Will the Godfather of Lagos politics finally run for the Presidency?
A master strategist who has dominated the politics of Nigeria’s commercial capital for over two decades, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has long been expected to make a run for the country’s top job – his formidable political network, propensity for deal-making and substantial personal wealth give him a head start over many other contenders.
Will Tinubu run for the Presidency in 2023?
On the 2023 presidential elections, Tinubu has been coy. After the latest ructions in the ruling All Progressives Congress, in which Tinubu and his allies seemed to lose out, he mocked those pundits who purported to know his political intentions.
"To those who have been actively bleating how the President’s actions and the NEC (National Executive Committee) meeting have ended my purported 2023 ambitions … Already you have assigned colourful epitaphs to the 2023 death of an alleged political ambition that is not yet even born.
On 25 June, the ruling party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) had dissolved its National Working Committee (NWC) on which Tinubu and his allies had a clear majority and could choose the party chair. They lost that battle. Now the management is in the hands of a caretaker committee and state governors are battling to reassert their control over the party’s machinery.
The general view is that Tinubu will run in 2023 but he has not announced any such intentions. This secrecy may be a new strategy given that he is facing serious rivals in the party and the government.
Tinubu has not held an official position in government since his second term as Lagos governor, which ended in 2007, but his influence national politics has grown.