There was a time when the children of presidents existed on the margins of public life—noticed occasionally, discussed rarely, and never allowed to interrupt the republic. They went to school without clearing highways, moved about without sirens, and learned early that the state was not an extension of the family living room.
That arrangement appears to have expired.
In its place has emerged a curious civic ritual: the movement of presidential children as public events. Roads shut. Traffic freezes. Armed escorts fan out. Sirens announce not emergency, but importance. The republic pauses while lineage passes.
They are not elected.
They hold no office.
They issue no policy statements.
Yet their presence rearranges space more efficiently than official directives ever could.
We are reminded—often—that they are “just children.” But these are children whose movements stiffen security formations, unsettle institutions, and produce instant obedience. They do not command; they arrive. And arrival, in today’s Nigeria, has become a form of authority.
Observe carefully and two distinct styles of inherited power reveal themselves.
One favours spectacle. Convoys are long, loud, and unapologetic. Sirens blare with theatrical confidence. The message is simple: make room. The child waves, smiles, and performs accessibility while the state clears a path. It is power rehearsed in daylight—confidence practised in public, entitlement tested in traffic.
The other prefers quiet leverage. Fewer sirens, fewer vehicles, less drama. Influence travels by phone calls, not convoys. Requests arrive politely, but land decisively. Outcomes appear without explanation. This is power without fingerprints—calm, deniable, and vastly effective.
Between noise and nuance, the republic receives a full education in modern influence.
Defenders rush in, as expected. They invoke security. They warn against envy. They accuse critics of bitterness. After all, should the children of a president not be protected?
Protection, however, is not the issue. Intimidation is.
When security announces itself with rifles and roadblocks, it stops being about safety and becomes instruction. It teaches citizens—quietly, efficiently—that some surnames enjoy a different relationship with the law.
And the republic adjusts.
Traffic laws soften. Protocol bends instinctively. Civil servants over-smile. Market women lower their voices. No circular is issued, yet everyone understands the new grammar of power: proximity outranks procedure.
This is how authority becomes hereditary without legislation.
Not by decree.
By repetition.
By tolerance.
The presidency itself offers little comment. Silence, in politics, is never empty. It is an allowance. It signals that disruption is acceptable when it arrives wearing the right family colours. That restraint is optional when lineage is impressive.
Meanwhile, the ordinary citizen absorbs fresh lessons in citizenship:
That sirens outrank schedules.
That armed men substitute for explanations.
That accountability has allergies—especially to powerful surnames.
Officials deny excesses. Supporters downplay incidents. Life moves on. The abnormal becomes familiar, and familiarity breeds acceptance. This is the most dangerous phase—not outrage, but adjustment.
Republics rarely collapse in dramatic fashion. They erode through habits. First, convoys become routine. Then, questions feel impolite. Soon, silence looks like wisdom.
When children of power rehearse authority in public, the state learns bad manners early. It learns that rules are flexible, visibility equals importance, and disruption is a legitimate form of arrival.
This is not a plea for the invisibility of families, nor a call for private lives to vanish. It is a reminder that republics are not hereditary estates. Citizenship is not inherited. The constitution recognises offices, not offspring.
Yet here we are—grateful when convoys merely inconvenience us instead of frightening us, relieved when disruption is brief rather than brazen. Gratitude, too, is evidence of adjustment.
The deeper concern is not today’s traffic jams. It is tomorrow’s assumptions. When public space is routinely surrendered without explanation, power learns it does not need permission. Only patience—from everyone else.
And so the sirens continue.
Roads part.
The republic waits.
If children can shake the public square without office, what happens when power stops being rehearsal and becomes policy?
For now, civics is taught on the highway—
one convoy at a time.
