2015: Scramble for South-West puts Tinubu on the spot

As the 2015 general elections knock, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who has been deftly and doggedly playing his political cards to emerge leader of the political class in the South-West, may just hold the aces in what is expected to be the fiery presidential engagement, next February, between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All […]

As the 2015 general elections knock, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who has been deftly and doggedly playing his political cards to emerge leader of the political class in the South-West, may just hold the aces in what is expected to be the fiery presidential engagement, next February, between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC). Even as the political sands shift in the South-West in terms of intra-party disagreements, defections and horse-trading, not a few analysts contend that Tinubu remains the determining factor in who emerges Nigeria’s next president.
But does he? Some political leaders and elders not enamoured of the Asiwaju maintain he has no real political clout in the region and project, he would fall with the thud of a fowl’s feather in the 2015 elections, especially the presidential.
To Chief Yinka Odumakin, leader of the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), Tinubu, and indeed, the much-touted performance of the APC in the South-West are a mere, undeserved media hype. As he told Sunday Trust last weekend, “Tinubu has only been doing business with the South-West name using the tag of a progressive.”  
One thing that Chief Odumakin agreed with, however, is that the South-West votes would be the most decisive in determining who wins the presidential election.
Between 1999 and now, Tinubu has worked to position the South-West so strategically that in today’s political calculation, votes from the region are not being understated to influence the fortune (or misfortune) of either President Goodluck Jonathan, who is certain to be PDP’s candidate for the election, or his APC opponent.
Since 1999 when the country returned to democracy, the PDP and its presidential candidates have never been as threatened as what next year’s election portends for them.
In 1999, the PDP’s strength was unassailable, drawing, unlike its regional champion rivals, its membership strengths from across the country. The Alliance for Democracy (AD) were local champions in the South-West, as were the All Nigeria Peoples Party part- champions in the North-East and North-West, sharing control with the PDP, which dominated control of the South-South and the South-East.
As the nation heads into the presidential election next year, the South-East remains a sure bet for the PDP to amass votes for its presidential candidate, despite Governor Okorocha’s presence in the APC. The PDP’s cause has been further helped by a steadily growing wave of propaganda the PDP and President Jonathan’s aides and supporters have been deploying effectively, applying religion and ethnicity sentiments.
This has succeeded in no small measure to affect the thinking pattern of many an indigene from the South-South, South-East and, to some extent, the Middle Belt. It is no longer uncommon to hear even commoners from these regions and those living in Abuja, the capital city and belonging to a particular religion arguing mainly along these lines, rather than mentioning the finer qualities of performance, honesty, welfarism and selflessness of their preferred presidential candidate. Both APC presidential aspirants Muhammadu Buhari and Rabiu Kwankwaso have described President Jonathan’s politics in this regard as “divisive”.
In the South-South, however, his support is punctuated by the rising popularity of Governor Rotimi Amaechi in Rivers State and the huge support of the electorate that Governor Adams Oshiomhole enjoys in Edo State. While the PDP is assured of dominating electoral votes in Cross River, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa states, it would still need to work hard for a much greater slice of the votes in Rivers State which, together with Lagos and Kano states, command  massive vote numbers that could influence the final outcome of the presidential election.
The PDP’s presidential candidate for next year’s election is not favoured to capture, in the North, as well as in the South-West, the kind of votes it did in the 2011 election. In the last presidential election, despite the presence of Muhammadu Buhari in the race, many northern leaders arrived at a compromise to give Jonathan support with the understanding that he would run for only one term and give way for a PDP candidate from the North. That understanding has evaporated, with Jonathan keen on his re-election next year.
With Jonathan’s support base largely eroded in the North, the PDP will be looking towards the South-West for a significant number of the votes that would influence the final results in the president’s favour. Here is where Asiwaju Tinubu’s biggest test as the popular leader of the Yoruba and South-West politics will come into play.

