Tinubu Nigeria's Most Influential politician, says Lai Mohammed

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In and out of government, Bola Tinubu is one of the most organised public figures, testifies LAI MOHAMMED, his former chief of staff

I first heard of Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 1990 or late 1989. This was in the run-up to the Third Republic when, after a lot of dribbling and manoeuvering, we found ourselves with two political parties, the National Republican Convention, NRC, and Social Democratic Party, SDP. The SDP, being the “dominant party” in Lagos State, was the party to beat. Naturally therefore, the primary election of the SDP was more bitterly and fiercely fought because the belief and thinking then was that whoever clinched the party’s ticket was as good as being the governor of Lagos State.

And three camps emerged, headed by Femi Agbalajobi, Dapo Sarumi and Yomi Edu. The Agbalajobi camp was without doubt the camp of the establishment, backed by Alhaji Lateef Jakande and the entire old establishment of the former Action Group and Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN. The Sarumi group was an emerging group backed by some “rebels” from the old establishment and some visionaries like Bola Tinubu. I remember we used to call them the Satanic Five in those days! Those were the powerful five or six people. There was Bush Alebiosu, Kola Oseni and others.

But the newcomer, visionary and also the man with ideas and with the funds behind them was a young man we learnt was in Mobil. And I remember at that point in time, I belonged to the Yomi Edu group. That was the third group actually. It was the group of mostly first timers in politics, of course, supported by other people who believed in the new breed policy of Ibrahim Babangida then. And we had a few old hands like Ebenezer Babatope in our group. But generally, those were the three major camps that dominated the Third Republic in Lagos State.

I happened to be in the Yomi Edu camp because he was my partner in my law firm. So naturally, I belonged there and it was my own baptism into politics. We held a meeting in our camp, and the idea was that, if we could get some of this Satanic Five on our side, then our task would be much easier. Then we went on a search that took us to Ijebu-Ife, Ijebu-Ode, looking for how we could get one of the key members of the Satanic Five to come over. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that time, was just an enigma, so to say. Who is this young man? Where was he getting his funds from? Why was he so passionate and comfortable where he was?

I never had the opportunity to meet him physically until early 1990 or ‘91. What happened was that the Babangida transition programme was going forth and back. Then, I had the pleasure of meeting him shortly after the primaries of the SDP, which declared Agbalajobi the winner, Sarumi runner-up and we came a distant third. Then, both Agbalajobi and Sarumi camps wooed us, because we would determine who would actually clinch the ticket because it would appear that the balance of power was evenly distributed between Agbalojobi and Sarumi and whoever we gave our support to would clinch the ticket.

It was a dilemma because both Agbalojobi and Sarumi were from Epe. I think at the end of the day, some cultural factors came to play and we cast our lot with Sarumi for two reasons: We wanted a new order and the Sarumi group represented a new order more than the Agbalojobi group. I think that was what clinched the argument in favour of the Sarumi group. The two groups fused and naturally the leadership of the two groups met constantly to strategise and synergise their approach. And that was the first time I met Tinubu.

From day one that I met him, I knew he was a strategist. This is a man who thinks out of the box. This is an extremely unconventional politician, who sees what most of his peers don’t see. I’ll give you an example. The first thing we did when Agbalajobi was declared winner, we contested it, wrote a petition. Then Bola Tinubu told the Sarumi group that looked down on the Yomi Edu group: “What is their number? Quite negligible.” And there was this tendency on their part to treat the Yomi Edu group as an inferior or junior partner in the whole arrangement.

Tinubu said: “There are three tendencies in Lagos State. The Agbalajobi, Sarumi and Edu groups. The Agbalajobi group controls the party exco from top to bottom in the state. The Yomi Edu group has a complete hold on the national exco of the party and you have nothing but your people.

