Politics is like a chess game, requiring an enigmatic and strategic individual to win against a rival. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a kingmaker who has, over the years, been making adroit moves to ascend the throne, is a bit closer to achieving his aim after defeating the rivals in his province (All Progressives Congress, APC).
Tinubu was announced as the winner of the APC presidential primary election on Wednesday after he garnered the highest votes from the party’s delegates. The national leader of the APC defeated other aspirants, including Vice President Prof Yemi Osinbajo, who was his ‘godson’.
The kingmaker has been eyeing the throne while producing kings (President and Governors) over the years and rode his candidates to victory. Recently, he openly stated that his support ensured President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in the 2015 presidential election while speaking at a meeting with APC delegates in Ogun state, Southwest Nigeria. He also noted that he “surrendered” the vice-presidential ticket to Osinbajo.
“If not me that led the war front, Buhari wouldn’t have emerged,” he said confidently, adding that “this one (referring to Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun) that is sitting down here, could he have become governor without me? He queried.
According to him, he has ‘protected’ his ‘children’ enough and wants to become President. “I don’t want to be just a part of history.”
“It’s been over 25 years that I have been serving them.”
Every move Tinubu has made in the past is undoubtedly calculated toward the electoral tournament.
Some aspirants like the former Governors Godswill Akpabio and Ibikunle Amosun; Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State; former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole; Governor Abubakar Badaru of Jigawa; Senator Ajayi Boroffice; and the only female in the contest, Uju Ken-Ohanenye, withdrew their presidential bids for the Asiwaju of Lagos and the Jagaban of Borgu Kingdom in Niger State and urged their supporters who were at the venue of the APC presidential primary to vote for Tinubu when it was time for the election.
Earlier, when some people tried to talk him out of pursuing his presidential ambition by insinuating that he should remain a kingmaker, Tinubu had responded, “I have never seen where it is written in the rule book anywhere in any country that a kingmaker cannot be a king unless he commits murder. I want to pursue my ambition without the title of a kingmaker.”
The 70-year-old political ‘godfather’ who has managed to build a formidable empire began his political career 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. He was elected to the Senate, representing the Lagos West constituency in the short-lived Nigerian Third Republic. Tinubu became a founding member of the pro-democracy National Democratic Coalition when the results of the 12 June 1993 presidential elections were annulled.
He, however, went into exile in 1994 after General Sani Abacha seized power as military head of state. B.A.T returned to the country in 1998 after the death of the military dictator.
In 1999, he was elected as the Governor of Lagos State under the Alliance for Democracy (AD). Tinubu was re-elected into office as governor in April 2003.
Even though he still has rivals from other parties to battle the throne before a king emerges in 2023, the spotlight will be beamed on Tinubu, and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the general election is expected to be intense.
Is the kingmaker finally going to take the crown and ascend the throne in 2023? Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Fehintola Ambali is a journalist.
Gatekeepers News is not liable for opinions expressed in this article, they’re strictly the writer’s.