TINUBU’S POLITICS: From creeping into political relevance as a senator in 1992 on the platform of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP), Tinubu has gradually built his political clout over the years to be the leading light in South-West politics, though not without adversaries from the region who either detest his brand of political philosophy or regard him as an upstart who suddenly arrived on the scene to upstage their own leadership claims, and are, therefore, rebellious of his current leadership status.
This class include members of the political legacy of the late leader of the Yoruba, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who have been leaning towards the PDP and have benefited in many appointments from the ruling party. The beneficiaries include even children and Segun, a grandchild of the late premier of the Western Region. The Awolowos Ikene home, kept alive by its 99-year-old matriarch and widow of the late sage, Chief Hannah Dideolu, also hosts the annual meeting of the Yoruba Unity Forum, a gathering of Yoruba elders and politicians, many of whose involvement in the region’s politics dates back to the first and second republics and are mostly vehemently opposed to Tinubu’s leadership in the South-West.
Tinubu has been methodically building his political profile since he emerged an unknown political quantity 22 years ago. During Gen Sani Abacha’s reign in the mid-1990s when some Yoruba leaders formed the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) to oppose Abacha’s dictatorship, Tinubu, operating from the United States where he had escaped to on self-exile, was widely believed to be one of NADECO’s major financiers.
After assassins murdered Chief Alfred Rewane, believed to be a major NADECO financier on October 6, 1995, Tinubu was credited with taking up the sole financing of the organisation, as well as financing Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-cultural and political group. He was also said to be assisting some Nigerians who had escaped to the USA on self-exile to escape alleged death threats from the Abacha regime.
These gestures announced Tinubu, not only as an emerging radical passionate about spending his funds to pursue a cause he strongly believes in, as well as a generous soul, but also as a wealthy man.
Before venturing into politics, he had been Senior Auditor at Mobil Producing Limited, from where he retired as treasurer and senior executive. He started his professional career in the United States at Arthur Andersen, Delloite Haskins and Sells where he handled the accounts of, among others, General Motors, First National Bank of Chicago, Procter and Gamble, International Harvester and GEC. He also worked at GTE Service Corporation.
In school, the Chicago State University, llinois where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration (Accounting and Management), he had excelled with honours that included the Outstanding Student’s Award, the University Scholar’s Award and a Certificate of Merit in Accounting and Finance. He has proven to be politically astute and a shrewd investor.
His “investments” on NADECO during the stormy days would stand him in good stead on his return in 1998 to Nigeria to contest the Lagos State governorship primary of the AD. For the party’s ticket, Tinubu met a formidable rival in a certain Funsho Williams. Anthony Olufunsho Williams had been a Commissioner for Works in Lagos State during the military era and had been a chieftain of the United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP), one of the five political parties registered during the Abacha regime.
An unassuming but master political strategist, Williams had been building a strong, solid political structure since the UNCP days, which he had primed for use for his governorship ambition when he joined the AD before Tinubu’s return to Nigeria. But Tinubu had his efforts on NADECO and Afenifere going for him and had the covert support of Afenifere leaders Chief Abraham Adesanya, now late and Chief Ayo Adebanjo, while Williams enjoyed the open, unalloyed support of Chief Ganiyu Dawodu, another Afenifere leader, also dead now. Both Williams and Tinubu were heavily financing the AD.
The two men hotly contested the party’s governorship primary in the state and the results turned out to be unsurprisingly very contentious. When the party announced Tinubu as the winner, the Williams camp cried foul and accused its leadership of manipulating the results to favour Tinubu. Among the AD and Afenifere leaders, Dawodu stood out as dissenting on the results and stood most loyally by Williams, maintaining that the latter won the primary and was unjustifiably rigged out.
In the end, the party’s leaders called the two men to a meeting and pleaded with Williams to let the result be and support Tinubu’s campaign in the 1999 inter-party elections. Williams agreed and the matter was resolved, even if superficially and temporarily, because after the election in 1999 and Tinubu emerged governor, the two men couldn’t work together amicably and Williams eventually defected to the PDP. Sadly, assassins killed Funsho in his home on July 27, 2006.