“It would be smart of you to treat them as a partner because that is the only way you can make a name; because decisions would be made here locally in Lagos State, which you have no control over and your only salvation will lie in appealing to the national executive of the party and you are not there but these people are there. That is, by virtue of Babagana Kingibe, who is a childhood friend of Yomi Edu, and by virtue of Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. What do you have? You are holding nothing.” That was when the Sarumi group realised for the first time that strategically, it was important to treat the Yomi Edu group as equals.
We went and appealed, a re-run was ordered, in two or three wards. It was the strategic thinking of Tinubu and co. that when you order a re-run in two or three wards, it means you have cancelled the results of election in those wards, but results of election in other wards remain valid. By that number, we and the Sarumi group were already leading with a certain amount of votes.

Then Tinubu said: “All you need to win is to ensure that they don’t know that number by which you are leading.” So we insisted on strict accreditation. In those days, we needed to do what we called ECOMOG. We brought people from everywhere, but Tinubu said no, we must respect the law. He sat us down and said it takes at least one minute to accredit one voter and there are only two hours for accreditation so the maximum they could register in any ward was 120 people. Meanwhile, we were leading with about 2,000 votes. Then the strategy was to move people en masse to make accreditation difficult.

As people went en masse, it took more than one minute for the accreditation and by the end of the day, they could not register more than 120 people to vote. That was how we won the primaries. Agbalojobi went to court. I was in the team of lawyers; Rotimi Williams led us. But again, Tinubu being the master strategist that he was, told his group that its salvation lay in the hold it had on the centre; no matter what happened, the national executive of the party would determine who was going to fly the flag of the party.

So, we went to court, and one day when I returned from court, I heard on television that the entire process in Imo, Lagos and Gongola had been cancelled by Babangida. The moment they cancelled the entire primaries in Lagos State, everybody wanted to be governor, even within our own camp. I actually called Yomi Edu, who was already in England, and told him what had happened: “You have to come back and re-run the primaries.” Yomi was reluctant, he knew how much was going to be spent. This thing is long term. It’s a marathon. At this point, both the Sarumi and Yomi Edu groups refused, but surprisingly enough, there were many candidates that wanted to run for the primaries, even within their groups.

Tinubu said: “If Yomi wants to run, we owe him the duty to support him because when it mattered to us most, he supported us.” When he said that, Tinubu went all out to work for him with all his resources, connections and network. And that was how Yomi Edu clinched the ticket. And from that moment, I began to respect him as a man who places loyalty above every other thing.

Because I was like the chief of staff then to Yomi Edu. From then, I met Tinubu on a daily basis. He was still working in Mobil. He was raising funds for us from his corporate friends and I was the channel and conduit for the money he raised. I would take it to the party, use it for logistics, and use it for election. We won the primaries – that is, Yomi Edu – but we lost the election. But even during negotiations between Agbalajobi’s group and our group, we knew they were never quite with us.

You could see that Bola Tinubu was a guiding light. His suggestion was that we should not be too rigid, we should let go some things, but then I was growing in politics and I was Yomi’s chief adviser. Those who knew better didn’t want Yomi to become governor. But the rest is history.
From there, Tinubu and I became very close friends, close associates. I worked for his campaign for Senate.

As a senator, Bola Tinubu probably occupied the most strategic position after the Senate President as chairman of Appropriations, Finance, Banking and Budget, and to me this is like being chairman of four committees today. I think he’s best known in the Senate for his principled stand on the quest for the de-annulment of June 12. He started showing his character traits in the Senate. Like he tells us, he could easily have become Senate President, given the fact that SDP was strongest in the South-West. We had three senators – him, Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele and Engineer Anthony Adefuye.

Again, he knew the South-West was going to produce the presidential candidate of the party, so he had to sacrifice that position. He is best known in the Senate for his courage. He believes in democracy, rule of law.

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All through his stay in the National Assembly, his voice rang out for the de-annulment of June 12. When other senators were bought and bribed with oil blocs, he remained true to his calling. I think his most courageous moment was when he convinced the National Assembly that the Senate be convened in Lagos. For that, he ended in the gulag.

