From godfather of Lagos to Nigeria’s president-elect By Reuters

By Tim Cocks

LAGOS (Reuters) – For a lot of his political profession, Nigerian President-elect Bola Tinubu has exerted energy from behind the scenes, broadly thought to be a “godfather” who makes use of an in depth patronage community to again candidates for workplace.

Tinubu’s help helped outgoing chief Muhammadu Buhari win two phrases in workplace, in 2015 and 2019. And since he bowed out as Lagos governor in 2007, Tinubu has picked each subsequent successful candidate to run Africa’s greatest metropolis.

That energy will now be examined as Tinubu makes an attempt to deal with Nigeria’s crises and enhance on Buhari’s lacklustre file.

Nigeria is beset by armed teams which have rendered swathes of the nation ungovernable, whereas its economic system is barely maintaining with inhabitants progress amid surging inflation and crippling money shortages after a botched introduction of latest financial institution notes.

Many of those issues worsened below Buhari, on whose occasion ticket Tinubu ran. However requested at a weekend information briefing why voters ought to elect him, he distanced himself from the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) occasion he helped create.

“I’m not the occasion,” he mentioned. “My observe file ought to converse for me. Have a look at Lagos: Earlier than I got here, we had lifeless our bodies on the street, a chaotic visitors system, theft daytime and nighttime.”

“Come on: clap for me,” he added in an look typical of the hubris that usually marks leaders of Africa’s prime oil producer and most populous nation.

Whereas Tinubu missed a number of of his occasion’s huge marketing campaign occasions and has appeared frail throughout some appearances, his speech typically sluggish and slurred, he has repeatedly brushed apart considerations about his well being.

Few doubted Tinubu’s well-resourced marketing campaign would triumph in a rustic during which the ruling occasion has a significant benefit, regardless of robust challenges from Atiku Abubakar, of the previous ruling Folks’s Democratic Social gathering (PDP), and Peter Obi, of the rebel Labour Social gathering.

MIXED RECORD

Tinubu supporters painting him as an efficient administrator with a observe file of choosing competent technocrats.

Critics say he awards profitable contracts and plum jobs to loyalists and has prior to now turned to so-called space boys, who informally management the streets of Lagos and attend his rallies en masse, to intimidate opponents if he doesn’t get his manner.

The 70-year-old doesn’t reply to such allegations, tending as a substitute to disregard them. A spokesman for Tinubu’s marketing campaign didn’t reply to repeated requests for remark.

A biography on his marketing campaign web site says Tinubu was born in Lagos in 1952, to a Muslim household from the Yoruba ethnic group, the bulk in southwest Nigeria. Others say he’s a lot older.

Within the Seventies, he emigrated to the US, the place he labored as a dishwasher, taxi driver and evening guard to fund his research. He graduated from Chicago State College in 1979 with a level in enterprise administration.

After working for U.S. consultancy companies, he returned to Nigeria within the Eighties and labored for the department of the Mobil oil firm as an auditor.

He first bought concerned in politics within the Nineties and was elected governor of Lagos when army rule resulted in 1999. He served two phrases.

His supporters say he improved roads, trash assortment and different providers within the chaotic metropolis, however many Lagosians say it stays deeply dysfunctional.

Others ponder whether, with the exorbitant value of contracts – some to corporations during which his shut allies have a controlling curiosity – town actually bought worth for cash. A lightweight rail challenge he began has not been accomplished after 20 years.

Tinubu’s help for Buhari, whose authorities struggled to deal with Nigeria’s main financial and safety issues, additionally did little to extend confidence in him amongst most of the 93.4 million registered voters.