Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu As A Champion of Change and a Proven Problem-Solver.
By Ojo Emmanuel Ademola.

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu As A Champion of Change and a Proven Problem-Solver.
By Ojo Emmanuel Ademola.
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is running for the presidency of Nigeria, brings with him an impeccable record as Nigeria’s best-proven problem-solver who stands the best chance to specifically end most of the hardships associated with the Nigerian nation and deploy capable individuals and resources to deal with them for the greater good of every Nigerian. Such thoughtfulness was one of my early pieces on the qualities of governance and leadership that Nigerians need at this time. I used some of the available data to arrive at this outcome.
The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the upcoming year’s election, should continue to be the primary focus of attention. How do you assess a candidate’s performance when they have a long track record of solving problems in both the private and public sectors? He is truly exceptional. Nigerians can only continue to applaud his political skill and sagacity and cast many votes to celebrate his enormous progress in governance, reforms, and local government administration in all its spheres. Nigerians are in the driver’s seat, driving Asiwaju, a genuinely democratic and progressive champion, to be the next president of Nigeria in 2023.
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has consciously and intelligently presented his roles in the Business of Nation Building as an expert builder and effective constructor of governance leadership in Nigeria of democracy today. Asiwaju has always remained a champion of change, engaging prolifically with the progressive democratic ideology despite the prevalence of political prostitution in the country. In the spring of 2017, I was a principal researcher to lead an understudy of the preparation of a global north country in the sport of fencing at the Rio Olympic Games. One of Team GB attested to the quality of preparation for the competition by saying, “I gave it all because it was my second Olympic Games and also my last.” It is usual for champions to give it all to attain the holistic development of selves and their team members. We can all see this quality of champions in Asiwaju, as more than three-quarters of his cabinets as the Governor of Lagos State till today remain great political minds solving problems for Nigerians one way or the other since Asiwaju left political office in 2007.
Notably, and still trending, Asiwaju has been a unique inspiration to others, as he continues to think a bit more deeply and critically about the role of champions in governance and especially about the best approach to deliver the dividends of democracy to every Nigerian. Such paradigms continuity afford Asiwaju the deep knowledge about the problems of this nation. He has been part of the struggle to ensure that democracy was enthroned and that a true federal system runs in the country. Every occasion for a paradigm shift from Asiwaju confine such shift within the progressive ideas of benefit every Nigerian both with public lectures or timely intervention. He cares about Nigeria and Nigerians with the sole mind of winning the best dividend of democracy for all Nigerians.
The Lagos story illustrates how Asiwaju turned the prospects of a dejected, abandoned, and crumbling Lagos around to assume the role of an impregnable bright spot in Nigeria today through proper problem identification and deft deployment of humans and resources. Asiwaju is highly recommended for the task of re-directing and changing the Nigerian narrative beginning in 2023 as a champion of change he is, and because of how he was able to identify the obstacles and deploy human and other resources to change the trajectory of Lagos. Such an accomplishments make him to tower above his contemporaries and all others currently up against him for the presidency. Asiwaju is a champion of change, the current record holder in governance, when compared with other candidates contesting to be president of Nigeria in 2023.
For the records, governance is all about reaching out to the citizens by identifying community issues, choosing the best people to tackle those issues, putting those people to work, and seeing results. During his time as governor of Lagos, Asiwaju demonstrated this, and Nigerians continue to benefit from his efforts till today. After he left office in 2007, he developed a privately driven national mentoring programme to ensure that progressive ideology was covered more and more. The agenda he carefully planned and implemented to win various states resulted in the most significant improvements to South West States of Nigeria’s infrastructure up until 2015, when he overcame the incumbent by leading the merger of the majority of progressive parties, and APC defeated the incumbent president. Asiwaju is an egghead and a master planner—two essential qualities for governance. Because he knows the best ways to use politics and government to get long-term results, this ability is more important to democracy than anything else.
The Asiwaju’s mandate is to spread progressive ideology throughout the country because he is surrounded by people who care about the national interest and work hard to be the best political choice. He also has a strong sense of well-being and wants to make Nigeria a better place. Asiwaju and his political associates have a symbiotic relationship with these goals and actions.
For instance, Lagos was practically on its knees when he became governor in 1999. The transportation system was primitive and chaotic as rickety molues were the face of public transportation; disorder and chaos reigned supreme all over Lagos; public infrastructure crumbled, and urban crime surged. The justice system withered around outdated facilities. Lagos was one massive ball of disorganised disaster. Many roads were a terrible state of disrepair; the health and education sectors were on their knees; security was comatose as various criminal gangs were taking over all the nooks and crannies of Lagos. The environment was unplanned, wild, and messed up.