Since that assumption of office as governor, Tinubu has been clawing his way up with so much tenacity to be the leader of the South-West political family. Deploying his magnanimity virtue to good effect, he gradually began winning over a new wave of loyalists, many of who benefited from political offices and appointments. With time, he began falling out with the old order, whom he accused would rather wish every political and office appointment went to their children and were always demanding for huge sums of money.
A top journalist and very close confidant of Tinubu once narrated how, while he was with the then governor, a scion of a leading Afenifere leader came in with a message for Tinubu. After reading the letter, the Asiwaju politely dismissed the messenger, saying he should tell his father he would get back to him. After the boy left, Tinubu turned to the journalist divulging the contents of the letter and lamenting how the elders of the Yoruba organisation wouldn’t ever give him a breathing space with what he called their importunate demands. “I am tired of these Babas. Their demands are unending and they expect everyone to be met. They don’t care whether you have money to do projects or not,” the journalist quoted Tinubu as saying.
With time, Tinubu began to reject some demands advanced by his godfathers. And gradually, the final parting of ways began. Many Yoruba leaders and elders began to label Tinubu as a political upstart who was growing disrespectful and arrogant. And all the while, the former governor was strengthening his political structure, winning over the loyalty of most of the young South-West minds he met on ground and breeding followers of his own.
Moreover, the claim that Tinubu was emerging successor to the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo as leader of the South-West political clan and the Yoruba generally was gaining ground. This was blasphemous to not a few ears among the elders who believed Tinubu lacked the credentials to lord that claim over them, considering his relative late entry into South-West politics, a game they have been playing with Chief Awolowo since the Action Group (AG) days in the First Republic, through the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) years in the Second Republic and to the present dispensation.
By 2003 when general elections held, the crack had widened. The situation made it easier for Chief Obasanjo, who was not only seeking the South-West votes in his re-election bid, but was also plotting to capture the South-West states for the PDP to prove a point he was not unacceptable in the region he hailed from, as the 1999 general elections portrayed him when the party lost woefully in the South-West.
The story is still being narrated of how Obasanjo tricked the AD governors in the South-West to direct their electorate to vote for him in the 2003 election, while assuring them of their own return without any strong competition from PDP governors. The AD leadership so naively agreed and the party didn’t even bother to field a presidential candidate for the election. Obasanjo didn’t only garner clear majority votes in the South-West (301,185;  1,129,120;  1,360,170;  840,988;  582,089 and 817,736 in Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo respectively), the PDP also captured the states, with its governors  defeating their AD opponents in Ekiti, Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ondo states.
Only Tinubu saw through Obasanjo’s wiles, didn’t lower his guard during the election campaign, gave Obasanjo and the PDP a hell of a fight in Lagos State and retained his state. Tinubu may not have started his politics in Nigeria in the first and second republics as his Afenifere critics charged, but he was quickly proving he was a lot street smarter than those he met on the beat. More instances to confirm that theory were to follow.
In his first term as Lagos State governor, Tinubu was astute enough to start building his own political structures, independent of the Afenifere old guards, and throughout the Southwest. With a huge financial chest at his disposal and a naturally benevolent disposition, he began to attract admirers. Moreover, Tinubu, to many Yoruba people, was gradually beginning to draw for the region a development roadmap unseen since the Chief Obafemi Awolowo era.
As the former governor’s profile soared, so was he attracting more foes, mostly from the ranks of the elders and political leaders. With time, the Afenifere group, which united the Southwest in the wake of the annulment of the June 12, 2003 presidential election and became handy as a successful political tool for the AD in the 1999 elections, began to split along many centrifugal lines, but mainly away from the Tinubu fold.
Today, the Afenifere is split into several political parties and groups, which include Chief Odumakin’s ARG, Chief Reuben Fasoranti-led group whose members formed the Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA), “Awoists” top PDP members like Chief Ebenezer Babatope, elements led by Chief Olu Falae who are in the new Social Democratic Party, and Tinubu’s loyalists who have stuck with him through the AD to the Action Congress, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the extant APC.
