2. Bola Ahmed Tinubu
Former Lagos state governor and national leader of the ruling All Progressive Congress, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is one politician that you should ignore at your own peril.
He is a master strategist and knows the ABC of Nigeria’s politics.
He is one of the politicians that have influenced the political landscape of Nigeria in 2015. He was the only governor in southwest under the Alliance for Democracy (AD) that kept his position in the wind of change that flew in the zone in 2003 as the mighty fell like wrongly packed cards.
He knows what he wants and how to get it. Before 2014-2015 nobody knew that the Peoples Democratic Party could lose at the centre.
Together with other progressives, Tinubu engineered the defeat. The politician who is fondly called jagaban by close-cult of followers, political friends and even foes, collapsed his interest to form the All Progressives Congress that is now the ruling party in Nigeria.
The APC was formed in February 6, 2013 after a merger of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party(ANPP) and a faction of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
The party was doomed to fail from the very beginning but for tenacity of its founding fathers among who is Tinubu, who led the party safely to cross its ‘red sea’ to emerge victorious.
Tinubu played an influential role in the change mantra using all available resource to make this come true. He is admired by close associates and feared by foes for his staying power. He is one politician that sticks to his gun; he has been in opposition in the last 16-years unlike many others that had crossed carpeted when the going become tough.
Jagaban’s influence in the politics of Nigeria and the run up to the 2015 general elections cannot be wished away.
He ‘planted’ the right people with the right requisite political experience to sheer the ship of state and played pivotal role to the emergence of President Buhari from the primary election level of the APC to the eventual winning of the poll. Little wonder Buhari calls him ‘my friend’.
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