By Wale Ojo-Lanre Esq
I have watched—carefully and repeatedly—the video being circulated where the President of Nigeria, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was reported by some to have “fallen.”
Having observed it without prejudice, hysteria, or political intoxication, one conclusion remains unassailable: the President slipped; he did not fall. There is a clear, scientific, and commonsense distinction between a slip and a fall, and only those determined to misinform—or those incapable of basic observation—would deliberately confuse the two.
A slip occurs when the foot momentarily loses traction, balance is briefly disturbed, and the body instinctively corrects itself, allowing upright posture to be retained or immediately regained. It is a temporary loss of footing, not a loss of control.
Slips are often caused by external or situational factors—an encumbrance on the pathway, a misstep due to surface variation, a slight push or incidental contact in a moving or crowded environment, momentarily unclear vision, a change in elevation, footwear grip, or floor texture. None of these circumstances translates to physical collapse, nor do they suggest incapacity.
A fall, by contrast, involves a complete loss of balance, collapse of the body to the ground or a lower level, failure of the body to self-correct, and often the need for external assistance. A fall is a total breakdown of equilibrium. The difference is not semantic; it is physical, medical, and observable.
The video in question shows a momentary misstep, a brief loss of footing, and an immediate correction. There is no collapse, no contact with the ground, and no determined and serious assistance required. By every accepted medical, biomechanical, and observational standard, what occurred was a slip, not a fall. This is not a matter of opinion; it is a matter of fact.
What makes the current hysteria particularly disingenuous is that such moments are neither unusual nor unprecedented among world leaders. Presidents and Heads of Government across the globe have experienced similar slips without their health, competence, or authority being questioned.
Also Read: Letter to President Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu
President Joe Biden once slipped while boarding Air Force One under wet and windy conditions and continued his duties without interruption. President Barack Obama experienced a minor slip on aircraft stairs, smiled, waved, and moved on.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson stumbled during a public jog, rose instantly, laughed it off, and carried on. President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and even Nigeria’s former President Muhammadu Buhari have all had brief missteps in public settings, often due to surface conditions or movement.
Even the late Queen Elizabeth II, whose reign embodied dignity and stability, occasionally required balance support in advanced age without her authority ever being diminished.
The lesson is universal: slips are environmental; leadership is not neurological.
Why, then, the deliberate distortion? Because for some, political hostility replaces objectivity, sensationalism outweighs truth, and malice disguises itself as commentary. This is not journalism; it is intellectual dishonesty. It is astonishing that adults who can spell the word “fall” cannot identify one, and more troubling that a harmless slip is inflated into a dramatic collapse in pursuit of cheap relevance.
When a slip is deliberately mislabelled as a fall, it exposes not the President’s condition but the peddler’s poverty of reasoning and credibility.
Leaders are human, and humans slip—sometimes because of the environment, sometimes because of circumstance.
But facts remain facts. Slipping is not failing; lying about what the eye can plainly see is the real fall.
Those who cannot distinguish between a slip and a fall should relearn basic observation and physics or stop insulting public intelligence. Truth does not fear replay. Falsehood does.
God bless President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
God bless Nigeria.
