even a lucky bastard; the last stage before someone becomes a terrible president.

If you don’t get that premise right, all other analyses will be wrong. That is why I was ashamed of the former governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el Rufai, who, despite his so-called first-class brain, came out the other day to say to the BBC, “We all knew about his issues in Chicago, but we overlooked them, thinking his governance experience in Lagos would benefit Nigeria.”

How an intelligent person like Mallam el Rufai would know about the issues in Chicago and think it wouldn’t be a factor in Tinubu’s performance surprised me. I chronicled how the content of Tinubu’s FBI files would impact his presidency while he was still the president-elect. But I am sure El Rufai was too busy dancing with Tinubu to read it. It is not too late for him to read it here. 

Two years later, most of the fears I expressed in that article have come to pass.

This is not the time to point fingers and call Tinubu a terrible president. It is time to call him by his real name – a city boy embarking on a farmland clearing. Tinubu is simply clearing Nigeria’s farmland to prepare for tilling the soil to sow seeds for a new planting season. He has not even started tilling the grounds. Already, people are accusing him of supervising an industrial-scale decimation of what remained of the middle class after eight years of Buhari.

People who are feeling the pain now should have patience. He will soon plant the seeds. Before you know it, he will water and weed the plants. Before you say 2027, the flowers will blossom, and our garden will be full of fruits. All that would remain for us is to walk majestically to the farm and harvest the produce we desire.

Any description of Tinubu’s rescue mission that does not follow this track is nonsense written by an enemy of the state!

Now that we have gotten that out of the way, here are the top ten ways to properly insult President Tinubu.

10. Don’t say Tinubu is a terrible president. Instead, say that a man who once sold rice with Wole Soyinka has now become a shameless hypocrite who enjoys what he denies others. Beniiii!

9. Don’t say Tinubu is a terrible president. Instead, say that the man who once hung out with Dele Momodu in London is now old enough to know that “the only countries where newspapers are full of good news are those where the prisons are full of good people.”

8. Don’t say Tinubu is a terrible president. Instead, say that he is manipulative and mischievous—a dangerous combination in a godfather who pretends to be a leader.

7. Don’t say Tinubu is a terrible president. Instead, say that if an American newspaper put its searchlight on him for just 24 hours, the moment the story is published, Interpol, FBI, Scotland Yard, KGB, SSS, MSS, BNI, ICPC, EFCC, LASTMA and Area Boys Association of Nigeria would all be fighting over whose handcuffs to use first on Tinubu.

6. Don’t say Tinubu is a terrible president. Instead, say that he has zero confidence in his own opinions. Therefore, he hates the marketplace of ideas because he knows he can’t haggle or pay them off.

5. Don’t say Tinubu is a terrible president. Instead, say that his cherished title, “Grand Commander of a Corrupt and Crumbling Republic,” will forever stain his name in the history books of unborn generations.

4. Don’t say Tinubu is a terrible president. Instead, say that he is a ball of smoke made of sheer ignorance in action.

3. Don’t say Tinubu is a terrible president. Instead, say that Nigeria is a failed country, but it works perfectly well for people like Tinubu—who helped to fail it.

2. Don’t say Tinubu is a terrible president. Instead, say that when he dies 100 years from today, his epitaph will read:
“Here lies a man who admired the trappings of Western civilisation but never understood its tenets.”

1. Don’t say Tinubu is a terrible president. Instead, say he is a lucky bastard. In any country where the people are not divided, docile, and dehumanised, his presidency wouldn’t last a week.

Now, that is how you properly insult President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

 Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo teaches Post-Colonial African History, Afrodiasporic Literature, and African Folktales at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is also the host of Dr. Damages Show. His books include “This American Life Sef” and “Children of a Retired God.” among others. His upcoming book is called “Why I’m Disappointed in Jesus.”