•Shocking Things His Associates & Aides Said About Him
Have you noticed that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has suddenly become the main issue in Nigerian politics right now? Have you also noticed that everything he does becomes news? It is either you are for him or against him. It’s either you love him or you hate him. He has also become the enfant terrible of politics.
Just like many like him, there are those who are very afraid of him. There are indeed a few Northern politicians who are genuinely afraid of him. They feel intimidated by his profile. They don’t like the extensive influence he wields. They are scared of his awesome political structure and his war chest.
How did Asiwaju become the phenomenon that he is today? How did he become such a towering figure on the political hemisphere? In the next few weeks on the 29th of March, he will be 70.
Some of his aides have revealed a lot about the man who wants to succeed Pres. Buhari come 2023. When he turned 60 ten years ago, many of his Boys and political associates revealed a lot about him.
The current Lagos Deputy Governor, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, had a lot to say about Tinubu. The Minister for Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) for instance revealed what many do not know about Asiwaju, the Oniru Oba Gbolahan Lawal who was his ADC gave his own perspective, so also Olawale Edun and Professor Yemi Osinbajo who revealed his first ever personal meeting with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu on the 5th of March 1999. “I had served as Secretary of the Policy Committee on Justice which he had set up immediately after his election as Governor to establish a blueprint for Justice Sector Reform in Lagos State.
That afternoon, on the 5th floor of the Kresta Laurel building which had then become the transition office, he wanted to know what my thoughts were on issues of title to land between the Federal Government and the State Government, whether it was legal for the Federal Government to collect Value Added Tax (VAT) and whether we could operate without a State Police Force”.
“It was evident that he had given much thought to the many tensions around Nigeria’s peculiar Federal Constitution. He then said to me, ‘we will be challenging many issues in Court’. I wondered in what context I would be involved in those ‘challenges’ but I didn’t have to wait another minute-he asked me to consider taking the position of the Attorney-General in his cabinet. To my objection that I was neither a Lagosian nor a party man, he replied that his only question was whether I would take on the challenge of cleaning up the mess the Military had left behind”.
“I came back to him with an answer in a week and I with him and several others there that day began legal actions which occupied the administration and the Supreme Court from 1999
to 2007”.
“There is little doubt that a fundamental problem with the application of Federalism in Nigeria is the mindset that developed”.
Dr. Leke Pitan paid tribute to him, Gov. Kayode Fayemi offered an interesting perspective. Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola dissected Tinubu in his tribute, and Senator Ibikunle Amosun gave his own view.
Many of the political associates who wrote about him served in his cabinet (either during the 1st and 2nd term).
Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, described him as an “organizer par excellence may sound impressive, but it does not even do justice to his person! “This is a man with exceptional intrinsic qualities that make him very unique. In other words, he is a visionary, thanks to a combination of a number of rare attributes, including a rare organizational ability and uncommon leadership endowment.”
“Because he can see far beyond the horizon, he does not plan by the day or month or year, he plans much farther ahead. He makes his plan on the basis that it is a journey, a process, and not just an event. And once he conceives of a project, he is also immediately thinking of how to execute it, the logistics, the people and the financial requirements to make it a reality.”
Today, he has what is arguably the most awesome political machinery in Nigeria. But this did not just come by accident. It is a culmination of years of hard work, perceptiveness, dexterous management of human and financial resources like no other and his impeccable organizational ability. These qualities helped to transform what was a ragtag political machinery that was set up to contest a senatorial election in 1991 to today’s formidable political machinery.”
It is the year 1998, and fresh from five years in exile, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is contesting the Lagos State governorship primaries against Engineer Funso Williams, under the aegis of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) party.
But there is a snag. The party had already decided to use delegates for the primaries, instead of direct primaries that will allow every member to express his or her preference. If this system is used, he is at a great disadvantage. First, he had been in exile for a considerable length of time, which has its own drawback in terms of being able to immediately connect with delegates and convince them to vote for him, especially while contesting against someone who had been on ground. Secondly, the delegates – being already known – would more or less be on sale to the highest bidder!”
“Would-be candidate Tinubu then started a campaign from the grassroots to the highest echelon of the party on why direct primaries must be used, saying it enhances democracy since every member of the party will have a chance to express his or her will; and that in any case, the delegate system more or less reduces human beings to the level of rams that can be bought and sold.”
“He also argued that the candidate thrown up by the system, due to its restrictiveness and the fact that it can be more easily manipulated, may not be the one than can win the general election for the party. “
“His dogged campaign succeeded in persuading the party’s rank and file to use the direct primaries, which he won. Thanks to his organizational ability and extraordinary vision, and to the glory of God, he was able to revive and transform the ragtag machinery of 1991 to the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Campaign Organization (BATCO) that was good enough to win an election seven years later (five of which he was in exile) in 1998. He was also able to persuade most of his friends and supporters, who had moved on to other organizations during his years in exile, to join the AD!”
“Of course, no one can attain the height that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has reached without being a people-oriented person. Asiwaju simply loves people, and he cares as much for his lowest aides as he does for the top guns! Asiwaju touches his aides, supporters and followers the way only a few leaders can do.
While he is comfortable in the midst of the best brains, he is not disdainful of the not-so-quick-witted! After all, he reasons, everyone has a role to play in the jigsaw puzzle that his vision is usually made to resemble. Using his keen sense of organization to a telling effect, he gives a role to everyone, working with each on a need-to-know basis.”
“He gives the same assignment to more than one person or group, not to undermine anyone or group but to create an overlapping effect that culminates in complementarity, and when the various individuals or groups finish their assignments, they fit into the jigsaw puzzle!
“It is important to say that Asiwaju’s organizational prowess inspires a lot of confidence in his aides and followers and enhances their leadership qualities. Always on top of his game, he delegates responsibilities to his aides and proteges without abandoning them to face such tasks alone. He gives them challenges and follows up by continuous monitoring and provision of the necessary wherewithal to achieve the stated objectives. If personal or domestic challenges seek to inhibit your ability to successfully tackle an assignment that he has handed over to you, he is the first to sense it, intuitively I must say, and to also ensure the removal of such personal inhibitions! He does not use and dump people, because he does not see them as tools but an integral part of his grand vision. With him, everyone feels he is special, and his listening ear ensures that no one is treated as an outsider”.
“Asiwaju is never discouraged by the size of any vision, and this is due to his absolute confidence and implicit faith in his own ability and also in the competence of his aides. But when he gives You a task, you must follow it through, instead of cutting and running, and he does not believe in half measures.”
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