It’s Throwback Thursday and The Herald travels back to when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu asserted that he ‘does not believe in One Nigeria’.
This online news platform understands that Tinubu made the statement in the April 13, 1997 edition of ThisDay newspaper.
Tinubu, before Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999, began his political career in 1992, when he joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP) where he was a member of the Peoples Front faction led by Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and made up of other politicians such as Umaru Yar’Adua, Atiku Abubakar, Baba Gana Kingibe, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Abdullahi Aliyu Sumaila, Magaji Abdullahi, Dapo Sarumi and Yomi Edu.
He was elected to the Senate, representing the Lagos West constituency in the short-lived Nigerian Third Republic.
After the results of the June 12, 1993, presidential election were annulled, Tinubu became a founding member of the pro-democracy National Democratic Coalition, a group that mobilized support for the restoration of democracy and recognition of Moshood Abiola as the winner of the June 12 election.
During the military regime, Tinubu went into exile in 1994 and returned to the country in 1998 after the death of dictator Sani Abacha, which ushered in the transition to the Fourth Nigerian Republic.
In the run-up to the 1999 elections, Tinubu was a protégé of Alliance for Democracy (AD) leaders Abraham Adesanya and Ayo Adebanjo.
He went on to win the AD primaries for the Lagos State governorship elections defeating Funsho Williams and Wahab Dosunmu, a former Minister of Works and Housing.
In January 1999, he stood for the position of Governor of Lagos State on the AD ticket and was elected. Twice he served as the number one citizen of Lagos State and has since been a colossal force in Nigeria’s political terrain.