[OPINION] 2023 Presidency: X-raying The Possibilities
As the Buhari administration gradually winds to an end there is need to ensure that the positive legacies of the Buhari administration in the last 7 years are sustained and built upon. It is very therefore important to critically examine his potential successors.
Pursuant to the above goal, on the 6th February 2022. I listed 9 Nigerians who I consider possibilities for 2023 Presidency on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). I restricted that list to the South as all indications point to the fact that the APC will likely cede its presidential ticket to Southern Nigerian in line with an unwritten power rotation understanding.
Following a set of objective criteria that I laid down, key of which is ability, capacity and willingness to continue the positive strides of President Buhari, especially in the area of human and physical infrastructural development and projects, I listed the following accomplished Nigerians, in no particular order viz: Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, Oluyemi Oluleke Osinbajo, Babatunde Raji Fashola, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, David Nweze Umahi, Rochas Anayo Okorocha, Orji Uzor Kalu and Chris Nwabueze Ngige as individuals who in my humble and personal view qualify to take over the mantle from President Muhammadu Buhari.
I have continued to deepen that all important discourse in a series of submissions by x-raying some of the individuals I listed.
This installment is about HE ASIWAJU BOLA AHMED TINUBU.
Born Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu on 29th March 1952 in Osun State, Tinubu holds the traditional chieftaincy titles of the Asiwaju of Lagos and the Jagaban of Borgu Kingdom in Niger State.
Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is married to Senator Oluremi Tinubu who is currently the Senator representing Lagos Central Senatorial District. Mrs Tinubu is an ordained Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG).
Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu studied at Richard J. Daley College in Chicago, Illinois and Chicago State University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting in 1979.
He worked for Arthur Andersen, Deloitte, Haskins, & Sells and GTE Services Corporation, all in the United State of America. On returning to Nigeria in 1983, he joined Mobil Oil Nigeria and later became an Executive of the company.
His political career began in 1992, when he joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP) where he was a member of the Peoples Front faction led by Shehu Musa Yar’Adua alongside other notable politicians such as ex-President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Professor Baba Gana Kingibe, Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Alhaji Abdullahi Aliyu Sumaila, Alhaji Magaji Abdullahi, Chief Dapo Sarumi and Chief Yomi Edu.
He was subsequently elected to the Senate, representing the Lagos West Senatorial District in the aborted Third Republic under the SDP.
After the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election by General Ibrahim Babangida, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu became one of the founding members of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), a group which mobilized support for the restoration of democracy and recognition of Chief Moshood K. O. Abiola as winner of that election. However following the seizure of power as military head of state by General Sani Abacha, he went into exile in 1994 and returned to the country in 1998 after the death of the Head of state.
With the return to civilian rule in 1999, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was elected Governor of Lagos State on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD).
There was no love lost between Governor Bola Tinubu and Lagos state on one side and President Olusegun Obasanjo and the federal government on the other. Asiwaju Tinubu was involved in a struggle with the Olusegun Obasanjo-controlled federal government over whether Lagos State had the right to create new Local government Areas. The controversy led to the federal government seizing funds from the federation account meant for local government councils in the state, a decision which the then Governor Tinubu historically and assiduously challenged at the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
Asiwaju Tinubu won a second term in office as governor of Lagos state in April 2003. Indeed Lagos state was the only state remaining under the AD in the South West after the 2003 elections. All other states in the South West were won by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
The leadership of the AD had secretly entered into an alliance with the PDP to support the re-election of President Obasanjo in return for the support of the AD candidates. Then Governor Tinubu backed out of the arrangement. Incidentally he was the only AD candidate and Lagos the only state to survive the PDP onslaught on the South West. That marked the beginning of the end of the Alliance for Democracy. Asiwaju Tinubu was to fall out with the leadership of AD over its compromise with the PDP. He then founded the Action Congress (AC) and pulled out of the Alliance for Democracy (AD).
