Abuja, Nigeria
CNN
—
Bola Ahmed Tinubu has emerged the winner of a intently fought contest for Nigeria’s presidency. However 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’ll change into Nigeria’s fifth president for the reason that nation returned to democratic rule in 1999, rising as winner for the nation’s high job on his first try.
Nevertheless, opposition events have rejected the outcomes and say they are going to problem it in court docket. The election was marred by studies of voter suppression, and outbreaks of violence, significantly 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 review in Chicago and was generally pressured to clean dishes to make ends meet, in response to 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 following 12 months when the army seized energy. He fled the nation in 1994 after the pro-democracy group he co-founded did not sway the army to relinquish energy.
Often called ‘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 pressured 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 in the course of the 2019 elections. “I hold cash wherever I would like,” Tinubu stated in response.
Critics say he didn’t convincingly handle 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 group throughout a current outing on the UK suppose tank Chatham Home.
A practising Muslim like his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, Tinubu has six kids and is married to Oluremi Tinubu, a senator in Lagos.
Throughout 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 Woman.” It was a joke that has not gone down with many Nigerian girls, who nonetheless battle to achieve foothold in politics.
Now he has to get on with the intense process of uniting a rustic fractured alongside non secular, ethnic and generational traces in addition to a number of issues together with insecurity, an financial system getting ready to collapse, in addition to gasoline, money and energy shortages.
He may also must work laborious to shake off the affiliation with the ruling celebration, below which many Nigerians have suffered untold hardships.
“I’m not the celebration,” he stated in the course of the marketing campaign. “My monitor report ought to converse for me.”
His supporters name Tinubu a grasp strategist and ‘king of the lengthy recreation’ who has been planning his ascent to the throne for years.
“He didn’t simply change into a governor of a serious state like Lagos, he additionally constructed a succession plan. He used his clout and massive sources to construct leaders and set up political affect, first within the southwest … after which prolonged to the north of Nigeria,” says Nigerian political analyst Sam Amadi.
Tinubu wields vital 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 a long time 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’s my flip,” in his native Yoruba language.
Tinubu was basically calling within the favor with the slogan, explains Amadi.
“Nigerian politics is an association, it’s flip by flip…. Buhari may get all of the votes within the north however he couldn’t get two-third majority of votes anyplace within the south, and Tinubu turned the southwest to him. This tells us that there’s a way through which Nigerian politicians really feel that entry to energy is an entitlement … what they suppose they deserve due to funding of finance or funding of goodwill that they’ve put into the system,” Amadi stated.
