Dele Momodu’s Stage 4 Rhetoric and the Amnesia of Convenience, By Bayo Adeosun

Chief Dele Momodu is a respected journalist, but his latest open letter to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a masterclass in political amnesia dressed as medical diagnosis.

Momodu wrote: “You moved Nigeria from stage 2 cancer to stage 4… and put the country in a coma!”

With respect, that analogy is not only harsh — it is historically false.

Nigeria Was Not Stage 2 When Tinubu Took Over.

Was Nigeria in Stage 2 cancer on May 29, 2023? Let us be honest.

As at handover, Nigeria was spending over 96% of its revenue servicing debt. Fuel subsidy alone gulped N4.39 trillion in 2022. NNPC was not remitting a kobo to FAAC. Foreign reserves were depleted, with over $7 billion in unmet FX forwards. The naira was artificially pegged at N460/$ officially while trading at N750/$ on the street — a massive arbitrage feeding a cabal. Universities were shut for 8 months. Fuel queues were permanent.

That is not Stage 2 cancer. That is a patient already in the ICU, on oxygen, with multiple organ failure, being kept alive by printing money through Ways and Means that ballooned to N30 trillion.

President Tinubu did not send Nigeria into a coma on day one. He met Nigeria in a coma and decided to perform surgery instead of applying more paracetamol.

Subsidy Removal Was Not A Misadventure — It Was Inevitable

Momodu calls subsidy removal a “misadventure.” But where was this energy when Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, and even Dele Momodu’s own party promised the same subsidy removal in their manifestos?

Every serious presidential candidate in 2023 promised to remove fuel subsidy — including the ADC that Momodu now belongs to. The World Bank, IMF, and every credible economist warned that the subsidy regime was unsustainable, opaque, and pro-rich.

What Tinubu did that others only promised to do was to take the political risk. Yes, it was abrupt. Yes, the palliatives were slow. But was the alternative — continuing to borrow to pay for fuel consumption for a few rich importers — more humane?

Today, the World Bank’s April 2026 Nigeria Development Update itself admits: macroeconomic stability has improved, fiscal and external positions are stronger, and inflation is easing from 33.2% in 2024 to 23% in 2025 and about 15% by early 2026. That is not a Stage 4 patient. That is a patient responding to chemotherapy.

The Revival Momodu Pretends Not To See

Momodu says Tinubu has “not been able to revive” the country. This ignores facts on ground:

1. FAAC allocations to states have tripled, allowing states to pay salaries and pensions they owed before.
2. The Student Loan scheme, now disbursing billions, is giving poor Nigerian children a chance at higher education.
3. The minimum wage was moved from N30,000 to N70,000.
4. Our refineries — Port Harcourt and Warri — are back to production after decades of Turn Around Maintenance scams that Momodu never wrote open letters about.

Nigerians are struggling — no one denies that. But to say Nigerians have “given up” is elitist projection from Dubai and London. The average Nigerian wants the reform to work faster, not to return to the fake cheap petrol that kept us poor.

The Truth About ADC

This is not about cancer. This is about 2027. Dele Momodu has moved to ADC, a coalition of aggrieved politicians looking for relevance. Attacking Tinubu with dramatic one-liners is his way of staying in the headlines.

But leadership is not poetry. It is painful decisions.

President Tinubu did not metastasize Nigeria’s cancer. He is the first President in 20 years to stop feeding the tumour that every other leader was too scared to touch.

Dele Momodu is completely wrong. And history will prove it.