Business mogul and politician, Dr Abisoye Fagade has described former Governor of Lagos state, National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and President-elect of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as a quintessential being whose ability to transform dreams and lives had not been outpaced by any other person in Nigeria.
Tinubu, a 1979 graduate of the Chicago State University in the United States, was the Executive Governor of Lagos state for two consecutive terms between 1999 and 2007.
Before then, he was the lawmaker representing Lagos West Senatorial District in the short-lived Nigeria’s Third Republic. He was born on March 29, 1952.
Fagade, in a special birthday message contained in a statement which he personally signed and made available to journalists in Ibadan, submitted that Tinubu was worth being celebrated across the globe in view of his invaluable contribution to humanity and African society as a professional, Investor, philanthropist, politician and public administrator.
“Without being immodest, this occasion of the 71st birthday celebration affords many people the opportunity to set the record straight and portray the person of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the right perspective.
“This is a man who defies all odds to get educated home and abroad at a time when education was the right of only the children of the rich. He then joined the best multinational companies at one time or another as an employee and he was able to rise to the peak of his career within a short period of time.
“In the early 1990s, he joined the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) and got elected into the Red Chamber of the National Assembly where he represented Lagos West Senatorial District. Sen. Bola Tinubu was a chief supporter of Bashorun MKO Abiola in the build-up to the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election which Abiola won but was criminally annulled by the military junta of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (rtd). The struggle for the actualisation of Abiola mandate necessitated the floating of National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) by Tinubu and other pro-democracy heroes of Nigeria.
“And in the current political dispensation, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has distinguished himself as the best individual contributor to the sustenance of democracy in the land as all his actions since 1999 have been assisting the cause of democracy and good governance in the entire country. When he was the governor of Lagos state, he did a lot to improve the fortune of the former federal capital as he was able to raise the monthly internally generated revenue of the state from six hundred million Naira to twelve billion Naira and thus launched the Centre of Excellence on the part of financial independence and greatness.
“The same Tinubu- Jagaban Borgu was highly instrumental to the rescue mission which occured in 2015 when the wasteful and clueless PDP was dislodged from power at the centre as he successfully nurtured into fruition the merger of some political parties which birthed the APC. With this and in addition to his previous exploits on the political space, Tinubu has written his name in gold ahead of any other individual in the history of Nigeria.
“Finally, it is on record that Asiwaju is a leader of leaders and the best pathfinder we can boast of in this generation. He has impacted on the lives of many people through mentoring, recommendation and support. He is blessed with the rare ingenuity to face any task and he makes good use of human resources by supporting the best man for the job at any given circumstances. It is on this premise that we are warming up to leave no stone unturned in the bid to support him to be the best President Nigeria has ever produced,” Fagade said.
