APC: Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu Beats Them All By Adewuyi Adegbite
PanNigerianNews
4 min read
As the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) preparers for its primary elections to elect the presidential candidate for the party ahead the 2023 general election, may I humbly make an appeal to the party to consider its national leader, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for the plum job. I am sure this may not go down well with other aspirants who are equally qualified like Asiwaju but I have my reasons for making this appeal.
Firstly, among all the aspirants jostling for the ticket, none of them matches Tinubu in terms of experience in governance, his democratic credentials, age and general acceptability among all geo-political zones in Nigeria. Secondly, Asiwaju has paid his dues to this nation. In this regard, he was one of the brave men at the vanguard of pro-democracy campaign in Nigeria. As a matter of fact, he was a target for destruction by the junta and had to flee into exile for his own dear life.
In addition, Tinubu, more than any of his contenders, saved this country from becoming a one party state when he was about the only governor outside the then ruling party, PDP. He was actually persecuted, denied, victimised, and clogs were put on his wheel of success then. If electoral fraud has been reduced in Nigeria, Tinubu is instrumental to this greatly because he fought election rigging in Ondo, Ekiti, Osun and Edo where mandates were restored to the lawful owners.
Furthermore, the stability in Lagos is a plus for Tinubu. Through pragmatic succession policy, Lagos has been under a single party and mostly opposition in the last 24 years. Some people believe that if Lagos were Nigeria, the story might have been different going by the relative success Lagos has achieved which makes her the destination of migrants throghout Nigeria. Beside the above, one should not forget that the defeat of PDP in 2015 election was orchestrated by Tinibu. As a matter of fact, he made South-West the launching pad for the defeat of President Goodluck Jonathan.
Remarkably, the historic handsake across the Niger which made a sitting government to be defeated for the first time was partly due to Tinubu’s political sagacity.
Many critics of Asiwaju have made his age an issue. This, to me, is irrelevant going by the age of the USA president, Joe Biden who is performing his functions perfectly in spite of being a septugenarian. Other issues are raised against him which I believe are none issues but out of jealousy of the man’s achievements and larger than life personality. President Muhammadu Buhari personally owed Tinubu a duty to pay him back in good coins. I was a die hard Buhari supporter and know the efforts made by the president to clinch the presidency. However, these proved abortive until Tinubu allied with him. This alliance could have been made in 2011 but Buhari’s insistence on using Pastor Bakare as Vice President, thereby unwilling to concede the vice president’s slot to the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). This truncated the alliance moves. We should recollect that during the APC presidential primaries in Lagos in 2014, Tinubu personally handed over the party ticket to Buhari in spite of his closeness to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. As a matter of fact, Atiku made concerted efforts to move the primaries to Abuja but Tinubu insisted on Lagos. Beyond this, Tinubu helped in reaching out to some implacable foes of Buhari especially among the military class and softened the ground for him in this constituency. I could remember that Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akande led Buhari to the Hill Top mansion of President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida in the build up to 2015 elections to seek the support of IBB and the Generals for Buhari’s candidacy. I could remember that IBB warmly welcomed the team to his residence and his remark that “We Generals will support him” went a long way to tilt the victory to APC. I am not saying that Asiwaju made Buhari the president – far from it.
But his role in the victory of APC cannot be deemphasised. As the saying goes, “a good turn deserves another”, Tinubu should naturally be handed APC ticket but in politics anything can happen and most of the people benefiting are those who sat on the fence when the struggle was tense or surrogates and turncoats. For APC to retain presidency, Tinubu is the magic. He has paid his dues for Nigeria. Llet him reap the fruits of his labour. He has the magic wand to lead Nigeria .This is my appeal, first, to the APC and President Buhari and Nigerians as a whole.
Adegbite is a historian, writer and public affairs analyst.
