Tinubu’s long work to the presidency, a personal recount
by Abdulwahab Ekekhide
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a man of many colours. A man after God’s heart, and destined to succeed in life. Everything he has ventured into in life succeeds. He started building his political empire many years (over 30 years) ago, through a deliberate effort aimed at assembling the best brains/hands around irrespective of their religious, ethnic, or regional divides and today he has a pool of political leaders from his ‘POLITICAL INSTITUTE,’ he is a Pan Nigerian who believes first in competence and merit.
His sojourn to the presidency was met with so many hurdles which by the grace of Almighty God, goodwill and support of majority of Nigerians he scales the hurdles. The first hurdle for him to cross as I observed was when the leadership of the party realised that the structure of the party was in the hands of the JAGABAN, as he is fondly called with one of his many traditional titles that has become his symbol today and seeing that he wanted to contest the presidential primary, they came up with Revalidation/Re-registration of members of the party across the country, they did that but discovered that he was still holding the structure strongly, they became confused, they even went to the extent of going after his loyalist, the then National Chairman of the party Comrade Adams Oshiomhole was one of the victims of the evil plot to stop Tinubu from being the candidate of the party, but in all, what God has destined, no man can stop.
In the preparations for the primary elections, they set all manners of bumping traps for him and this led to the now very popular address he gave in Abeokuta where he used the word ‘EMI’LOKAN’ (It is my turn) which is now a national slogan, at every point. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was very confident of victory at the primary whether through direct or indirect elections. Some leaders of the party even conspired to impose a consensus candidate, but he stood his ground that the tenets of democracy must be allowed to prevail where every aspirant should be allowed to test his or her popularity and acceptance at the primary election. At this point they realized that the man Tinubu was unstoppable.
Then came the deal day of the primary election, Tinubu was ahead of all the skimmers, he defeated them at the election in one of the most fiercely contested elections in the history of party primaries in Nigeria to emerged the Presidential candidate of the party.
When it was time to pick his running mate another skimming started, and they wanted him to make a mistake, but as a political calculator, he saw beyond what everyone was seeing, he put the political map of Nigeria on the table and calculated with the ultimate goal of winning elections and the indices where very clear to him that elections are always won by the majority, so he took a very difficult but necessary decision in other to win election and against all odds he picked a Muslim from the North as his running mate.
The campaigns started and instead of focusing on the issues the opposition focused on the “Muslim/Muslim ticket of the APC which led to a smear campaign that brought a sharp division between Muslims and Christians, some religious clerics saw it as a way to incite hatred and even violence in some quarters. Even the policies of the ruling APC didn’t favour Tinubu, there was a resurface of long queues at petrol stations across the country and to make it worst the government introduced the Naira redesign policy that caused untold hardship to the entire citizenry.
As a man with passion for the people, Tinubu rose up for the people and opposed the policies of his own political party and government that were inimical to the generality of Nigerians, he got the support of some Northern Governors who took the Federal Government to court and won the case and put smiles on the faces of millions of Nigerians who could not have access to their monies in the bank due to scarcity of the naira.
The campaigns took him across the length and breadth of this country to sell his RENEWED HOPE manifesto to the grassroots. There were a lot of misinformation in the media space about his health status, but for those who where close to him, they knew that he was strong and in high spirit.
At every point of the campaign especially during the implementation of anti people policies by his party and government, he always cry out that all were targeted at stopping him, and he always end his statement by saying that, *”in spite of all, ‘We will Win’* and he was very confident of saying that, and this reminds me of the popular saying that “there is power in the tongue” whatever you profess comes to pass.
On 25th February, 2023, the elections kicked off across the country and like in every elections both local and international there were some infractions, the battle was stiff, with three (3) main gladiators, which could also be described as a three-horse race, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of APC, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of PDP and Peter Obi of LP.
The elections brought out alot of surprises as the Labour Party recorded major upsets at the strongholds of the ruling All Progressives Congress, and the PDP including defeating the JAGABAN in Lagos State and for me these were the high points of the elections, Peter Obi of the Labour Party became the hero of the 2023 Presidential elections in Nigeria even though he came 3rd.
At the end of results collation, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the results as follows:
1. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (APC), 8,794,726 – WINNER and President-Elect;
2. Alhaji Abubakar Atiku (PDP) 6,984,520 – 1ST RUNNER UP;
3. Mr. Peter Obi (LP) 6,101,533 – 2ND RUNNER UP and
4. Engr. Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso (NNPP) 1,496,687 – 3RD RUNNER UP
With the elections concluded and a winner declared, INEC issued the CERTIFICATE OF RETURN to His Excellency ASIWAJU BOLA AHMED TINUBU as President-elect and SEN. KASHIM SHETTIMA as Vice President-elect.
Dissatisfied with the outcome of the elections the LP, PDP and some other parties had approached the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) to contest the outcome. We wait to see the outcome of the Tribunal.
The mandate of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is divine and he is destined to rule this country, Nigeria.
Congratulations to the JAGABAN,
H. E. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR.
President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces,
Federal Republic of Nigeria and
H. E. Sen. Kashim Shettima, GCON.
Vice-President,
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Comrade Abdulwahab Ekekhide, is a political Scientist/Activist, public affairs analyst and commentator, he writes from Abuja, FCT
