Bola Tinubu (Profile)- Nigeria's newly elected president

Mar 1, 2023 - 16:43
Mar 2, 2023 - 07:59
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Bola Tinubu (Profile)- Nigeria's newly elected president

Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu (born 29 March 1952) is a Nigerian accountant, politician, and the country's president-elect. He previously served as the Governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007 and as Senator for Lagos West during the country's short Third Republic.

Tinubu grew up in southern Nigeria before moving to the United States to study accounting at Chicago State University. He returned to Nigeria in the early 1980s and worked as a bookkeeper for Mobil Nigeria before joining politics as a Lagos West senate candidate for the Social Democratic Party in 1992. After dictator Sani Abacha abolished the Senate in 1993, Tinubu became an activist in the National Democratic Coalition movement, advocating for the restoration of democracy. Despite being driven into exile in 1994, Tinubu returned after Abacha's death in 1998, which marked the beginning of the shift to the Fourth Republic.

Following the annulment of the presidential election results on June 12, 1993, Tinubu became a founding member of the pro-democracy National Democratic Coalition, a group that mobilized support for the restoration of democracy and the recognition of Moshood Abiola as the winner of the 12 June election. Following General Sani Abacha's usurpation of power as military head of state in 1994, he went into exile and returned to the nation in 1998, following the death of the military ruler, which brought in the Fourth Nigerian Republic.

Bola Tinubu was a protégé of Alliance for Democracy (AD) activists Abraham Adesanya and Ayo Adebanjo in the run-up to the 1999 elections. He went on to beat Funsho Williams and Wahab Dosunmu, a former Minister of Works and Housing, in the AD primaries for the Lagos State gubernatorial polls. He ran for Governor of Lagos State on the AD platform in January 1999 and was voted governor.

Tinubu gave numerous housing units for the poor in Lagos after taking office in May 1999. During his eight-year tenure, he made significant expenditures in education in the state while also reducing the number of schools owned by the state by returning  to previously settled prior proprietors. He also started new road construction to satisfy the requirements of the state's rapidly growing populace.

Tinubu has been generally regarded as the "Godfather of Lagos". The Lion of Bourdillon, a 2015 documentary film showcasing Tinubu's political and financial hold on the city-state, revealed his part in pulling the strings of the megacity-state. Tinubu launched a $150 billion libel suit against the documentary's creators, AIT, and the show was canceled on March 6, 2015. Nonetheless, precedents such as his overbearingness on succession, as reported in December 2009, when Fashola and Tinubu had a falling out over Fashola's re-election in 2011, with Tinubu choosing the commissioner for environment, Muiz Banire. A similar squabble over Fashola's successor in 2015 pitted Tinubu against him, who put his entire weight behind Akinwunmi Ambode.

In Lagos state, bullion trucks are being used to sway elections.

During the 2019 election campaign, a bullion van was seen approaching Tinubu's home on Bourdillion Road in Ikoyi, with Tinubu saying, "I store money wherever I want."

Presidential Election in 2023

Tinubu declared his desire to compete for President of Nigeria to President Buhari on 10 January 2022, which was the formal form of announcement from him.

On June 8, 2022, Tinubu won the governing All Progressive Congress presidential nomination with 1,271 votes, defeating Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Rotimi Amaechi, who received 235 and 316 votes, respectively.

Tinubu was named the winner of the 2023 presidential election by INEC on March 1, 2023. He was proclaimed president-elect after defeating his opponents with 8,794,726 ballots.

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