It is worthy of mention that in spite of being in opposition from 1999 to 2007 and the apparent hostility of the then President Obasanjo and the PDP through elements like Chief Adeseye Ogunlewe, former Lagos State Senator and Minister of Works under Obasanjo and Chief Bode George, then South West Chairman of the PDP, Governor Tinubu doggedly and successfully managed the state well.
Asiwaju Tinubu is adjudged by many to be one of the best Lagos state Governors of all time. No doubt, his tenure as Lagos state Governor was one of the most eventful and transformational in the history of the state which happens to be a former federal capital of Nigeria and remains Nigeria’s commercial capital. Some novel ideas and innovations by Lagos State under Governor Tinubu were to be later replicated at the federal level including Tax reforms especially under the current Buhari administration.
In 2013, working with other progressives across the nation notably General Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd) of the CPC, Asiwaju Tinubu’s negotiations in creating a “mega opposition” party paid off with the merger of Nigeria’s three biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the new PDP (nPDP), a faction of serving governors of the then ruling People’s Democratic Party – into the All Progressives Congress (APC). The APC was registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on 31st July 2013.
In 2015, with the unquantifiable support of Asiwaju Tinubu, the APC was to wrestle power from the PDP with General Muhammadu Buhari Rtd and a staunch Tinubu ally, Professor Oluyemi Osinbajo becoming President and Vice President respectively thus unceremoniously ending the sixteen year rule of the PDP and marking the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president would lose election to an opposition candidate.
Since 2015 to date Asiwaju Tinubu has gone on to play a very important role, supporting the Buhari administration’s programs and policies. He has been the undisputed National Leader of the APC, contributing in no small way to the party retaining the Presidency in the 2019 general election.
The democratic and progressive credentials of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu are incontestable just as his eminent qualification to lead Nigeria. As a board room guru, astute politician, leader of leaders and manager of people and resources, the man fondly called the Jagaban Borgu stands heads and shoulders above many of his peers.
Worthy of mention is Jagaban’s unrivaled capacity to discover talents and grow men of caliber and substance. Accomplished Nigerians like the current Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo and the former Governor of Lagos State and current Minister for Works and Housing, HE Raji Fashola, just to mention the two bear eloquent testament to that laudable attribute of Asiwaju Tinubu. Also worthy of mention is his cosmopolitan mind which allows him to reach across tribal and religious boundaries to identify and bring in talents who can add value irrespective of tribe and creed. The duo of Engineer Joe Igbokwe (Agbalanze Nnewi) and Mr Ben Ifeanyi Akubueze readily come to mind.
Some people have uncharitably characterized Asiwaju Tinubu as a selfish and inordinately ambitious politician but I beg to respectfully and factually disagree. Asiwaju Tinubu has neither held nor contested any political office since he left office in 2007 and not for lack of capacity. As we are rightly reminded by Chief Okoi Obono-obla, “Asiwaju Tinubu, despite forming the Action Congress (AC), magnanimously supported Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to have its presidential ticket to slug it out with late President Umaru Musa Yaradua of the PDP in the 2007 general election. Later the Action Congress merged with a motley of political parties to form the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). Again, Asiwaju Tinubu selflessly allowed Malam Nuhu Ribadu to be its presidential candidate for the 2011 general election.”
Furthermore, Asiwaju Tinubu after playing a pivotal role in the merger and subsequent formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) contributed immensely to the election of President Muhammadu Buhari on the platform of the APC bypassing the chance to become vice president.
It is evidentially clear that Asiwaju Tinubu is a selfless and generous politician with uncommon anointing for making men, leaders and Presidents. Can he be one himself? Surely Asiwaju Tinubu has paid his dues and eminently qualifies to aspire to lead Nigeria as President after President Muhammadu Buhari pending the verdict of his party members at the Primaries and Nigerians at large at the polls.
Fellow Nigerians, I hereby humbly and patriotically present to you, a quintessential progressive and democracy activist, Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu (Asiwaju Lagos & Jagaban Borgu).
He no doubt makes my list of 9 Nigerians who are APC’s possibilities to lead Nigeria after my mentor and leader President Muhammadu Buhari.
@Uche Diala
druchediala@gmail.com