Why I fight for democracy –Tinubu

FORMER governor of Lagos State and National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has reaffirmed his commitment to the deepen­ing of democracy in Nigeria even as he explained why he has spent his adult life and resources to fight for the enthronement of good governance in the country.
“My role as a politician is the determination to de­mocratize my country, in­divisible commitment to democratic values. I am not a thoroughbred politician having come from a corpo­rate background. But I be­lieve in strategy; and strat­egy to win is that of every politician. We can be politi­cally sensitive and come up with the fact that you want to be a good politician but no boxer steps into the ring to lose. No investor would want to invest to lose; oth­erwise, you can carry your money and throw it to the Lagoon. You are there to win. How do you plan that strategy to win and to come on top? That is where I always like to specialize. Then, there are elements of diabolical perversion in the political process particu­larly in the maintenance of status quo. Mine is to chal­lenge the status quo if it is perverted. How do I chal­lenge it?”, Tinubu stated in an exclusive interview with a team of The Sun editors in his Bourdillion, Ikoyi, La­gos residence.
Going down memory lane on how he fought sev­eral political battles, Tinu­bu said his first litmus test was the 1999 governorship election in Lagos when he had to contend with a lot of forces to emerge governor of the nation’s economic capital.
According to him “When we came back in 1999 and the political space was opened, we had our politi­cal party, the Alliance for Democracy (AD), the plat­form where I contested. The perversion started with the so-called delegates’ election. How can I want a free and fair election if I subscribe to the delegates’ election where you buy people like chickens and apples and you pay them off? I said let the Lagos people determine through the political party structure who and who they wanted. I created a process to elimi­nate that delegates’ election system and we won. We won the debate and we now have direct primaries in all the local governments. Those who have followed politics here know that it was a tough battle between Funsho Williams of blessed memory and myself. I won 17 local governments out of 20 and in two of them, there were no elections. They chewed the results in my local government, Ikeja. Lagos Mainland was the stronghold of late Funsho Williams and Ikorodu too with Ogunlewe and co. But we challenged the status quo because it was evident that I won that election no matter whatever story any­body tells you. I still have that record. It is there. Then I was determined to form a government that is profes­sionally and intellectually balanced to be a model for other states. It is very easy for people to forget.”

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