The fighter and strategist in Tinubu further came to the fore when he led the ACN to recapture, through the courts, the South-West states the PDP had won in the 2003 election. In the APC merger arrangement, Tinubu is expected to deploy those strategies and fight in him to direct the flow of votes in determining the results of the 2015 presidential election.
According to an associate, Tinubu has not only continued to win votes in Lagos State since his first victory in 1999, he has succeeded in spreading his vote-winning tentacles all over the South-West and neighbouring Edo State. “It is as if the average Yoruba waits for Tinubu’s direction before making up his or her mind on burning national issues, which is another testament to the fact that a values-shift has happened in Yorubaland,” the associate quipped.
Some close to Tinubu described him as kind with his financial resources, making funds freely available to entrepreneurs, the needy and politicians. This action of his is said to have made him popular the more and respected.
He is said to be brave and survive best when the odds are heavily stacked against him. Also described as possessing an uncanny foresight, he is credited with having an eye for brilliant and reliable minds who can implement people-oriented programmes. He can also spend any amount of money to get whatever he wants provided, you name your price, it was gathered.

TINUBU AND 2015 POLITICAL BATTLE One of those who believe in Tinubu’s capabilities and electoral value is Dr Garba Abari, a researcher and APC chieftain. Dr Abari told Sunday Trust: “I have seen him as a leader and a politician of immense capabilities and tremendous energy all directed towards the betterment of his people and greater Nigeria. Of course, as a human being he has his own inadequacies, but seeing him rise to where he is today in South-Western and Nigeria’s political terrain, one can say that the Asiwaju has through sheer single mindedness and deft political administrative/political skills come to occupy strategic but expansive political space.”
But rather than tie APC’s electoral fortunes in the next presidential election to only Tinubu’s clout, Dr Abari looked at what he opined prevails in the country. “I know for sure that all over Nigeria, there is an unprecedented groundswell of craving for change in the leadership of this country come 2015. The pervasive desire to send away the corrupt, inept incompetent and clueless PDP government is nationwide and not limited to a region or particular geo-political category. To this extent, therefore, the voting pattern in next year’s presidential election will be such that will sweep away the PDP and its clueless Jonathan away from power, roundly and squarely,” he maintained.
The APC, he added, is not built around an individual, “though individuals in their respective places of influence can play leading roles in the mobilization of party members and non-partisan voters who are mainly in the majority during elections. The APC has so much to show in all the states it is in power to draw massive support of the people in the elections at all levels.”
The last part of Dr Abari’s assertion is what Tinubu’s faithful are flaunting would sway voters’ heart in APC’s favour. Assuring that his former boss will lead the party to victory next year, former Commissioner for Rural Development in Lagos State during the Tinubu administration, Prince Lanre Balogun stated Tinubu has proven his commitment to developmental projects and programmes by ensuring that people who can provide good leadership and managerial skill emerged as governors in the South-West.
“There are many examples to buttress my point. We are all witnesses to what Governor Fashola has been able to do in Lagos State. He has done well in my estimation. So have people in Ogun State and visitors to there been commending Senator Ibikunle Amosun for various developmental projects he has embarked on.
“If you go to Oyo State, it is the same thing. People of Oyo State have been commending Gov Ajimobi for his achievements in the state. You cannot compare Alao Akala’s (former Oyo State governor) government with this (Ajimobi’s) government in all ramifications. Since Ajimobi assumed office, Oyo has changed tremendously. It is a story of developmental projects up to the villages in the state, something that has not happened in the state since it was created.
“Similarly, in Ogun, it is a success story. Before Amosun became governor there, we all know how his predecessor bastardised all sectors in the state. APC is on ground in these states, our governors have so many projects to show for their patriotic performance. The development leadership in the South-West came into being because of the quality of leadership exemplified by Asiwaju.”
Chief Odumakin, however, dismissed Prince Balogun’s claims as sheer noise on the pages of newspapers. To him, APC’s governors have not performed any better than their PDP predecessors. He even believed Alao-Akala remains the most popular former governor and politician in the South-West. When asked to compare the tenures, for example, of former PDP governors Lucky Igbinedion of Edo State, Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State and Olagunsoye Oyinlola (who is now in the APC) with those of their respective successors Adams Oshiomhole, Ibikunle Amosun and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in terms of visibility of solid projects, Odumakin maintained he hasn’t seen any difference.   
