I stand here today honoured by the burden of expectations upon me and, more tellingly, strengthened by the convictions of the patriots with us in this journey to make history.<\/p>\n
We are brought together by a forest of ideas, but what defines us and sets us apart from other political groups is this collective realisation that the future of this country rests on the choice of a unifying leader; a leader who panders to neither ethnic nor religious agenda, and one who isn\u2019t bound by toxic regional solidarity and yet known for a track record of outstanding leadership. If you look round this country in search of such a noble character, the count easily falls on the subject of this gathering: Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. <\/span><\/p>\n So much has been said about this political enigma and most of them by hacks with a poor sense of history. The path that led us to Asiwaju didn\u2019t happen by chance. His propensity for sacrificing his comfort to save our democracy has been duly documented across time. When uncertainty loomed over the country during the military era, this was the man who disbursed his resources to fight for the return to this democracy. Even in exile, he provided sanctuaries for fleeing patriots who are still around to testify to his large heart. <\/span><\/p>\n Our younger compatriots must be in the know of Tinubu\u2019s memories from two decades past\u2014when he was a backbone of the opposition and fiercely antagonized and politically ostracised by the then ruling party, the People\u2019s Democratic Party. He even built the economic foundations of the modern Lagos State at the time the State was isolated by a vindictive federal government.<\/span><\/p>\n While Tinubu\u2019s political contemporaries were trading their principles for a place at the table in Abuja during President Olusegun Obasanjo\u2019s era, and throwing their political allies under the bus, he took the risk to build a political alternative to the ruling party and his choices of candidates underlined his political credentials. He became, and has remained, a dependable sanctuary of victims of political witch-hunts. <\/span><\/p>\n In 2007, he offered his political structure to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to run for President under the Action Congress (AC) banner. Four years later, he made this structure available for Malam Nuhu Ribadu, and this foresight of the Jagaban Borgu would also set the tone of the 2015 general elections. His place as a fulcrum of the All Progressives Congress re-asserted his essence, and we all owe him a debt of gratitude and deserved loyalty for prioritizing principles over personal gains. <\/span><\/p>\n Asiwaju\u2019s choices and endorsements of northerners as presidential candidates while others were masterminding ethno-regional solidarity and fuelling socio-cultural affinities readily affirm his pan-Nigerian profile. <\/span><\/p>\n Where others see divisions to exploit, he sees collaborations. Where others chase an easy route to power, he reminds you of Geoffrey Chaucer\u2019s immortal wisdom\u2014that patience is a conquering virtue. And it\u2019s this patience that has brought us together today, to remember the examples he\u2019s set and the debt we owe him. <\/span><\/p>\n The mudslinging that has trailed Asiwaju since his presidential bid took the top spot in the country is a mere acknowledgment of his political track record and inimitable influence on our political scene. <\/span><\/p>\n The attempts at weaving ridiculous fiction to override the history we\u2019ve all witnessed demonstrate the detractors\u2019 utter desperation and cowardice. One of such is the mischievous fixation on his age and the wild conclusions that he\u2019s physically unsuitable for the Office of the President. <\/span><\/p>\n This obsession characterizes the thinking of those who have no understanding of Asiwaju\u2019s incredible work ethic. <\/span><\/p>\n A few days ago, I joined him on a trip to Zamfara state to condole with the people and identify with their realities, and the experience made a nonsense of the propaganda that he\u2019s unfit to run Nigeria. <\/span><\/p>\n On the eve of the trip, Asiwaju had retired at 6 am, after Subhi prayers, and was already awake and attending to guests by 11 am. We departed for Sokoto around 2 pm and had to traverse the menacing hinterland of that part of the North-West for seven hours from Sokoto to Gusau\u2014where he made a generous donation of N50 million as he had in other places struck by tragedies\u2014and then back to Sokoto. On returning to Abuja by midnight, his schedule was entirely a series of meetings that kept him up till 3 am. Now, excuse my curiosity, how many of us here can match or endure such a demanding schedule? <\/span><\/p>\n Asiwaju\u2019s alacrity, therefore, has never been a subject of scepticism for those who\u2019ve worked with him, and even his critics are aware of this. If he were half the man in their tales by moonlight, they would\u2019ve long succeeded in subduing him. <\/span><\/p>\n The mark of true leadership isn\u2019t the ability to lift a bag of cement. It\u2019s the mental effort to think rationally of solutions designed to redeem one\u2019s people and territorial jurisdiction. This was why leaders like Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States of America, stood out. Roosevelt took power in a country wrecked by the Great Depression of the 1930s and guided its economy through the Second World War, and the quality of his thoughts and ideas made the United States a superpower under his watch. Similarly, the accident that had Kenya\u2019s Mwai Kibaki confined to a wheelchair didn\u2019t disable his ability to produce sound ideas, and Kenyans were sold on his virtue that they chose him as their President over what some would consider a fitter option. <\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not asking you to tone down critical assessments of your future leaders, but redirect you to see the bigger picture. We are not here to prepare for the Olympics, but an institution that relies on the superiority of ideas to thrive. <\/span><\/p>\n Asiwaju\u2019s credentials aren\u2019t only appealing, they are proof of the qualities this country needs to redeem its vast potentials and possibilities. We are here to testify to this power of ideas\u2014one that overturned the fortunes of Lagos state and sustained its supremacy as the largest economy in Sub-Saharan Africa and kept the opposition alive when it was more profitable to sell out. Those who seek to make us go low hope to present the presidency as a brick-laying exercise. But that\u2019s the work of a machine created by an idea, and who else to guide us towards manufacturing the best ideas to redeem this country? <\/span><\/p>\n To derail us at this point is a futile ambition. The conversations we are prepared for aren\u2019t pedestrian obsessions with the mundane, but comparisons of ideas and track records of service to the nation. At the top of our expectations from Nigeria\u2019s next president should be mastery of the dynamics of the modern economy, testified leadership skills and competence, and, very significantly, sensitivity to the complexities of Nigerian sociology. <\/span><\/p>\n Pause to reflect on the man we are here to celebrate, and what you see is a tested, accomplished, and large-hearted leader who\u2019s invested his resources in building an extensive network of political mentees who\u2019ve risen to the peak of their career. <\/span><\/p>\n But in politics, of course, the camps with nothing to sell always choose the mud. We are not going to take the bait. We are going to keep them talking and busy with irrefutable records of Asiwaju\u2019s suitability to lead this country to the promised land. <\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s going to be easy, for those who\u2019ve been in the system for long understand that some character\u2019s loyalty has a thing in common with a chameleon. What we promise, however, is to make sure that all Nigerians are presented with a side of the Jagaban Bornu other than the fiction and half-truths from political desperadoes clinging to the rigging of a sinking ship. <\/span><\/p>\n This is why we are here\u2014to build and mobilise a network of believers and volunteers at the grassroots to help us deliver the Nigeria of our dream.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I stand here today honoured by the burden of expectations upon me and, more tellingly, strengthened by the convictions of the patriots with us in this journey to make history. We are brought together by a forest of ideas, but what defines us and sets us apart from other political groups is this collective realisation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[111,5305,5306],"class_list":["post-9215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-apc","tag-choose-wisely","tag-senator-kashim-shettima"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9215"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9217,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9215\/revisions\/9217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}