Tinubu: Nigeria’s most successful politician, how did he do it?

There is a reason President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has remained the most successful politician in Nigeria’s history.

Despite having so many loads of allegations against him – heroine dealings, certificate forgery, identity issues, graft, just all the bad stuff, yet, he continues to thrive. Other politicians would have fallen by the way with less than 10% of that load.

In the 32 years of his political career, first as Senator, then Governor and now President, he has never lost an election. How is that so?

Ex-President Muhammadu Buhari who since he joined the democratic fray in 2002, and despite having some 12 million unmistakable voters to himself in all the elections he ran, lost thrice until he formed an alliance with Tinubu.

But Tinubu, any time he threw his hat in the ring, gets the crown.

Some say it is because he is very rich. That he adopted the principle of Don Corleone in Mario Puzo’s Godfather, which is to make people an offer they cannot refuse.

Others say it is because he builds people around him and ensures that the spoils of office go round. So, it is in the collective interest of people around him that he always succeeds.

But one fact is clear. Tinubu is a master strategist.

How it started

The first political opportunity beckoned on Tinubu in 1991 when the military junta of General Ibrahim Babangida promised to hand over power to democratic elected civilians the following year. Babangida was already six years into office.

Tinubu, from far way Chicago in the United States, returned to Nigeria to join the political fray. He registered as a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and vied for the Senatorial of Lagos West. He won.

But Babangida started behaving funny. He annulled the presidential election. This was after majority of the votes showed MKO Abiola as the clear winner.

At this point, Tinubu joined the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) as one of its founding members to demand that Babangida recognize Abiola as the winner of the June 12 election. Babangida refused. Instead, he hurriedly handed over power to an Interim Government headed by Ernest Shonekan.

When in 1994, Abacha seized power and started clamping down on NADECO chieftains, Tinubu fled the country for the United States on exile.

A careful plotting

Tinubu returned after the death of Abacha in 1998 and joined the Alliance for Democracy (AD), a political party founded by late Abraham Adesanya and Pa Ayo Adebanjo. Tinubu secured the ticket of the party beating two experienced politicians, Late Funsho Williams and Wahab Dosunmu.

In the main election, he defeated the PDP’s Dapo Sarunmi by a wide margin.

Seeing he had no absolute control over AD, Tinubu abandoned the party in 2006 and formed his own, Action Congress, later renamed Action Congress of Nigeria.

By 2007, he gave then Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, the Action Congress of Nigeria platform to contest the presidential election. The election gave the party a national presence.

In 2011, he offered Nuhu Ribadu the ticket of the party. But political expediency at the time made him to abandoned Ribadu for Jonathan. Jonathan won Lagos by overwhelming votes in that election which had Buhari as the leading opposition candidate.

By 2013, Buhari had come to terms with the reality that he could not do it alone. He struck a deal with Tinubu to deliver for him the presidency in the 2015 election. Tinubu did this through the coalition they form, which became the All Progressives Congress (APC).

By 2023, Tinubu had become too influential to be stopped. A move to deny him the ticket of the APC by an Aso Rock cabal, which many believe had the tacit blessing of Buhari, failed. He clinched the ticket by a decisive margin, and won the overall votes, in what many considered a very controversial victory.

His opponents who went to court would have thought that since he couldn’t be stopped in the poll, perhaps the judiciary might. Yet, he has won the first of two rounds judicial process. It appears the man can’t be stopped.