Nigeria: Tinubu, Fashola, Ambode and Nigeria

19 November 2015

Sometime in 2006, (I cannot recollect the exact date or month), some selected editors were invited to a suite in Eko Holiday Inn to have a parley with the then Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. As the then editor of THISDAY, I was also invited. Even though the reason for the invitation was not stated by Tinubu's Information and Strategy Commissioner, Mr Oladele Alake, there were hints that the governor wanted to use the occasion to confirm the rumour already gaining grounds that he had endorsed his relatively unknown Chief of Staff, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, as the candidate of his party (Action Congress) for the gubernatorial election in the state and by implication, as his likely successor.

I will never forget what transpired at that intemperate meeting with Tinubu because it ended on a rather unpleasant note, with him declaring, before he left in anger: "Gentlemen, in this game, I am the donkey everybody wants to ride (he actually used an obscene word I would rather not repeat here) and I will determine who rides me."

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