To implement ground-breaking, mindfulness-based programs at all levels of governance, Asiwaju used a role model approach to bring about paradigm shifts. The citizens’ anticipated hope is realised by prioritising an assertive system and raising citizens’ awareness of democratic dividends in all spheres of life. He implemented unparalleled programs to assist governance in the nurturing of the workforce’s holistic development, enhance the experience of those who govern and inspire a passion for bringing about positive change and difference in governance spaces.
Asiwaju’s mandate is to grow the monetary system at the global economy rate steadily. With his mentoring programme I mentioned earlier as a symbiotic approach, he used it to spread the economic strength of those within the remit of his mandate. That is what he is now passionate about instilling in the Country as a whole. As a champion of change, Asiwaju came up with several initiatives to support all collaborative projects and take his entire team on a transformative journey through governance to implement his plan for social change. He unleashed a crack team of technocrats comprised of the best minds any state could gather on the vast challenges plaguing Lagos.
For instance, acquiring the funds required to finance the administration of a state with perhaps the fastest population growth in Africa was Asiwaju’s first obstacle in dealing with the overwhelming issues he faced as governor of Lagos. At the time, Lagos received a pitiful allocation from the federal government. Asiwaju did not receive any money because he saw the need to establish additional local councils to supplement Lagos’s paltry twenty councils and bring governance closer to the people at the grassroots. As a result, in order for Asiwaju to succeed as governor of Lagos, he needed to deal with the volatile financial system in the city. With this bleak financial picture, Asiwaju launched perhaps the most ambitious financial engineering Nigeria has ever seen, drawing on his expertise as an internationally renowned accountant.
In the heart of Nigerian governance, Asiwaju’s mandate is a delightful agenda for a win-win relationship. The primary objective of the plan is to build on governance successes of the current progressive administration by creating governance space and structure. The champion agenda aims to strengthen and close ties between Asiwaju and his successors over the course of the year so that progressive ideology can effectively advance the nation.
At the 149th Joint Tax Board Meeting in Lagos in December 2021, the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo Olu, confirmed that Lagos State’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) increased by 7,400% between 1999 and 2021! The monthly IGR accrual for Lagos has increased from N600 million in 1999 to over N40 billion today; This was Asiwaju’s cleverness at work, and it helps pay for the enormous growth that Lagos now enjoys.
The Asiwaju government in Lagos got to work with the resources of a win-win champion of change relationship secured. The dilapidated federal roads were the sore points in the emerging Lagos of that era, and rapid road construction and rehabilitation in all parts of Lagos ensured that Lagos roads recovered in record time. Keep in mind that numerous Lagos roads were utterly impassable prior to Asiwaju becoming governor. One of his predecessors, a former Lagos Military Governor and current PDP chieftain, was asked why Lagos roads were so bad because the situation was so bad. He responded that it was due to the absence of bitumen; As a result, Lagosians gave him the infamous moniker “Mr. No Bitumen.” The quality and long-term durability of the roads constructed by Asiwaju while he was governor remain unparalleled, with some roads remaining unbroken to this day. The Kudirat Abiola Road, which connects Ikeja and Ojota, serves as a case study!
When creating a healthy and safe environment for Lagos, we should remember how massive dumps distorted the city’s entire landscape before Asiwaju’s arrival. In addition, Lagos’ streets were littered with enormous mountains of waste, and nearly every street had become a dump site. Lagosians were the victims of deadly environmental pollution that seriously harmed their health due to sour odours and gaseous emissions. When Asiwaju arrived, these dumps were cleared out, the streets were rebuilt, Lagos regained its environmental sanity, and a proper waste disposal system was developed in record time. The Lagos Waste Management Agency (LAWMA) was established in record time and equipped with the necessary expertise to manage waste disposal in Lagos.
Despite the state’s large population, Asiwaju saw the need to decentralise power, which led to the creation of gardens and lawns in every part of Lagos and the start of a competition for the cleanest and healthiest state. As a result, he saw to the establishment of additional local governments as a means of bringing governance closer to the grassroots. In addition to Lagos’s twenty councils, he established 37 other local boards. However, this did not sit well with the PDP federal government, which seized Lagos’ allocations for local government. Asiwaju fought in court, and the Supreme Court eventually upheld states’ rights to establish local councils, albeit with the National Assembly’s condition to list such councils.
