BY ODUNAYO OGUNMOLA
It is not a matter of “if” but a matter of “when.” Asiwaju Bolatito Ahmed Adekunle Akanbi Tinubu is waiting to be crowned in the next few days as the new President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
All indices are pointing to an overwhelming victory for the former Governor of Lagos State who is running on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the February 25 presidential election where majority of Nigerians are expected to give him their mandate.
Of all the presidential candidates fielded by a total number of eighteen (18) political parties, Tinubu stands shoulder and head above them all in terms of pedigree, experience, connection, sagacity, goodwill, acceptability, grassroots appeal, solid structure, intensity of campaign and highest number of foot soldiers on the field.
All these have made a Tinubu victory at the 2023 presidential election inevitable. Tinubu will not only win, he will win well and defeat his closest rival by a wide margin. Despite the political landmines of currency crisis and fuel scarcity deliberately placed on his way to undermine him, Tinubu is going to defeat his rivals because of his capacity to think ahead and make a success out of every adversity.
Anybody thinking that the presidential election will drag to a run-off in today’s setting in Nigeria is living in a delusion of self grandeur. The present political configuration favours the emergence of Tinubu as the President because of key advantages enjoyed by his party. It is not a rocket science that a party that has more Governors, Senators, House of Representatives members, House of Assembly members and other elected and appointed officials always win the Presidency in Nigeria and 2023 will not be different.
In Nigeria of today, the APC has 21 governors, PDP has 14 and APGA has one. Only 9 PDP governors are committed to the presidential campaign project of Atiku Abubakar whose campaign has been publicly repudiated and deserted by 5 PDP governors. In the National Assembly, the APC has 59 senators, PDP has 40, NNPP has 2 and LP 1. In the House of Representatives, APC has 197 members, PDP has 124, NNPP has 10, LP has 8 while APGA has 5. All these matter in a presidential system and the odds favour Tinubu and APC.
All these elected and appointed officials will serve as the eyes, the ears and the faces of their party at the grassroots and APC has this advantage more than other parties. It is a mirage for a party that has no structures in every part of Nigeria to believe that it will win a presidential election. It has never happened, it cannot happen and it will not happen, that is a bitter truth regardless of whose ox is gored. A party that does not have agents in all the polling units in Nigeria cannot win the Presidency, that is what today’s politics dictates.
The above factors will make the victory of Tinubu a fait accompli. His party has the spread, tentacles, human, financial and material resources to make his victory possible. The opposition parties in Nigeria today are too weak, feeble, disjointed and distracted to unseat the APC that is equally fielding an experienced, influential, tested and a seasoned politician who understands the game better than his opponents.
The major reason why the 2023 presidential election cannot go to run-off is that Tinubu will not only score the highest number of votes, he will also cross the threshold of the constitutional spread of having one-quarter or 25 per cent of votes in two-thirds of states in the federation and FCT to coast home to victory. The only two parties capable of meeting these requirements are the APC and the People’s Democratic Party, PDP. Having the constitutional spread will be a big mountain to climb for the Labour Party, LP.
Tinubu appears to be the most prepared of all the presidential candidates; he knew where he was going and how he would get there. Since the ban on open campaign was lifted on September 28, 2022, Tinubu has run the most enervating, the most rigorous, the most gruelling and the most engaging campaign and he remains the only candidate that campaigned the farthest among the presidential candidates. This was preceded by a nationwide consultation to all the states of the federation shortly after he won the APC presidential primary on June 6, 2022.
It is on record that the APC presidential candidate went round the entire country where he held campaign rallies in 35 states and FCT with the exception of Taraba State where he didn’t hold a rally on account of unresolved issues in the state chapter of his party as at the date he was due to campaign there. 36 rallies, 498, consultations, 18 town hall meetings and endless engagements with stakeholders are a big statement being made by the most serious contender for the nation’s presidential seat.
It is also on record that in some states like Anambra, Cross River, Kebbi and FCT, Tinubu and APC organized two rallies in one day to drive home the message of Renewed Hope. None of the presidential candidates of other parties campaigned vigorously round the country like Tinubu who has put himself not only on the shopping windows of voters but also in their hearts by taking the pains to visit them in their natural habitats.
