Biography of Bola Tinubu: Real age, career, wife & children, net worth

Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu (born March 29, 1952) is a Nigerian politician and accountant who has led the All Progressives Congress since its inception in 2013. He was the Governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007 and the Senator for Lagos West during the Third Republic.

He announced his desire to vie for the APC presidential candidacy in the 2023 presidential election in January 2022.

Tinubu grew up in southwestern Nigeria and studied accounting in the United States before working for several years abroad. In the mid-1980s, he returned to Nigeria and continued working in financial management before joining politics as a victorious Social Democratic Party senatorial candidate in Lagos West in 1992.

Tinubu became an activist pushing for the return of democracy as part of the National Democratic Coalition movement after Dictator Sani Abacha disbanded the Senate in 1993. Despite being driven into exile in 1994, Tinubu returned after Abacha’s death in 1998, which marked the start of the Fourth Republic.

Tinubu, a member of the Alliance for Democracy, defeated the Peoples Democratic Party’s Dapo Sarumi and the All People’s Party’s Nosirudeen Kekere-Ekun in the first post-transition Lagos State governor election by a large margin.

He was re-elected to a second term four years later, but by a smaller margin than the PDP’s Funsho Williams. Tinubu’s two tenures in office were distinguished by initiatives to modernize Lagos and feuds with the PDP-controlled federal government.

Tinubu remained one of Nigeria’s most powerful politicians after leaving office in 2007, as his loyalists frequently filled high-ranking positions throughout the southwest, and he was instrumental in the founding of the All Progressives Congress in 2013.

Long and controversial, Tinubu’s career has been plagued by accusations of corruption and questions about the veracity of his personal history.

In June 2022, he was chosen as the All Progressives Congress candidate in the 2023 Nigerian presidential election.

Early life

Tinubu was born in the Nigerian state of Osun on March 29, 1952. Abibatu Mogaji, his mother, was a trader who rose to become the Iyaloja of Lagos State.

Education

He went to Children’s Home School in Ibadan, Nigeria, and St. John’s Primary School in Aroloya, Lagos. In 1975, Tinubu moved to the United States to study at Richard J. Daley College in Chicago, Illinois, and afterward at Chicago State University. He received his Bachelor of Science in Accounting degree in 1979.

Early career

Tinubu worked with Arthur Andersen, Deloitte, Haskins & Sells, and GTE Services Corporation in the United States. Bola Tinubu returned to Nigeria in 1983 and joined Mobil Oil Nigeria, where he rose through the ranks to become a senior executive.

Early political career

He entered politics in 1992 as a member of the Peoples Front faction of the Social Democratic Party, which was led by Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and included politicians such as Umaru Yar’Adua, Atiku Abubakar, Baba Gana Kingibe, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Abdullahi Aliyu Sumaila, Magaji Abdullahi, Dapo Sarumi, and Yomi Edu. In the short-lived Nigerian Third Republic, he was elected to the Senate, representing the Lagos West seat.

Tinubu became a founding member of the pro-democracy National Democratic Coalition after the results of the 12 June 1993 presidential elections were annulled, a group that galvanized support for the restoration of democracy and recognition of Moshood Abiola as the election’s winner.

He went into exile in 1994 after General Sani Abacha’s assumption of power as military head of state, and returned to the country in 1998 after the military dictator’s death, ushering in the Fourth Nigerian Republic.

Bola Tinubu was a protégé of Alliance for Democracy (AD) leaders Abraham Adesanya and Ayo Adebanjo in the run-up to the 1999 elections. He went on to defeat Funsho Williams and Wahab Dosunmu, a former Minister of Works and Housing, in the AD primary for the Lagos State governorship elections. He ran for Governor of Lagos State on the AD platform in January 1999 and was elected governor.

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Governor of Lagos State

When he assumed office in May 1999, Tinubu promised 10,000 housing units for the poor with little achievement. During the eight-year period of his being in office, he made large investments in education in the state and also reduced the number of schools in the state by returning many schools to the already settled former owners. He also initiated new road construction, required to meet the needs of the fast-growing population of the state.

