Abuja, Nigeria
Mahaz News
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Bola Ahmed Tinubu has emerged the winner of a intently fought contest for Nigeria’s presidency. But who’s the person who will lead Africa’s largest financial system – in addition to inherit its plethora of financial and safety crises?
Tinubu, who turns 71 later this month, was governor in Lagos between 1999 and 2007, the place he’s credited with pioneering reforms that led to transformation of the state, now Nigeria’s financial hub.
He will turn into Nigeria’s fifth president because the nation returned to democratic rule in 1999, rising as winner for the nation’s prime job on his first try.
However, opposition events have rejected the outcomes and say they are going to problem it in courtroom. The election was marred by stories of voter suppression, and outbreaks of violence, notably in Tinubu’s stronghold Lagos. Voters additionally confronted prolonged delays and a few election officers failed to show as much as polling stations.
Tinubu has gone from grass to grace after a rocky begin. He left Nigeria for the US to check in Chicago and was typically compelled to clean dishes to make ends meet, in accordance with the Bola Tinubu library.
Upon returning to Nigeria, Tinubu labored within the oil sector earlier than venturing into politics. He was elected into the Nigerian senate in 1992 and served till the subsequent 12 months when the navy seized energy. He fled the nation in 1994 after the pro-democracy group he co-founded did not sway the navy to relinquish energy.
Known as ‘Jagaban’ – ‘warrior of warriors’ – by his followers, Tinubu has shackles emblazoned on his trademark woven caps, to represent a time he misplaced his freedom when he was compelled into exile by the dictator Sani Abacha.
He returned to Nigeria after 4 years and was profitable in his bid for the highest job in Lagos following Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999.
Tinubu was dogged by allegations of corruption all through the marketing campaign path which he strongly denies. Tinubu is enormously rich and he has pursuits in lots of sectors together with actual property and media.
He as soon as had a bullion van at his residence in an prosperous space of Lagos through the 2019 elections. “I keep money wherever I want,” Tinubu mentioned in response.
Critics say he didn’t convincingly deal with issues about his well being, and, at occasions, appeared confused and incoherent on the marketing campaign path. He additionally made gaffes which have made him the butt of jokes and viral memes on social media.
Tinubu was additionally criticized for abstaining from presidential debates and delegating questions on his manifesto to members of his workforce throughout a latest outing on the UK suppose tank Chatham House.
A working towards Muslim like his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, Tinubu has six youngsters and is married to Oluremi Tinubu, a senator in Lagos.
During his acceptance speech, Tinubu joked that his spouse would not be heading again to the senate as she would now be his “housewife and First Lady.” It was a joke that has not gone down with many Nigerian ladies, who nonetheless wrestle to realize foothold in politics.
Now he has to get on with the intense process of uniting a rustic fractured alongside spiritual, ethnic and generational traces in addition to a bunch of issues together with insecurity, an financial system getting ready to collapse, in addition to gasoline, money and energy shortages.
He will even need to work exhausting to shake off the affiliation with the ruling celebration, underneath which many Nigerians have suffered untold hardships.
“I am not the party,” he mentioned through the marketing campaign. “My track record should speak for me.”
His supporters name Tinubu a grasp strategist and ‘king of the long game’ who has been planning his ascent to the throne for years.
“He didn’t just become a governor of a major state like Lagos, he also built a succession plan. He used his clout and enormous resources to build leaders and establish political influence, first in the southwest … and then extended to the north of Nigeria,” says Nigerian political analyst Sam Amadi.
Tinubu wields important affect within the southwest the place he’s seen as a political godfather and kingmaker. He has handpicked each Lagos governor since since leaving workplace in 2007 and was instrumental within the election of Buhari to the presidency on his fourth try in 2015.
After many years as a political puppet grasp, Tinubu declared it was now his flip to emerge from the shadows into the presidency; his marketing campaign slogan was “Emi Lokan,” which interprets to “it is my turn,” in his native Yoruba language.
Tinubu was basically calling within the favor with the slogan, explains Amadi.
“Nigerian politics is an arrangement, it’s turn by turn…. Buhari could get all the votes in the north but he couldn’t get two-third majority of votes anywhere in the south, and Tinubu turned the southwest to him. This tells us that there’s a sense in which Nigerian politicians feel that access to power is an entitlement … what they think they deserve because of investment of finance or investment of goodwill that they’ve put into the system,” Amadi mentioned.
Source web site: www.cnn.com