Even in the gulag, he was directing the affairs of NADECO in Lagos and in the country. This is a man I have never seen depressed; he never gives up, maybe because he fights the cause with all his heart. Again, people will tell you that Tinubu is good at what he does because he has money, but it’s absolute bunkum. Those who would say that are those who knew him when he became a phenomenon. Those of us who knew him when he was Bola Ahmed Tinubu, before he became senator, before he became governor, before he became Asiwaju, Jagaban, know who he is. There are two kinds of people in the world: the risk takers and the risk avoiders. He is a risk taker and he will take risk with everything he has if he believes in that project.

Some people who didn’t believe in June 12 and were ready to compromise joined the political bandwagon and they became the leading lights in the United Nigeria Congress Party, UNCP; National Congress Party, NCP and other members of the five fingers of a leperous hand created by Abacha. But we the puritans – I say this with all sense of modesty – the elders of NADECO, believed that this would go nowhere.

Unfortunately for us, nobody knew the end would come so soon for Abacha.
When death came so suddenly, we were literally caught by surprise because we were not part of their struggles or their machinations, so we had to rely on our underground structures. At that time, many of the parties had already conducted primaries. Elections into the Senate and House of Representatives had already been held before Abacha died. They were only waiting for governorship and presidential elections. They already had structures and when suddenly Abacha died and the whistle was blown for the Fourth Republic, we were short-changed. Most of our members were either in exile or in prison. Those who were not in prison were underground.

So for Tinubu to come up at that point in time was against all odds. But God was on our side. The arrangement before we came was that primary elections would be determined by delegates, and they were already known. What really happened was that as soon as the Abdusalami administration called for new political parties, UNCP and NCP collapsed themselves into Alliance for Democracy, AD and and they actually outnumbered us in their leadership because we were inactive.

Fortunately, our supporters, who were all this while underground, knew who their real leaders were.

There is one thing that people will not tell you about Bola Tinubu: he is a slave driver. This is a man who does not believe it is over until it is over. After he won election, while his colleagues were busy celebrating, he said we should form a transition committee. He invited completely apolitical people; those who opposed him, professors and others. In tourism, who are the best minds? Agriculture, who are the best brains? Infrastructure, who are the best? And he gathered the Olisa Agbakobas of this world, Adefowope and others. In the area of finance, we got the best hands, who had worked in the World Bank.

We had about 20 committees. They were given a free hand. They presented their proposals and smaller committees went through them. That was how we emerged with our blueprint. By the time we got to government, there was a blueprint for commissioners; it was not like you’d get there and do what you wanted to do. For instance, for justice, top of the list was the reform of the judiciary. Agriculture, what was our priority? Infrastructure, environment? We hit the ground running. And then his choice of cabinet: he had the most apolitical cabinet; those who held principal ministries and positions were not even politicians. I was Chief of Staff, Wale Edun did not know what a party card looked like and he was Commissioner for Finance. Yemi Cardoso was not a politician and was made Commissioner for Budget. Professor Yemi Osinbajo came from the university. Dele Alake, who was part of the struggle, was Commissioner for Information and Strategy. These people held the key positions in that government.

For Tinubu, it was about performance and competence and of course, he balanced this with politicians. It’s like putting square pegs in square holes. He bothered little about state of origin because to him, the strength of Lagos is its cosmopolitan nature; that Lagos is the melting pot of all cultures.

His argument was: “If I make Rauf Aregbesola Commissioner for Works and he builds roads, he will build the roads in Lagos and not Osun State. If I make Lai Mohammed my Chief of Staff, he will not advise me for Kwara State, but for Lagos.” While the transition committees were going about its work, we embarked on a trip to Europe and America – Tinubu, Ayo Opadokun and I. We started meeting different organisations – the United Nations, multilateral organisations. I remember the idea of Enron-IPP came out from that trip. We met a corporate council on Africa and told them that our major priority was power. Power in Nigeria is a federal matter. From there, we were directed to a former American Ambassador to The Philippines, who told us what that country did when it had a similar problem. That was how we arrived at the idea of bringing in barges. We did all this before we were even sworn in.

