FIJ
In the early hours of March 1, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was declared winner of the 2023 presidential election.
While announcing the final result, Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), said Tinubu polled a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who polled 6,984,520 votes.
During the same announcement, Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party (LP), emerged third with a total of 6,101,533 votes while Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) came fourth with 1,496,687 votes.
Since becoming governor in 1999, Tinubu has been the subject of many controversies. Questions have, on numerous occasions, been raised over his real identity, source of wealth and educational background.
Whenever these questions were raised, however, Tinubu and his team have always managed to issue responses, whether convincing or not, to them.
Below are five of the many controversies that have surrounded Tinubu since he became governor in 1999.
DOUBTS OVER EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND
During Tinubu’s first term as Lagos State governor in 1999, he was accused of not attending Government College, Ibadan, Oyo State.
This contestation arose after he had filled the school as one of his alma maters on INEC’s form 001 that was required of every candidate contesting for the governorship office.
Tinubu was also said to have stated in an affidavit attached to the form that he lost his university degree certificate while he was in exile between 1994 and 1998.
As a result of this allegation, the Lagos State House of Assembly set up a panel, with a possible impeachment looming over Tinubu if found guilty. In the end, and to the surprise of many, the state legislative arm later dismissed all the allegations after “it said it had concluded its investigations”.
CHILDHOOD CONTROVERSY
In 2007, Abdulrafiu Babatunde Tinubu, a former head of the civil service of Lagos State, authored a book titled Onijumu Wura: The Tinubu Dynasty of Kakawa, Lagos (The Tree).
While talking about the efforts he made in coming up with the book, Abdulrafiu described it as a product of many years of painstaking research. He included the names of all members of the Tinubu dynasty from the 19th century to date and stated that anyone whose name was not listed in the book was not an authentic member of the Tinubu family. Conspicuously missing from the list of names, however, was Bola Tinubu.
This later led to a claim that Tinubu’s real name is Yekini Amoda Ogunlere. It was also claimed that he is from Iragbiji, a town in Osun State.