Needless to say, that the PDP government at the time ignored the ruling by continuing to withhold allocations, despite the Supreme Court’s further ruling that the withholding of Lagos local council allocations was illegal. The devastating and inexcusable aspects of the PDP government at the centre did not daunt Asiwaju’s mandate of a champion of change determination. Asiwaju went along to infuse life into the newly created councils. Today, they are run effectively as the Local Council Development Authority (LCDA) and function perfectly to serve the people more. It is even gratifying to note that other states have copied the template and have created LCDAs to expand governance further at the grassroots.
Under Asiwaju’s mandate, the ageing, shaky Lagos State judiciary was upgraded with modern court buildings, modern equipment, and other accoutrements that have not only improved the delivery of justice but also made adjudication in Lagos simpler. In addition, Lagos judicial officers currently enjoy the highest pay and highest levels of motivation in Nigeria. Again, Asiwaju, while he was governor, initiated and won several significant court judgments against the federal government at the time, which significantly altered the country’s federal structure.
Asiwaju met the healthcare industry in disarray. The general hospitals were suffering from neglect and decay. He started changing the state public hospitals’ fortunes by building modern state hospitals and equipping them. Then, he started the crucial primary health care delivery, which means that every part of Lagos now has primary health centres that are well-staffed, well-equipped, and easy to afford to meet the health needs of millions of Lagosians. Due to Asiwaju’s far-sighted vision, Lagos now leads the states in primary health care delivery.
Asiwaju rewrote the story of Lagos’ education. He began rebuilding the failing school standards in Lagos and creating model schools equipped with cutting-edge technology and teaching aids. He brought the bounce back to public schools in Lagos, revolutionised the reward system for teachers, and made public schools more competitive. During his time in power, he not only restarted free primary and secondary education but also paid WAEC fees for Lagos students.
A few of them have just been listed. Asiwaju established hundreds of highly effective agencies that are now flourishing components of the effective management of Lagos. As a result, it is not surprising that Lagos has developed into an impregnable success story that attracts millions of additional Nigerians from all of Nigeria’s states seeking assistance in Lagos. Due to Asiwaju’s foresight, Lagos is Africa’s fifth-largest economy and drives Nigeria’s economic growth. When Asiwaju arrived in 1999, it was a seedy, crumbling city.
We will never forget Asiwaju’s leadership succession plan when he was leaving office as governor. This plan ensures that Lagos doesn’t just go to anyone but to governors who have been tried, trusted, and carefully chosen to advance Asiwaju’s Lagos master plan and vision. Nigeria is the biggest beneficiary of this deliberate, systematic, and careful succession expenditure, which has helped to provide Lagos with the stability it needs to continue its success.
Therefore, the goal of this wordy writing is to demonstrate that Asiwaju is a proponent of change and an experienced problem solver. As a champion of change, he solved the problems of Lagos and made it a gold mine right away. If elected in 2023, he will naturally replicate it in Nigeria at large. Because he is endowed with the ability to inspire Lagosians to work productively, he could accomplish everything he plans for. He made residents of Lagos active, productive citizens who participated in the city’s governance. These same citizens now share equally the benefits of government that Asiwaju shipped to Lagos. He knows the intricacies of the high-end utility of combining activities to bring out the best in everyone. He also has a system of rewards that is unlike any other; this was why he successfully ran Lagos.
Asiwaju possesses the political will to make crucial decisions that will undoubtedly result in beneficial outcomes. The financial engineering, he performed to obtain the financing necessary to run Lagos is evidence. This strong political will was the cause of the exponential increase in the state’s IGR. Nigeria needs just what it needs at this time in history to improve its economic story.
Asiwaju is the Nigerian with the most extraordinary ability to identify and deploy talents and direct them toward productivity. Nigeria desperately needs this. The results were overwhelming when he carried it out in Lagos. If he is elected president of Nigeria in 2023, there is no doubt that he will carry it out there. As is abundantly clear, he remains the ideal candidate for the presidency because none of the other candidates for the position is as talented and resourceful like him.
Nigerians require Asiwaju as president in 2023; as a powerful advocate for change to drive a national culture focused on results. One that goes further than what we currently have and makes Nigeria more envious on a global scale. By implementing a well-thought-out plan for all Nigerians to find greater meaning and achieve more in their citizenship lives, Asiwaju will act as a champion. As a result, let Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who has proven to be the fairest problem-solver and guru of change in Nigeria, lead Nigeria to economic and political glory, just as he did for Lagos, which is today Nigeria’s biggest success story!
-Professor Ojo Emmanuel Ademola

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