By Olabode Lucas
After the stunning victory of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in the last presidential election, the highly cerebral and valued columnist in the Sunday Nation newspaper, Tatalo Alamu described Tinubu as “the man who walked on water,’ Nobody has been able to perform this feat carried out by our Lord Jesus Christ as reported in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John in the Holy Bible. Even our so-called men of God despite their regular self-aggrandizement have not been able to claim this feat. There was no doubt that the talented columnist in his piece used his immense literary prowess to highlight the herculean political obstacles faced by Asiwaju Tinubu before he could beat all odds to become the president-elect.
Tinubu had been nursing the ambition to become the president of the most populous country in our continent right from the inglorious days of the annulment of June 12, 1993, presidential election won decisively by the late M.K.O. Abiola. He met a lot of searing obstacles on his way to achieve his ambition. Tinubu overcame all the obstacles which could have overwhelmed a less politically sagacious person. These obstacles came from within and outside his party, the All Progressive Party which everybody knows he helped put together in 2014 to wrestle power from the rudderless and corruption infested governing party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
Many people were amazed that despite his political dexterity in the formation of the APC and also in ensuring with others that the party became the governing party, some of the big wigs in his party even in the presidency tried everything in the book to deny him the presidential ticket of his party and dent him politically. He was able to survive the minefield put in front of him politically because of the unexpected support of his party’s northern governors who insisted that power should rotate to the south after it has stayed in the north for eight years with Buhari’s presidency. It was a deft move by the governors which caught the cabal in the presidency flat footed. Notable among these governors are Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State, Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi State and Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State.
Outside his party, it was also not an easy ride for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. The opposition parties threw dirty muds and arrows on him about his family background, his educational background and qualifications, his relationship with some people while he was in the USA and his fitness for the post health wise. Asiwaju Tinubu survived all these scurrilous political arrows thrown at him.
After getting his party’s ticket, the electioneering campaign was not a cup of tea for Tinubu. It was a gruesome and excruciating exercise which was not for the faint hearted. Asiwaju transversed the length and breadth of the whole country and addressed more campaign rallies than any of his competitors. He silenced his critics who had raised doubt about his fitness for the tasking job of the presidency with his frenetic pace of campaign. Asiwaju’s choice of Senator Kashim Shettima, the former governor of Borno State as the running mate was also mired in controversy because of the Muslim – Muslim nature of the ticket. Many political pundits felt that the choice was unwise and insensitive to delicate religious configuration in our country. Consequently, religion became an issue in the campaign just as it was in the 1964 US presidential election. In that election voters were asked to reject Jack Kennedy, the Democratic Party candidate just because he was a Catholic. Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate campaigned that as a Catholic, Kennedy would subject the sovereignty of USA to that of the Vatican. Despite the religious propaganda, Kennedy won the 1964 presidential election in USA and religious propaganda on Muslim-Muslim did not also deter Asiwaju Tinubu from winning Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election.,
The major political tendency in the present Southwest was kept in the cold politically from 1954 to 1964 during the NPC/NCNC coalition government. However, since the beginning of the present political dispensation, the Southwest has fared better than before. Asiwaju Tinubu would be the second person from the zone to be president of the country. The other person from the zone to have such an honour is Olusegun Obasanjo who became a civilian president 20 years after he left the office of the Head of State in a military toga. However, without any attempt to disparage the tenure of Obasanjo, it is a well-known fact that he did not enjoy the support of majority of people from Southwest. People in the zone felt that he was imposed from outside; this not the case with Asiwaju Tinubu who enjoys the support of the people of the Southwest.
From his credentials as somebody who fought with others for the present political dispensations coupled with his achievements in Lagos where he laid the foundation of the present rebirth of the state and produced worthy successors, there is no doubt that Asiwaju Tinubu would give Nigeria a focused, and goal-oriented administration which will unite the people of the country irrespective of their ethnic and religious affiliations. It is imperative for Asiwaju Tinubu to be fair to all sections of the country in the distribution of developmental projects as there should be no longer a sacred cow or and an underdog in political and economic dispensations in the country. Although the problems facing the country are daunting, I have a feeling that with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the president of the country, the sleeping giant of the continent will now wake up.
•Professor Lucas writes from Old Bodija, Ibadan, Oyo State.