The next one was the reform of the judiciary. By the time we were sworn in, the highest paid judge in Lagos State was earning N40,000 a month. Today, no judge earns less than N120,000 a month. Before we came in, there was no allocation for housing. Today, every high court judge lives in his own house. His idea was: “Make them comfortable so that you don’t make bribe and corruption attractive to them.” By changing the environment, we created the highway managers and realised that the environment could not be done on a strictly government basis, so we introduced the Public Private Partnership, PPP.

Then we went into the area of health and, for the first time, introduced the emergency services and the speed dial numbers (123).
One thing that Nigerians should be grateful to Asiwaju for is the championing of fiscal federalism, without which this country would have been in chaos today. For a non-lawyer, I have not seen anybody that can use the law to achieve his aims.

Some of the principal actors are already dead so I will just avoid personalities. The truth of the matter is what we inherited from the Third Republic, the constitution and the various laws, were quite imperfect. There was a lot of wisdom, under the UPN, when the chairman of the party was governor of the state. It did not allow for destabilisation of government. When the governor of the state is also the chairman of the party, it could lead to absolute power abuse but it depends on the constitution of the party and what powers the other structures of the party have, whether the governor could actually act in isolation.

But what we inherited was a situation whereby the party hierarchy in Lagos State was completely opposed to Tinubu’s government and they wanted to destabilise the government from day one. First, when we won the primaries, the then chairman ran away and it took the intervention of the then national chairman for the results to be released. When it was time to choose a Speaker, the party was against the governor.

When we had crisis with the unions, the party went against the government. From the beginning, we never had a rosy relationship with the party. The party looked at us as being unconventional, usurpers and as outsiders, but they had forgotten that we got the mandate of the party through the overwhelming vote of members of the party and we got the mandate of the people of Lagos State through a landslide victory. Right from the beginning, we were very wary and we saw that we had to be careful.

Permit me to argue this: It is only in Yorubaland that you see a people that would say: “No, others wanted Shonekan, we didn’t vote for him. We voted for Abiola.” It’s only in the South-West, among the Yoruba, that people would fight for principle and eschew ethnicity. I remember when the late Saburi Biobaku – as against Eni Njoku – was made the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos, a Yoruba man, Kayode Adams, stabbed Biobaku. That is the culture of Yorubas. But in 2003, we derailed. We allowed ethnicity to becloud our sense of fairness and justice, and we paid dearly for it. It was because of ethnicity that AD did not present a presidential candidate and that’s how the governors, except in Lagos, were routed. You know what Asiwaju did? He said even if we were not fielding a presidential candidate, we should still vote AD. “Tick AD for president and AD for governor,” he instructed. He knew that in the confusion of trying to figure out the parties, voters could vote wrongly. So for all elections in Lagos, be it House of Assembly, AD; House of Reps, AD; governorship and presidency, AD.

Fortunately for us, we were number one on the list and that was how we coined “Jeun Soke”. Asiwaju is an extremely gifted politician.
I think this has a lot to do with his person. Bola Ahmed Tinubu is probably one politician today who, if he started out in 1999 with 100 disciples, he still probably retains 70 of that lot and has added 200 more. Most politicians of his time started with 100, but you find them with about 20 or 10 today. I can tell you today that Tinubu, with all sense of modesty, is the single most influential politician in Nigeria today. He’s the only politician today whose influence cuts across not just a state or a whole zone but outside a zone. He’s the only unelected person today that wields more power than those elected. He occupies no position in either the party or government, yet he’s revered, feared, respected, and dignified all over Nigeria.

One thing is that you cannot remain indifferent to him. He’s a very simple person; extremely simple. He operates an open-door policy. I was telling a guy the other day that I can’t be an Asiwaju because I don’t have the temperament. I can’t see a thousand people in a week. The man has no private life. And no one goes to Asiwaju without coming out happier than when he went in. If he cannot help you, he gives you soothing words, he gives you hope, he just turns comical. I think he’s a gift to this country. We just wish him long life. Don’t make any mistake; he’s by no yardstick an angel. He has his own faults, but overall, I think there are very few of his type in this generation.

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