Bola Tinubu: The Biography Of The Nigerian Political Gladiator
Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu was born on the 29th of March 1952, he is a renowned and popular Nigerian politician and accountant who has served as the Governor of Lagos state from 1999 to 2007 and Senator for Lagos West during the Third Republic, he was one of the great men that transformed the popular city of Lagos to be an urban center, he is also known as the Jagaban Borgu.
Early Life and Education
Bola Ahmed Tinubu spent his early life in south west Nigeria, he attended St John’s Primary School, Aroloya, Lagos and Children Home School in Ibadan before he moved to USA, where he went to Richard. J. Darley college in Chicago before he proceeded to study Accounting at the Chicago State University, Tinubu returned back to Nigeria in the early 1980s and was employed by Mobil Nigeria as an accountant, before entering politics as a Lagos West senatorial candidate in 1992 under the banner of the newly found south western party, Social Democratic party, after the military dictator Sani Abacha dissolved the Senate in 1993, Tinubu became an activist campaigning and advocating for the return of democracy as a part of the National Democratic Coalition movement. Although, the movement suffered much from the dictator hands of Sani Abacha who’s known for decrees and penal laws, this saw Tinubu into exile in 1994, he returned back after the death of Sani Abacha in 1998.
Bola Tinubu as a energetic driven politician contested in the first Lagos gubernatorial election, he won in a landslide victory under the flagship of Alliance for Democracy party over the People’s Democratic party Sapo Sarumi, fours years later, he also won the reelection to a second term over the PDP’s Funsho Williams by a close gap margin. Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s two terms in office was dedicated for infrastructure was marked by attempts at modernizing the city of Lagos; After leaving office in 2007, he has remained a prominent and gigantic figure in Nigeria politics which led to the formation of the All Progressive Party in 2013 by him to counter and challenge the control of the power stricken ruling party, the People’s Democratic party.
Arguments over his age, educational certifications has been a conflicting issue for him throughout his political career due to some alleged falsified documents breaching across of where he was born and educated, those are controversies that has sometimes made him a popular figure in the political arena; Bola Ahmed Tinubu worked for various American companies Arthur Andersen, Deloitte, Haskins, & Sells and GTE Services Corporation before returning back to Nigeria in 1983.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu has severally showed himself as a key figure in politics besides playing a prominent role in electing President Muhammad Buhari as the president of Nigeria republic, he is a powerful force to reckon with in Nigeria politics beside his giant strides and infrastructural transformation of Lagos state, in June 2022, he was primarily elected as the presidential flag bearer of APC for the 2023 general election.