Apart from addressing campaign rallies, what made Tinubu’s campaign tick were town hall meetings with critical sectors of the population. These include business leaders and entrepreneurs, the organized private sector, youth groups, healthcare professionals, labour unions, religious leaders, farmers, livestock dealers, market men and women, stakeholders in mining, agro-processing and creative arts. All these groups laid their cards on the table during the meetings where the candidate further unfolded details of his Renewed Hope agenda and the stakeholders have expectations from the Tinubu Presidency.
Tinubu remains the only presidential candidate on the side of the masses when the crisis of the controversial, ill-thought-out and ill-timed currency swap policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, was raging like fire. Unlike the presidential candidates of other parties who lost their voices and remained dumb at a time they supposed to defend the people they intended to lead, Asiwaju publicly spoke against the policy and publicly empathised with the people, insisting that the policy came at a wrong time and inflicted pain on the people. Nobody should be surprised when the masses reward Tinubu with their votes at the polls. No party or candidate who kept silent at a critical time should scream blue murder when Tinubu is eventually declared winner because he has further wormed his way into the hearts of the people with this pro-masses gesture.
Unlike his three other major rivals, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP); Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) and Dr. Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Tinubu is the most consistent politician of the lot as he had never defected the progressives fold since he began his political journey. Rather than jumping ship from one party to another, Tinubu grew his party to an election winning platform before masterminding a merger with other smaller parties to turn the APC to an all-conquering political leviathan it has become today.
Tinubu was one of the heroes of the restoration of democracy in Nigeria as he joined forces with other patriots to fight the military to a standstill and saw to the birth of the Fourth Republic. In fact, he was one of the sponsors of the pro-democracy movement which was the pain in the neck of the military until they were forced to quit governance and return to the barracks where they rightly belong. He has fought many battles in defence of democracy and won for the people.
Tinubu remains the most relevant politician of this generation. How do I know? Since he left office as the Governor of Lagos State on May 28, 2007, he has continued to remain in public consciousness by using his time, energy and resources to build an opposition party which was regional in outlook to being an arrowhead of an opposition movement that has become a broad based political behemoth that uprooted a hitherto ruling party that had boasted to be in power for at least sixty years.
You cannot count the number of politicians who were in the Senate together with Tinubu between January 1992 and November 1993 who are still alive and had gone into political oblivion. Out of the State Governors in the class of 1999-2007, Tinubu remains the most popular, the most influential and the most powerful of the lot. Unlike his colleague former governors, he still commands a huge followership till today.
Tinubu is a political leader with a pan-Nigeria mindset. He has built friendship across the length and breadth of the country over the years and that is why his presidential bid has become the most acceptable political brand in the country despite failed attempts by political detractors to de-market him. He is a cosmopolitan personality who is at home everywhere and nowhere.
At every part of the country, you will find Tinubu making friends, paying visits, participating in their political, social, religious and cultural activities. He is a friend to the downtrodden, he is a friend of the masses. Anywhere people are in distress, they always find a companion and a helper in Tinubu who is always there for them in their times of need. People who are affected by flood and other natural disasters, markets that got burnt, Tinubu would be there donating millions of Naira to bring them succour. It is only foolhardy for somebody to think that all these people will forget him now that is on the ballot.
Several times, Tinubu had either visited or made donations to people suffering the pangs of insurgency in the Northeast, victims of flooding in states like Benue, Kogi, among others and victims of market fire in Sokoto and victims of banditry in states like Katsina and Zamfara. Tinubu was there for the people of Owo in Ondo State where he donated millions of Naira to assist victims of church attack by suspected terrorists. Birnin Gwari in Kaduna State, ravaged by banditry, was a no-go area for many politicians for campaign activities but Tinubu visited the place and showed solidarity with the people and assured them of new lease of life when elected President.
Tinubu’s act of kindness that I personally witnessed and reported as a journalist was the benevolence he showed to the widow of former Military Governor of the old Western Region, Col. Adekunle Fajuyi. The late Mama Eunice Fajuyi was living in a derelict and a dilapidated house in her hometown, Ado Ekiti before her condition was brought to the attention of Asiwaju who promptly built a befitting house for the old woman within three months. The new house which also served as a museum housing the military mementoes of the late Col. Fajuyi was built by Asiwaju in 2009 and it served as a shelter for the old woman before she died in 2013.