The APC Publicity Secretary in Lagos State, Joe Igbokwe declared that “with the kind of foundation that Asiwaju has laid for the APC here in the South-West, the party will win in 2015.”
PDP leaders have been celebrating recent developments in the region that could suggest the party is gaining ground there and Tinubu’s touted influence is being threatened. The party’s publicity secretary in Lagos State, Barrister Taofeek Gani, in a chat, said “the recent defection of Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State and the victory of Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State had sent jittery to the camp of Tinubu and his cohorts who had initially thought winning the region for the APC will be a walk-over.”’
Gani added that, “Even the victory they had in Osun is pyrrhic as it is currently being contested at the electoral tribunal. They know that with the current revolution going on in the mind of many electorates, their chances are getting slimmer by the day. So for us, Tinubu is no headache.”
The PDP spokesperson also hinted, “We have our strategies and at the fullness of time, we will reveal them to the world. Already, we have demonstrated how our party can pull surprises. The Ekiti election proved many bookmakers wrong and you should not be surprised anymore when our people deliver their votes to President Jonathan in February 2015.”
Part of the strategies Gani hinted at is that the PDP is already said to be working on secret alliances with some “political renegades” in the Ogun State APC, while at the same time mending in-house squabbles that had threatened to pull it apart in the past. Former governor Daniel had returned to the PDP from the Labour Party with his supporters and is working at collaborating with the billionaire financier of the party in the state, Kashamu Buruji to deliver the state to the PDP.
The PDP has also been celebrating the crisis in Ogun State APC, which recently resulted in a faction led by former governor of the state, Chief Olusegun Osoba defecting with his supporters to Chief Olu Falae’s SDP. If efforts being made by the APC leadership to win Chief Osoba back fail, the APC votes are not unlikely to be divided, with the PDP benefiting.
The APC national publicity secretary, Lai Mohammed, however, reacted that much as Chief Osoba’s defection was shocking, it would not affect the overall chances of the party in the forthcoming polls in Ogun State.
President Jonathan and the PDP are not unmindful of the huge drop in the goodwill that the president enjoyed from the people in the South-West in the 2011 presidential election. The party leaders have, therefore, been working hard to woo political local champions and opinion moulders in the region who can influence their followers to vote for the PDP in the presidential candidate. The presence of Ondo State’s Mimiko in the party and whatever success the PDP can make of Osoba’s defection will go a long way in affecting APC’s chances in the election.  
As Muhammed said, the APC leadership is re-strategising to address the developments in Ogun and Ekiti states, and in Oyo, whose large population is key. Our correspondent noted that many issues will shape the contest in these three states.  The first is the incumbent factor in Ogun and Oyo states. The size and strength of both parties will count, as will “stomach infrastructure” which was employed to good effect in the last Ekiti State governorship election that Fayose won.
A major issue that Chief Odumakin raised as bedevilling the APC in the Southwest is what he called the imposition culture. He accused Tinubu of fostering unpopular candidates on voters and described him as undemocratic.
But a Tinubu associate, pleading anonymity, explained that “some party officials, and indeed, many politicians and their cronies would rather want a corrupt spendthrift to emerge as, for instance, a state governor so he can fritter away public funds sharing it to them, instead of using it to implement people-oriented projects.”
This, he emphasised, was why many political leaders and elders made enemies of the Asiwaju. The associate pointed at what he regarded as the high quality of governance the APC governors in the South-West are delivering to their people, attributing it to Tinubu’s “commendable ability to choose leaders who are sincere about providing positive leadership to their people.”  
As the South-West APC prepares to choose leaders for the 2015 elections, the imposition allegation is one Tinubu may have to tackle wisely. The fallout may just turn out to be detrimental to his popularity in the region and the party’s chances in the presidential election.