By Promise Adiele
Promise is a common English word that denotes a heartfelt, honest pledge to fulfill a verbal or written commitment. Yes, my name is Promise. But I must quickly admit that I never liked the name as a young boy. During my primary school days, some mischievous clowns twisted the name into various forms to suit their naughty, rascal intentions. Many said it was a female name. But a particular teacher, my Bible Knowledge teacher, Mrs Enwereji, called me “The Promise of God.” My puerile mind oscillated between the name’s seeming negative attributes and its positive undercurrents. In secondary school, the butt of jokes continued. A particular boy made it a point of duty to always ridicule me with the name. Another boy called me a very offensive version of the name. When I reported them to our class teacher, the woman looked at me intently and made a statement that guided my life till today. She said, “Don’t mind them. All the Promises of God will be fulfilled in your life.” She parted my back and urged me to return to my class. I was in SS 1 then.
One Saturday afternoon, I summoned courage and asked my father why he named me Promise. He took a deep breath, shook his head and asked me to sit down. It was a long story. Although his explanation bordered on reincarnation and a Promise to become a Professor in the current life, it did not make much sense to me. As I progressed through secondary school, I decided to accept my name as a statement from God and ignore all the jokes made by my friends. Gradually, my nickname “Adisco.” coined from my surname, took prominence. As the most notorious boy in the whole school, “Adisco” was easily associated with defiance, rebellion, and juvenile escapades.
In Unilag, the joke with my name persisted, but by then, I did not care anymore. While some playfully called me “Promissory note,” others came up with different variations. But as I matured as a scholar, I started to engage with my name on a deeper, more ideological level. Of course, I was a good boy in Unilag, and I have many witnesses, all of them good boys…hehehe. Am I a living testimony of God’s Promise? Absolutely. It is only by grace, that unfathomable principle of undeserved good fortune, that I am alive today.
My decision to contemplate changing my name is deliberate. It has nothing to do with the linguistic manipulation of the name by my naughty friends. Rather, it is directly associated with the daily mutilation of its semantics by politicians. These days, when people make a promise, they actually mean the opposite of what they said. Promise, whether as a word or a name, has completely lost its meaning except perhaps in the hands of the Almighty God. I am more interested in the shameless ways politicians face millions of deprived people and make promises to the point of swearing on their lives. Yet, these people go on to subvert every possibility of fulfilling the promise they made. Politicians’ failure to fulfill their promises resonates more with “Promise and fail.” Unfortunately, some people explain it away as politics; in other words, truth is alien to politics. It is only because people lack honour and are desperately shameless that is why they make promises and spectacularly fail to fulfill them, even if it is within their powers to do so. Next week, I will place an advertorial to change my name from “Promise” to “The-Promise-of-God.” The general public, please take note.
Electricity in Nigeria has become a huge luxury. While the wealthy, those who can afford Solar Panels, install them in their houses, millions of Nigerians wallow and grope in darkness. Before the 2023 general elections, electricity in the country was abysmal. In 2022, Nigeria generated 5,757.03mw of electricity, and we thought we had seen the worst. Then, Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), gave Nigerians a glimmer of hope. He saw the electricity challenge in the country and addressed it promptly. While speaking in December 2022 in Lagos during a townhall meeting, Tinubu made a promise that reverberated across the country. According to him, “By all means necessary, you must have electricity, and you will not pay for estimated billing anymore. We will honour the promises we make. If I don’t keep the promise and I come back for a second term, don’t vote for me.” It was not the usual political promise. He added a caveat, “If I don’t keep the promise and come back for a second term, don’t vote for me.” In his trademark gesticulation, he shrugged his shoulders to suggest the futility of voting for him if the promise was not kept. All the people in the hall applauded him.
Bola Tinubu won the election. But the electricity in Nigeria has diminished to the embarrassment of the gods. In 2025, Nigeria generated 4,633.79mw less than what the country generated before he came to power. The country is currently engulfed in the brutal embrace of impenetrable darkness. President Bola Tinubu failed to fulfil his promise. It becomes more violating when one dissects the individual words of his promise in 2022. He had said, “by all means necessary.” That statement is symbolic. It reveals a man who would, in his capacity as the president, do everything possible to ensure constant electricity in the country.
But he failed woefully. He did not fulfil his promise. Many politicians have made promises in the past and failed to fulfil them. Tinubu is not the first person. But the caveat “If I don’t keep the promise and come back for a second term, don’t vote for me” amplifies the degree of perfidy subsumed in the promise. Although President Bola Tinubu failed to keep his promise of providing electricity for Nigerians, he is already campaigning for a second term. It is this kind of dishonourable posturing that has rendered the semantic item Promise inconsequential, and that is why I want to change my name.
I watched with a mixture of angst, betrayal and untold unease when President Bola Tinubu, during the recent APC convention, again rehearsed the same promise he made in 2022. Flanked by the Vice-President Kashim Shettima, the president, lacking any modicum of self-introspection, promised to provide electricity if voted for a second term. But this time, his promise was laced with affront and a veiled slur on Nigerians. According to him, Nigerians were lamenting over electricity. Lament? Isn’t it within the rights of Nigerians to weep and gnash their teeth over the poor electricity supply in the country? Did he think that Nigerians would forget the promise he made to them in 2022? Having failed to fulfil his promise, does the president expect Nigerians to vote for him again, seeing that he encouraged them to take their votes elsewhere if he failed to provide electricity? Indeed, the word “Promise” must have another meaning which semantic scholars are yet to decipher.
President Tinubu’s grandstanding at the last APC convention and the reiteration of his promise to provide electricity for Nigerians once again elaborates on self-evident failure. It is the celebration of a decisive rupture between the spoken word and reality. The president, perhaps, conceives Promise as an indeterminate rhetoric anchored on the Luciferian principle of baiting and deception. He must conceive Nigerians as inferior beings, helpless, hapless and mentally unstable people devoid of rationality to the point of stupor. To imagine that the president removed Aso Rock, his official abode, from the national grid and spent a whopping 17 billion naira to install Solar Panels there is to burnish common sense as a human trait. The dialectical occurrence of a promise made and its tragic failure strips Promise of all shreds of dignity and respect as an English word.
Can we, in all good conscience, argue that Nigeria, under President Bola Tinubu, does not have the resources to provide constant electricity across the country? Between the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and constant electricity in Nigeria, which is more important? The Coastal Highway costs 7.5 billion naira per kilometre, and the entire road is 750 kilometres. So we are looking at 7.5 billion naira multiplied by 750. Curiously, the president never promised to build the coastal road during his campaigns. He specifically promised to provide electricity. I am sure 7.5 billion naira multiplied by 750 would have given Nigerians an improved power supply. I am sure constant electricity in the country would have more positive economic outcomes than the coastal road.
Anytime a promise is broken, the psychology of the maker and the psychology of the recipient are debased. It marks a dislocation in the relational machinery where trust is summarily erased. President Bola Tinubu, sir, you do not have any shred of moral justification to ask Nigerians to vote for you again because you failed on a promise you made to them. You urged them to take their votes elsewhere if you failed to provide electricity. This time, they will be responsible citizens and obey their president.
Dr. Promise Adiele is of the Mountain Top University. He can be reached via: promee01@yahoo.com; X: @drpee4
