NIGERIA, this Thursday, May 29, 2025, marks its 26th anniversary ending brutal military rule, and embarking on the road to democracy. I am reminded, on this occasion, of three political figures who contributed to this situation.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu emerged into national consciousness in 1992 when he was elected the Senator representing the Lagos West Constituency. The following year when the June 12 presidential election, won by Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, was annulled by the Babangida junta, he became one of the major advocates of de-annulment. He was like Abiola, a good social mixer and seemed to have friends in high places.
Also, when shortly after the Abacha coup and the head of the junta needed to meet Abiola for secret discussions, they each had a witness: Abacha had General Oladipo Diya who was his Deputy, while Abiola had Tinubu. Abiola and Tinubu were populists and shared Abiola’s political agenda: “Hope ’93, Farewell To Poverty: How to make Nigeria a better place for all.”
Aregbesola’s demonstrable competence, knowledge and commitment were so visible in his first four years as Commissioner, that Governor Bisi Akande of Osun State approached Tinubu to allow Aregesola become his running mate in his 2003 bid for re-election. Aregbesola did not want to cut short his service in Lagos State and, clearly, Tinubu still needed the services of the latter, not just in his cabinet but also for his re-election for a second term. Besides, Tinubu’s re-election promised to be quite tough because he had openly confronted the dictatorial tendencies of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
When six years later, he ran for gubernatorial election in Lagos State, Tinubu seemed to have dusted up that manifesto. At his inauguration as governor, he promised Lagosians a better life and assured them of “a good economic programme that will eradicate poverty and provide employment for the jobless…”
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Equally, Rauf Aregbesola, when, in 2007, he ran for the gubernatorial election in Osun State, unfolded a similar programme. His Six-Point Agenda promised to promote functional education, banish poverty, banish unemployment, restore healthy living, banish hunger and, enhance communal peace and progress.
When the Abacha regime cracked down on pro-democracy activists, Tinubu went into exile in 1994 and returned in 1998 after the dictator’s death. Abiola had died in detention under controversial circumstances on July 7, 1998.
On his return from exile, Tinubu ran for the gubernatorial election of Lagos State in January 1999 and won. The Director of his campaign team, the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Campaign Organisation (BATCO) was Aregbesola. The latter had run for the House of Representatives in 1992 while Tinubu ran for Senate in the same Lagos West area. Tinubu had won while Aregbesola lost, but that campaign had brought them together. When in 2003, Tinubu ran for re-election, Aregbesola was, again, the Director of his campaign team that ensured victory.
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After Tinubu’s 1999 victory as governor, his team penned down Aregbesola as Senior Special Adviser to the Lagos State House of Assembly. But when the list of the new cabinet in the state was announced on radio, Aregbesola was amongst the commissioners named. Apparently, Tinubu had put his foot down, insisting that the former should be in his new cabinet. Aregbesola was named Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure. He spent eight years during which the salutary work of the Ministry in executing huge road construction and building massive public works, was one of the undeniable achievements of the Tinubu administration. This partly led to the contested claims that: “Tinubu built Lagos”.
Tinubu was carrying on the populist vision of Abiola and Aregbesola was helping to realise that vision. But politically, the three politicians had some divergent positions. Abiola was a populist of the Right, Tinubu was Centre Right, while Aregbesola was Left.
Aregbesola’s demonstrable competence, knowledge and commitment were so visible in his first four years as Commissioner, that Governor Bisi Akande of Osun State approached Tinubu to allow Aregesola become his running mate in his 2003 bid for re-election. Aregbesola did not want to cut short his service in Lagos State and, clearly, Tinubu still needed the services of the latter, not just in his cabinet but also for his re-election for a second term. Besides, Tinubu’s re-election promised to be quite tough because he had openly confronted the dictatorial tendencies of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
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For instance, following clashes between the police and a militant ethnic group, the Oodua People’s Congress, OPC, Obasanjo on January 13, 2000, wrote Tinubu a letter threatening to impose emergency rule on Lagos State. Obasanjo told Tinubu: “When either by utterance, action or indeed inaction, a Chief Executive shows a loss of control in the maintenance of law and order in his state, it becomes incumbent on the Federal Government to take appropriate action to arrest the situation, usually in the form of the imposition of a State of Emergency.
“Mr. Governor, I regret that I have not seen any action on your part in the recent past to suggest that you are in control of the security situation in Lagos State. On the contrary there is evidence of increasing disorder, loss of lives and property and a general sense of fear among the citizens of Lagos State. This is an intolerable situation.”
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Tinubu had responded, blaming the Obasanjo administration for the insecurity. The latter, he wrote, ran a Police which was “undermanned, ill-equipped, poorly motivated and demoralised”. He advised it to either live up to its responsibilities or “allow for the necessary constitutional amendment to allow the states to bear their own cross”.
So, while Abiola and Tinubu might have had some confidence that the military would agree to disengage and willingly return to the barracks, Aregbesola thought the Generals had a hidden agenda. All three have played major roles in the contemporary politics of the country.
Also, Tinubu had rejected the overt directives of Yoruba leaders that the six states in Western Nigeria, including Lagos State, should back the 2003 re-election bid of President Obasanjo. The states had been run by the opposition Alliance for Democracy (AD). Clearly, the Presidency was displeased by Tinubu’s opposition and he knew he had an uphill task in his hands. So, Akande’s request that Aregbesola became his running mate in Osun State could not be met.
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As it turned out, in the South-West, only Tinubu was returned in the gubernatorial election as his five other colleagues, fell to the onslaught of Obasanjo’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Once he became the Governor of Osun State, Aregbesola displayed the spirit of Tinubu’s relatively outstanding performance in Lagos. When at the expiration of his tenure in Osun State, he returned to Lagos, his GRA Ikeja home was called “Second Bourdillion” in reference to his closeness to Tinubu who lived on Bourdillion Road, Ikoyi, Lagos. It was an indication that some saw Aregbesola as Tinubu’s deputy in politics, at least in the politics of South-Western Nigeria.
Tinubu was carrying on the populist vision of Abiola and Aregbesola was helping to realise that vision. But politically, the three politicians had some divergent positions. Abiola was a populist of the Right, Tinubu was Centre Right, while Aregbesola was Left.
Abiola was very close to the military top brass. Tinubu did not wholly embrace military rule but worked closely with Abiola for the birth of the Abacha military regime. In contrast, Aregbesola distanced himself from the military. Given his role in the 1978 student uprising against military rule, he disliked the latter. He, like many in the Left, viewed the military as political usurpers.
So, while Abiola and Tinubu might have had some confidence that the military would agree to disengage and willingly return to the barracks, Aregbesola thought the Generals had a hidden agenda. All three have played major roles in the contemporary politics of the country.
