As if the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, hadn’t already surprised Nigerians enough for one week with a rare presidential town hall at Chatham House, he also granted a rare interview with BBC Africa.
Hosted by BBC correspondent, Peter Okwoche, the eight-minute interview caused a flurry of conversation online.
Tinubu had some interesting things to say in this interview. Let’s get into the tea here:
“Insecurity has actually reduced”
We saw evidence of the Tinubu-Buhari bromance in the candidate’s response to a question about insecurity. According to Tinubu, insecurity in Nigeria has actually reduced as the four states and 17 Local Government Areas (LGAs) with “foreign jihadist flags” are long gone.
But how sure is Tinubu of this fact?
Although the Buhari administration has made significant progress in kicking Boko Haram’s ass in the northeast, its sister group, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) is still causing problems. ISWAP attacked the Kuje Prison in Abuja in July 2022 and has a dominant presence in Zamfara, Kaduna, Niger, and even the South-West. Let’s not talk of the bandit attacks that have been happening across Nigeria’s North-West with thousands of people killed and more displaced.
“The West is not yet comfortable enough to sell arms to Nigeria”
Ladies and gentlemen, the above statement is a big lie.
The U.S. is careful about selling arms to countries like Nigeria that have questionable human rights records. However, they’ve still come through for us in recent times. This includes the delivery of 12 Tucano fighter jets and the approval of a deal that’s $1 billion worth of arms.
“I’m different. I’m Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
For Tinubu, voters should choose him as the next president of Nigeria just because he’s different and he’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
But what makes him so special? Tinubu took the pains to explain his track record as the governor of Lagos State, and how he raised Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from ₦600 million to ₦5 billion a month.
Tinubu also took credit for “taming the Atlantic Ocean” with the Eko Atlantic project to protect the state’s residents. But there are still question marks over how well the project was designed.
“I inherited great real estate and turned the values around”
Tinubu can’t escape questions about the source of his wealth. When he faced it again during this interview, he said he made his fortune through investments
He said, “I inherited great real estate and I turned the values around. I’m not denying my wealth. I was the most investigated, the most accused governor in the opposition for eight years and up till 2007.”
Well, Tinubu definitely has a bulky bag of accusations. These range from drug trafficking in the US to a ₦100 billion tax evasion, fraud, and a money laundering court petition for one of his consultancy firms, Alpha Beta.
Clearly, Tinubu needs to start showing some receipts — if he can find them — to prove his innocence if indeed he isn’t guilty.
