APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
Nigeria’s President-elect, Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who will be presented with the certificate of return by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday in Abuja has an intimidating political profile.
A former Senator and Governor of Lagos State, Tinubu is known in political circle as a political “godfather” and famed for his strategic deftness and clout, who has never hidden his ambition to be president of Nigeria.
Tinubu, a Muslim, hails from Lagos State and trained as an accountant in the United States of America and worked for several companies in the USA, including as a treasurer in oil giant ExxonMobil.
Tinubu was first a political activist before becoming a senator and then governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007.
In 2022, when he announced his plans to champion the ruling All Progressives Congress APC party in this weekend’s election, Tinubu said he would be fulfilling a “lifelong” goal.
“It’s my turn,” he later told supporters in his Yoruba language, upsetting APC rivals with a phrase that has become his campaign slogan.
Tinubu, 70, who claimed that he helped put President Muhammadu Buhari into power, contested against opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) flagbearer Atiku Abubakar and surprise third party candidate Peter Obi of the Labour Party.
A chieftain of the ruling APC, Tinubu has spent years building his Lagos powerbase into a nationwide network of contacts from Lagos market cooperatives and transport unions to political chieftains.
He co-founded and financed the Alliance for Democracy (AD), which later became the Action Congress of Nigeria, then helped make the All Progressives Congress (APC).
He is married to a serving senator, Oluremi Tinubu.
GIK/APA
Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu parades intimidating political profile
