The Anxious Dawn of Tinubu’s Turn

Sixteen years after he left office as governor of Lagos State, today Bola Ahmed Tinubu becomes the president of Nigeria. Officially, Tinubu’s journey to becoming president began in January 2022 when he met with the outgoing president, Muhammadu Buhari and informed him of his desire to run for Nigeria’s highest political office. For those who have been following his political trajectory keenly, it seems obvious that his interest in becoming president dates way before then as he had been building a political dynasty years before he formally threw his hat into the political ring.

Tinubu’s presidency extends Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, the political era that began in 1999 when, following years of military rule, Nigeria returned to democratic government. Since then, Nigeria has had four presidents: Olusegun Obasanjo who served two terms, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who died in office, Goodluck Jonathan who lost his second term bid and Buhari who became the second person after Obasanjo to serve as both military and civilian head of state.

Tinubu’s political journey predates his two-term governorship role: his political sojourn began in 1991 when he joined the Social Democratic Party. In 1992, he was elected to the Senate, representing the Lagos West constituency in the short-lived Third Republic (1992-1993). Tinubu was a founding member of the pro-democracy National Democratic Coalition in the period after the annulment of the 12 June presidential election. Following the death of General Sani Abacha in 1998, he joined the Alliance for Democracy and became the party’s governorship candidate in Lagos. The rest became history.

After the end of his governorship, he chose not to pursue a senatorial ambition as many of the outgoing governors in that period did. Instead, he focused on growing his party, the Action Congress, which later became the Action Congress of Nigeria. By 2013, when the party merged with the Congress for Progressive Change, the All Nigeria Peoples Party and some members from the All Progressive Grand Alliance to form the All Progressives Congress (APC), Tinubu had become a political godfather not just in Lagos where he seems to have handpicked all his successor but in the South West.

In 2015, his party, APC won the general election and Tinubu became the national leader of the party. While Tinubu did not occupy an official position in Buhari’s government, strategically, President Buhari appointed certain figures known to have worked with Tinubu in the past. For example, former vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, admitted that Tinubu selected him to be Buhari’s running mate—Osinbajo had served as commissioner for justice in Lagos when Tinubu was governor. Other politicians who worked with Tinubu in the past that made their way into Buhari’s government included Babatunde Fashola, Lai Mohammed, Babatunde Fowler and Adeleke Mamora.

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