Tinubu was re-elected as governor in April 2003, alongside a new deputy governor, Femi Pedro. In those elections, the People’s Democratic Party won all of the other states in the South West. He was fighting the federal government of Olusegun Obasanjo over whether Lagos State had the authority to build new Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) to fulfill the demands of its vast population.

The federal government seized funding intended for local governments in the state as a result of the incident. requires citation] He was always at odds with PDP heavyweights like Adeseye Ogunlewe, a former Lagos State senator who had become minister of works, and Bode George, the southwest chairman of the party, during the latter half of his stint in the office of the PDP.^[

Tinubu’s relationship with deputy governor Femi Pedro deteriorated after Pedro announced his desire to run for governor. Pedro ran for governor as an AC candidate in 2007 but withdrew his candidacy on the night of the party’s nomination.

He switched allegiances to the Labour Party while continuing his job as deputy governor. Tinubu’s term as Lagos State Governor ended on May 29, 2007, when his successor, the Action Congress Babatunde Fashola, took office.

Politics

Tinubu sought to persuade Atiku Abubakar, the former Vice President of Nigeria, to become the flagbearer of his party, the Action Congress, in 2006. Atiku, who was then a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), had a falling out with his then-prime minister, Olusegun Obasanjo, over his desire to succeed him as president.

Tinubu enticed Atiku to join his party by offering him a spot as the party’s presidential candidate on the condition that he, Tinubu, serve as Atiku’s running mate. Atiku turned down the offer and instead recruited Ben Obi as his running mate from the South East.

And although Atiku still went ahead to contest the election on Tinubu’s platform in the forthcoming elections, the PDP still won in a landslide with Tinubu barking up the wrong tree.

Tinubu became involved in negotiations in 2009, following the People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) resounding victory in the April 2007 elections, to gather together the fragmented opposition groups into a “mega-party” capable of defeating the then-ruling PDP.

In February 2013, Tinubu was among several politicians who created a “mega opposition” party with the merger of Nigeria’s three biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the new PDP (nPDP), a fraction of the then ruling People’s Democratic Party – into the All Progressives Congress (APC).

In 2014, Tinubu supported the former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari, leader of the CPC faction of the APC – who commanded a widespread following in Northern Nigeria, and had previously contested in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 presidential elections as the CPC presidential candidate.

Tinubu initially wanted to become Buhari’s vice-presidential candidate but later conceded to Yemi Osibanjo, his ally and former commissioner of justice. In 2015, Buhari rode the APC to victory, ending the sixteen-year rule of the PDP, and marking the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate.

In lieu of his long-rumored presidential ambitions, Tinubu has gone on to play a key role in the Buhari administration, backing government programs and maintaining control of the internal party. He backed Buhari’s re-election campaign in 2019, which saw him defeat PDP contender Atiku Abubakar.

Following an internal party conflict in 2020 that resulted in the dismissal of Tinubu ally and party chairman Adams Oshiomole, it is thought that the move was made to derail Tinubu’s presidential ambitions ahead of the 2023 election.

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2023 Presidential Ambition

Tinubu informed President Buhari of his decision to run for President of Nigeria on January 10, 2022. This was his formal announcement.

Tinubu won the ruling All Progressive Congress’ presidential primary on June 8, 2022, with a score of 1271, defeating Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Rotimi Amaechi, who received 235 and 316 votes, respectively.

Personal life

Tinubu is a devout follower of Islam. Oluremi Tinubu, the current senator for the Lagos Central senatorial district, is his wife. Adewale Tinubu, his nephew, is the CEO of Oando. Abibatu Mogaji, Tinubu’s mother, died on June 15, 2013, at the age of 96. Jide Tinubu, his son, had a heart attack in London on October 31, 2017, and was later confirmed deceased.