By Prof. Michael Oguweke
I don’t know why those from South-east and South-south where Tinubu did not rule as Governor are those that abuse Tinubu most whenever his name is mentioned. Some of them couldn’t even remember their Governors between 1999-2007 again but Tinubu’s name always ring bell in their ears.
Tinubu’s immunity expired in 2007 and PDP left govt in 2015. Tinubu was without immunity for good 8 years under PDP, yet, Obasanjo, Yardua and Jonathan had nothing to rope him in as a criminal. Even Nuhu Ribadu did not probe him under Obasanjo.
Three (3) EFCC chairmen (Ribadu, Farida Waziri and Lamorde) couldn’t trace anything incriminating against Tinubu between 2007 — 2015 but you want him probed now. Has he taken any contract from state or federal govt that he has not executed? Has anybody reported him for financial crime? You always refer to Tinubu’s companies as if he had no means of livelihood before becoming Governor.
Tinubu was an Executive Director/board member of Mobil Oil Producing before he joined politics. Obasanjo and Atiku established private universities as sitting President and Vice President.
Obasanjo established Presidential Library as a sitting President. Atiku sold shares of companies to himself as VP and Chairman of Privatisation Council. Peter Obi took state money to support family business as Governor of Anambra. Yet, these people are your heroes.
When other former Governors were busy shipping their states resources abroad & developing foreign economies, Tinubu was busy establishing his businesses in Nigeria. Those companies are employing several hundreds of bread winners in Nigeria.
He met Lagos IGR at about N600m per month and he left it at N12 – 14bn per month. When Obasanjo seized Lagos allocations despite Supreme Court judgement against Obasanjo, Tinubu was paying salaries and pensions regularly for three and half years that it lasted. It was Yardua that paid the allocation to Fasola’s govt. Tinubu used his initiative to create LASTMA and Obasanjo in his copy cat attitude moved ahead to create FERMA.