With 2023 general election around the corner, it is clear that our country is at the cusp of a new age in our democratic experience. While the era of our democracy facilitated by former Military generals seems to be coming to an end as for the first time in history of the fourth republic, no retired military general will be on the ballot, particularly for the Presidential election.
An election that has three notable personalities in the persons of former governor of Lagos, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, the former governor of Anambra state. While the three of them have their strength and weeknesses, the man which seems to have towered above the rest, is Bola Ahmed Tinubu. His democratic and economic credentials seems to be unblemish.
He is a veteran politician, who has been very much around and steeped in Nigeria’s political economy, through his business assets and wealth of contacts and connection.
Tinubu has always sided with the aspirations of the Nigerian people, during the erstwhile military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha, he was a prominent chieftain of NADECO, and was at the forefront of the fight to restore democracy to Nigeria against the determined opposition of reactionary forces.
With the turn of the fourth republic, he showed himself a true heir to the Nigerian democratic philosophy when he singlehandedly resisted the garrison democracy of former president Olusegun Obasanjo and the prevailing impunity, succeeding in ultimately reviving his influence in the Southwest, and since then he has been force to reckon with in the Nigerian political equation, becoming in 2015, the architect of contemporary Nigerian democracy, with the ascension of Buhari and the APC to the helm of federal power.
As governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007, Tinubu oversaw one of the most dramatic economic turn around in the history of Nigeria, by converting the state into a mega city and a model for other Nigerian states to aspire.
Being on the ballot this time around after a victorious primary convention of the APC, shows that the 2023 general election may usher in a new dawn if a man of such caliber succeeds to power. Known for bringing together the brightest minds to get the job done, whether in private or public dealings.
The political landscape can attest to these strong belief in people and nation building. 2023, Asiwaju is our game changer. Some even refer to him as an octopus who has many hands and legs spread cross the 36 state of the federation on human development.
Comrade Sadiq Suleiman
