COLUMN
By ’Tunji Ajibade
The National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, visited Kaduna State lately during which time he addressed delegates of the party from the state. His purpose was to seek the support of the delegates headed by Governor Nasir El-Rufai for his ambition to become the presidential candidate of the party. From my perspective, Tinubu cannot be in a better state that he can call home than Kaduna State. He’s been in the state several times in recent past, the last being about five weeks ago. This means Tinubu likes to go to where he is celebrated not where he is tolerated, and the current political leadership in Kaduna has always demonstrated that it appreciates and celebrates Tinubu.
When Tinubu met with the APC delegates, El-Rufai told him that he and the rest of the delegates would support him because he was the first to come to them seeking for support. One would want to imagine that Governor El-Rufai was being modest in putting it this way. One feels strongly that Tinubu is one politician that El-Rufai and the rest of the delegates have enormous respect for, and for several reasons too. One shouldn’t forget though that the last time Tinubu came to Kaduna for the purpose of offering his sympathy to the governor and the people of the state over the Abuja-Kaduna train attack, El-Rufai gave up his official seat, inviting Tinubu to sit on it. This is an utmost mark of humility and respect for Tinubu. From his antecedent, El-Rufai is a humble person, humble at heart, and he shows enormous respect to people whether high or low. But he also respects talent, ability, capacity, quality leadership, and above all performance especially in governance. No doubt, these are qualities El-Rufai himself has, and he surrounds himself with political appointees who exhibit the same. One can state that this is one reason he recorded success while he was the Minister of the FCT, and currently as the governor of Kaduna State. Did El-Rufai and the rest of the delegates see these qualities in Tinubu? Surely they did. This is one reason one would want to submit that the Kaduna State delegates support Tinubu’s presidential aspiration; they do because they truly believe in his personal qualities. And they have reasons to.
Tinubu is a former governor of Lagos State, the first in the state after the return of civil rule in 1999. He was a man who was exposed to much storm and so he had had to come up with innovative ways of running the state. Those were days when state governors had no predecessors in the latest dispensation to look up to. From the federal to state to LGAs every politician was trying to figure out the best way to go about the process of governance. Even at that Tinubu demonstrated courage, understood what was needed to bring governance to the people and he went about implementing them. One of them was the creation of new LGAs which the FG rejected and quickly seized the funds that Lagos State should receive from the federation account. But convinced of the course of his action, Tinubu didn’t back down on what he felt was for the benefit of the people. He organized his government along the lines of some of the best governance practices available at the time; consequently he was able to raise internally generated revenue significantly. In the event, he was able to do for Lagos many of what other state governors who got federal allocations couldn’t do for their people.
Under Tinubu as well, a new blueprint for all-round development was prepared for Lagos. He prepared a master plan of where he had the vision of taking the state. The plan still continues to be implemented three different administrations after he left office. That points to the quality of the vision captured in the master plan. But beyond this, Tinubu has proved himself to be a master political tactician too. At one stage, his state was in the opposition. He ruled Lagos as a member of the opposition party, and he was able to shake off much of the pressure the PDP administration at the centre had to apply, during and after every election cycle.
Out of office, his capacity to organize his political structure ensured the opposition remained in charge of Lagos State until he brought the structure under the APC umbrella in 2014. Since that time the party has remained dominant in Lagos State. Won’t it also be said that it speaks to his visionary ability to have been at the forefront of the merger process that led to the formation of APC? This was a time PDP was in power and it didn’t look like any party could dislodge it. But like El-Rufai said after the 2011 presidential election, that the party led at the time by Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) was the party of the future, Tinubu too saw the merger of 2014 that led to the formation of APC as the one that would defeat PDP. And it did. That speaks to vision, enormous self-belief.
Beyond Lagos State, Tinubu has also proved himself to be a grandmaster of politics and politicking, a foremost political tactician. This is a politician who at one stage had his party in control of all but one state in the southwest. The case remains the same at this time, an evidence that he has not only proved to be an excellent administrator in his capacity as governor, but a formidable political strategist. He has helped in the victory of several politicians in many states. Beyond the south-west, his tuff, Tinubu has also proved to be a major presence. He has friends, associates and loyalists across the country and he is well respected in the north of Nigeria in particular. He has been a source of assistance to many political leaders across the country and these are the kind of bridges a person who aspires to be the president of Nigeria should have.
On many fronts, Governor El-Rufai shares many of the abilities that Tinubu has so one can’t be surprised that he and the APC delegates in Kaduna State support him. El-Rufai has proved to be a man of vision himself. He executed what he had as vision when he was the Minister of the FCT, and he has been doing the same since he became the governor of Kaduna State. Just like Tinubu faced strong opposition to his plan for Lagos State and he didn’t flinch, El-Rufai too has faced opposition but he has remained undeterred. He has made efforts to make the resources of the people of Kaduna State work for them, rather than for a privileged few. He has ensured he used state resources to provide the needed infrastructure for the people, make Kaduna better as well as provide a plan that he has been implementing thus far. So many important people and international organizations have commended the administration of Governor El-Rufai for his bold and innovative measures that have led to a turnaround in the social, economic, educational, health, as well as investment climate in the state.
Actually, Tinubu scored big with the support he got from Kaduna State. Why? The vote of the Kaduna delegates will be very significant to his victory during the party primary. The number is relatively high. More than that, Kaduna is one state anyone who must emerge as the APC presidential candidate needs to win. This is due to several reasons. One is because of the political situation at the moment which makes it compulsory for any potential winner to get most of his votes from the north. This must be the case because many of the states in the south have an aspirant. This is the situation in the south-east, south-south and south-west. Theoretically, the chances are that each of the states that has an aspirant will go to that particular aspirant. In the event, within the APC, the northern states are where the eventual winner will have to secure the most votes. With Kaduna State already pledging their support to Tinubu, he has crossed one major hurdle, but he must continue to work in order to win other northern states to his side.
With the foregoing therefore, and as already stated, it is not surprising that Tinubu is the choice of the APC delegates in Kaduna State. Their leader, Governor El-Rufai, shares the qualities of vision and performance in common with Tinubu. So the Kaduna State delegates would no doubt want a presidential aspirant with the same kind of qualities to be the one they support. One would want to submit that they have made the right choice, and Kaduna cannot but hope to reap even more benefits from a federal government led by Tinubu in a post-Muhammadu Buhari era.
tunjioa@yahoo.com
