Nigeria Decides: Tinubu and His Lifelong Ambition

It has always been his lifelong ambition to become the President of Nigeria. Tinubu is unapologetic about this. He says he has the confidence, vision and capacity for the office of president and also build on the foundation laid by the President Muhammadu Buhari. “I have done that with unyielding commitment in Lagos State,” declares Tinubu, during one of his visits to Buhari.

In early 2022, having decided to run for President, Tinubu made it known to Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. After the meeting, journalists asked him what the response of the president was to his ambition, and he replied, “That’s our business. He is a democrat. He didn’t ask me to stop. He didn’t ask me not to attempt and pursue my ambition, which is a lifelong ambition.

“So, why do I expect him to say more than that? You are running a democratic dispensation, and you must adopt the principles and the values and the virtues of democracy. That’s it.”

On June 8, 2022, Tinubu won the presidential primary of the ruling All Progressive Congress scoring 1,271, to defeat Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Rotimi Amaechi who scored 235 and 316 respectively.

His political career began in 1992. when he joined the Social Democratic Party where he was a member of the Peoples Front faction led by Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and made up of other politicians such as Umaru Yar’Adua, Atiku Abubakar, Baba Gana Kingibe, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Abdullahi Aliyu Sumaila, Magaji Abdullahi, Dapo Sarumi and Yomi Edu. Tinubu  was elected to the Senate, representing the Lagos West constituency in the short-lived Nigerian Third Republic.

After the results of the 12 June 1993 presidential elections were annulled, Tinubu became a founding member of the pro-democracy National Democratic Coalition, a group which mobilised support for the restoration of democracy and recognition of Moshood Abiola as winner of the 12 June election. Following the seizure of power as military head of state of General Sani Abacha, he went into exile in 1994 and returned to the country in 1998 after the death of the military dictator, which ushered in the transition to the Fourth Nigerian Republic.

In the run-up to the 1999 elections, Tinubu was a protégé of Alliance for Democracy (AD) leaders Abraham Adesanya and Ayo Adebanjo. He went on to win the AD primaries for the Lagos State governorship elections in defeating Funsho Williams and Wahab Dosunmu, a former Minister of Works and Housing. In January 1999, he stood for the position of Governor of Lagos State on the AD ticket and was elected governor.

After he assumed office in May 1999, Tinubu provided multiple housing units in Lagos for the poor. During the eight-year period of being in office, he made large investments in education in the state and also reduced the number of schools in the state by returning many schools to the already settled former owners. He also initiated new road construction, required to meet the needs of the fast-growing population of the state.

Tinubu, alongside a new deputy governor, Femi Pedro, won re-election into office as governor in April 2003. All other states in the South West fell to the People’s Democratic Party in those elections. He was involved in a struggle with the Olusegun Obasanjo-controlled federal government over whether Lagos State had the right to create new Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) to meet the needs of its large population. The controversy led to the federal government seizing funds meant for local councils in the state. During the latter part of his term in office, he was engaged in continuous clashes with PDP powers such as Adeseye Ogunlewe, a former Lagos State senator who had become minister of works, and Bode George, the southwest chairman of the PDP.

Relations between Tinubu and deputy governor Femi Pedro became increasingly tense after Pedro declared his intention to run for the gubernatorial elections. Pedro competed to become the AC candidate for governor in the 2007 elections, but withdrew his name on the eve of the party nomination. He defected to the Labour Party while still keeping his position as deputy governor. Tinubu’s tenure as Lagos State Governor ended on 29 May 2007, when his successor Babatunde Fashola of the Action Congress took office.

Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu was born on March 29, 1952, according to affidavits, to Abibatu Mogaji, a trader that later became the Iyaloja of Lagos State. 

He is a Muslim and is married to a Christian, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, Senator of Lagos Central senatorial district. He has two chieftaincy titles – the Asiwaju of Lagos and the Jagaban of the Borgu kingdom in Niger State.

He attended St. John’s Primary School, Aroloya, Lagos and Children’s Home School in Ibadan. Tinubu then went to the United States in 1975, where he studied first at Richard J. Daley College in Chicago and then at Chicago State University. He graduated in 1979 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting. Tinubu worked for the American companies Arthur Andersen, Deloitte, Haskins, & Sells, and GTE Services Corporation. After returning to Nigeria in 1983, Tinubu joined Mobil Oil Nigeria, and later became an executive of the company.

Charles Ajunwa

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