Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu was born on 29th March 1952, he is a Nigerian accountant and politician who served as the Governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007 and Senator for Lagos West during the brief Third Republic.
Below are some fascinating things about Tinubu that are exceptional and are worthy of sharing.
1. He was born and christened Adekunle Bola Ahmed Tinubu on March 29, 1952 in Lagos Nigeria.
2. He attended St. John’s primary school, Aroloya Lagos and Children’s Home school in Ibadan.
Tinubu then went to United States at Richard J. Daley College in Chicago, Illinois, and later at Chicago state University in 1975.
3. Tinubu is a Muslim, and He is married to Oluremi Tinubu, the current senator of the Lagos Central district.
4. Tinubu’s mother Abibatu Mogaji, died on 15 June 2013, at the age of 96.
5. On 31 October 2017, his son Jide Tinubu had a heart attack while in London and was later confirmed dead.
6. On 8 June 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.
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7. Tinubu holds both the chieftaincies of the Asiwaju of Lagos and the Jagaban of Borgu kingdom in Niger State, Nigeria.
8. 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.
He was elected to the Senate, representing the Lagos West constituency in the short-lived Nigerian Third Republic.
9. In 2014, Tinubu supported former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari, leader of the CPC faction of the APC – who commanded widespread following in Northern Nigeria, and had previously contested in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 presidential elections as the CPC presidential candidate. Tinubu initially wanted to become Buhari’s vice presidential candidate but later conceded for Yemi Osibanjo, his ally and former commissioner of justice.
In 2015, Buhari rode the APC to victory, ending the sixteen year rule of the PDP, and marking the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate.
10. He is blessed with three children: Oluwaseyi Tinubu, Abibat Tinubu and Folashade Tinubu.
11. Bola Tinubu’s ambition to become Nigeria’s president has attracted criticism and opposition from many quarters, including within the APC, but he was unflinching and went ahead to lobby support from everywhere possible until he became the party’s flag bearer.
12. In 2011, in a bid to wrestle power from then ruling Party (PDP) in the 2015 general elections, Tinubu began rallying people from various zones to support his campaign.
He convinced Muhammadu Buhari to join the movement because Buhari could secure 12 million votes from Northern Nigeria, Tinubu knew that if he could secure Buhari’s support, the PDP government could be defeated.
Consequently, in 2013, the three largest opposition parties formed a merger, which birthed the APC.
13. In the first post-transition Lagos State gubernatorial election, Tinubu won by a wide margin as a member of the Alliance for Democracy over the Peoples Democratic Party’s Dapo Sarumi and the All People’s Party’s Nosirudeen Kekere-Ekun.
14. In April 2007, after the general elections before the then governor-elect Babatunde Fashola had taken office, the Federal Government brought Tinubu before the Code of Conduct Bureau for trial over the alleged illegal operation of 16 separate foreign accounts.
15. A political strategist
During his second governorship tenure in Lagos in 2003, Tinubu was in a power tussle with General Olusegun Obasanjo, who was Nigeria’s president at the time. This led to the withdrawal of the Local Government fund due to Lagos state. The fund is a monthly allowance given to states by the federal government.
This initiative became a major income stream for Lagos, being a highly industrialised commercial metropolis with traders from all across the nation.