Thousands of students in primary, secondary and tertiary levels had benefited from Tinubu’s milk of human kindness in forms of scholarships, bursaries, endowments, construction of facilities like hostels, lecture theatres, libraries, among others which are all on record. It is only political neophytes that will think that all these will not count in the election of Saturday, February 25.
The APC presidential standard bearer is a highly detribalized Nigerian. He has no record of discriminating against Nigerians on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, language, culture and other primordial indices. This is a man who is a Muslim but never forced his wife and children, who are practising Christians, to convert to Islam. Tinubu practises religious tolerance in his family and this is an indication that all Nigerians irrespective of their backgrounds will be safe under his presidency.
It is on record that the government Tinubu ran in Lagos State had indigenes of other states as cabinet members. They came from the North, Southeast, Southsouth and other parts of the Southwest and held positions like Chief of Staff, Commissioners, Special Advisers, Senior Special Assistants, Special Assistants, Chairmen of Commissions, Boards and Agencies. Tinubu presided over a mini-Nigeria during his governorship of Lagos.
Tinubu is a man that has seen it all with a rich vein of experience cutting across the key sectors. He is blessed with experience in the private sector as a key player in a multinational corporation, Mobil Oil. He has an experience in the public sector as well, he also has experience in both the legislative and executive arms as a Senator and as a Governor. All these had prepared him for the Presidency, the highest office in the land.
Tinubu pioneered many innovations in governance during his governorship of Lagos State and these are being replicated in almost all the states of the federation. He did these because he is a man of vision, courage, strategic planning and thinking. He was the first Governor to appoint Chief of Staff in 1999 when he appointed Alhaji Lai Mohammed to that position. This has been severally copied by other Governors in Nigeria and the Office of the Chief of Staff to the Governor has come to stay.
During his tenure in Lagos, Tinubu created a Traffic Management Agency to tackle traffic bottlenecks on major highways and curb excesses of erring drivers. In Nigeria of today, this model has been copied by many states in Nigeria to ensure sanity on their roads and highways. Nobody can dispute this. LASTMA, LAMATA, LAGABUS, LASIMRA, LASEPA, LASEMA, Neighborhood Watch, KAI, and others too numerous to mention, met specific needs of the populace and provided employment for hitherto idle hands under Tinubu’s watch.
His administration was the first state government to start Economic Summit, what is now known as Treasury Single Account, Lagos State Government under Tinubu’s watch, was the first in Nigeria to pay WAEC fees for all final year secondary school students relieving students and their parents of a big burden, which has been copied by other states of the federation.
Tinubu was the first Governor to create new councils at the grassroots known as Local Council Development Areas to exist side-by-side with the constitutionally recognized Local Government Councils to bring government nearer to the people, a step that has been copied by other states of the federation. The LCDAs in Lagos served as centres of governance, providing basic needs of the people and generating revenue to assist in governance.
He pioneered digitalization of tax administration in Lagos State to boost the Internally Generated Revenue, IGR. He met the Lagos IGR at N600 million per month in 1999 and by the time he was leaving office in 2007, Lagos IGR had grown to N7 billion per month. His successors have worked to make it reach N51 billion per month at present.
This is Asiwaju’s first shot at the Presidency and he is going to win. It will never be a failed project. He didn’t stumble on the idea to run for the highest office in the land, it was a decision he arrived at on the strength of wide consultations with those who believe in his competence, pedigree, experience and acumen. Tinubu had over the years prepared himself to take the reins of leadership in Nigeria but 2023 is the right time for him to offer himself for the leadership of this country.
On Saturday, February 25, Tinubu has a date with history, he has a date with destiny in which Nigerians, irrespective of their diversities, will go to the polls to elect him as the next President in the nation’s march to consolidate its democracy. Tinubu is the most suitable candidate for that office and it is only a matter of time before a new dawn with Tinubu as the President is birthed.
Ogunmola writes from Ado Ekiti.