The appeal brought by the Action Alliance (AA) challenging Bola Tinubu's victory for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the presidential election has been dismissed by the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal.
At the tribunal's pre-hearing session on Monday, the party withdrew its petition challenging Tinubu's victory, which was designated CA/PEPC/01/2023.
The head of the party's legal team, Oba Maduabuchi (SAN), announced the withdrawal of the petition and stated that it was done as a result of his client's decision not to pursue the matter further.
However, after declaring the intention of the Action Alliance to withdraw the petition, none of the representatives of the other parties expressed opposition to the move.
The AA’s presidential candidate, David Okonigbuan, had brought the petition against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), APC, Tinubu, and Hamza Al Mustapha, challenging his exclusion from the election.
In the petition, Okonigbuan stated that the party also fielded Al-Mustapha as the presidential candidate who was listed by INEC.
In his ruling, the presiding justice, Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, held that the dismissal was in line with the provisions of the Electoral Act.
The court has moved to the petition by the Action Peoples Party (APP), marked: CA/PEPC/02/2023.
Tinubu was born and raised in the southwest of Nigeria. After moving to the United States, he attended Chicago State University to study accounting. After moving back to Nigeria in the early 1990s, he worked as an accountant for Mobil Nigeria before entering politics in 1992 as the Social Democratic Party's candidate for the Lagos West senate seat. After the tyrannical Sani Abacha disbanded the Senate in 1993, Tinubu joined the National Democratic Coalition movement and started advocating for the restoration of democracy.
As a representative of the Alliance for Democracy, Tinubu won the first post-transition Lagos State governorship election with a sizable margin. He was elected to a second term four years later. He left office in 2007 and Tinubu was born and raised in the southwest of Nigeria. After moving to the United States, he attended Chicago State University to study accounting. After moving back to Nigeria in the early 1990s, he worked as an accountant for Mobil Nigeria before entering politics in 1992 as the Social Democratic Party's candidate for the Lagos West senate seat. After the tyrannical Sani Abacha disbanded the Senate in 1993, Tinubu joined the National Democratic Coalition movement and started advocating for the restoration of democracy.
As a representative of the Alliance for Democracy, Tinubu won the first post-transition Lagos State governorship election with a sizable margin. He was elected to a second term four years later. He left office in 2007 and
Childhood and education
Although Tinubu's birth year of 1952 in Nigeria is largely acknowledged by trustworthy authorities, his political opponents occasionally contest this information, claiming that he is actually considerably older. Reliable sources point out that his age hasn't been independently verified. He finished his undergraduate work in the US at Chicago's Richard J. Daley College and Chicago State University. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the university in 1979.
Early career
Tinubu worked for the American companies Arthur Andersen, Deloitte and GTE Services Corporation.[5] After returning to Nigeria in 1983, he joined Mobil Oil Nigeria, and later became a company executive
Early political career
Tinubu's political career began in 1991,when he joined the Social Democratic Party. In 1992, he was elected to the Senate, representing the Lagos West constituency in the short-lived Nigerian Third Republic.[8]
After the results of the 12 June 1993 presidential elections were annulled, Tinubu became a founding member of the pro-democracy National Democratic Coalition, a group which mobilized support for the restoration of democracy and recognition of Moshood Abiola as winner of the 12 June election. Following the seizure of power as military head of state of General Sani Abacha, he went into exile in 1994 and returned to the country in 1998 after the death of the military dictator, which ushered in the transition to the Fourth Nigerian Republic. In the run-up to the 1999 elections, Bola 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 in 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 governor.In the years leading up to the 1999 elections, Abraham Adesanya and Ayo Adebanjo, who led the Alliance for Democracy (AD), were mentors to Bola Tinubu.
He later defeated Funsho Williams and Wahab Dosunmu, a former minister of works and housing, to win the AD primary for the Lagos State governorship elections.He ran on the AD ticket for Lagos State governor in January 1999 and won.
Governor of Lagos State
During his 8 years in government, Tinibu initiated new road construction, required to meet the needs of the fast-growing population of the state.
Tinubu, alongside a new deputy governor, Femi Pedro, won re-election into office as governor in April 2003. All other states in the South West fell to the People's Democratic Party in those elections. He was involved in a struggle with the Olusegun Obasanjo-controlled federal government over whether Lagos State had the right to create new Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) to meet the needs of its large population. The controversy led to the federal government seizing funds meant for local councils in the state.[citation needed] During the latter part of his term in office, he was engaged in continuous clashes with PDP powers such as Adeseye Ogunlewe, a former Lagos State senator who had become minister of works, and Bode George, the southwest chairman of the PDP ongoing conflicts with PDP leaders like Bode George, the southwest PDP chairman, and Adeseye Ogunlewe, a former senator from Lagos State who had been minister of works
Post-governorship
In 2006, Tinubu attempted to persuade the then-vice president of Nigeria Atiku Abubakar to become the head of his party, the Action Congress (AC). Abubakar who was a member of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), had recently fallen out with President Olusegun Obasanjo over Abubakar's ambition to succeed Obasanjo as president. Tinubu offered Abubakar the chance to switch parties and join the AC, offering him the his party's presidential candidacy, with the condition that he, Tinubu, would be Atiku Abubakar's running mate. Atiku declined the proposition and, having switched to the AC, chose a running mate from the South East, Senator Ben Obi. Although Atiku ran for office on Tinubu's platform in the election, the PDP still won, in a landslide.
Following the People's Democratic Party's (PDP) overwhelming victory in the elections of April 2007, Tinubu became involved in talks to unite the dispersed opposition groups into a "mega-party" capable of opposing the PDP, which was in power at the time.[20] The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), and the new PDP (nPDP), a faction of the then-ruling People's Democratic Party[21], merged into the All Progressives Congress (APC) in February 2013, creating a "mega opposition" party. Tinubu was one of several politicians who were involved in the merger.
In 2014, Tinubu backed General Muhammadu Buhari, the leader of the CPC faction of the APC and a former military head of state who had previously run for president in the CPC in 2003, 2007, and 2011. Buhari had a strong following in Northern Nigeria.[23] Tinubu initially desired to run as Buhari's running mate but ultimately relinquished the nomination to his ally and former justice commissioner Yemi Osibanjo.[24] Buhari led the APC to victory in 2015, ending the PDP's 16-year hegemony and becoming the first incumbent president of Nigeria to lose to an opposition candidate.
In place of his long-held reported presidential ambition, Tinubu went on to play a significant role in the Buhari administration by supporting government programs and maintaining control of the internal party structure.[26] He endorsed Buhari's reelection campaign in 2019, helping him overcome Atiku Abubakar of the PDP. The expulsion of Adams Oshiomole, a Tinubu ally and party chairman, in the wake of a party crisis in 2020 is thought to have been done in order to undermine Tinubu's chances of winning the presidency in 2023.
presidential election of 2023
Tinubu officially declared his campaign for president on January 10, 2022.
On June 8, 2022, Tinubu won the party convention vote for the governing APC with 1,271 votes, defeating Rotimi Amaechi and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who received 235 and 316 votes, respectively.
Tinubu was proclaimed the victor of the 2023 presidential election by INEC on March 1st. After defeating his rivals with 8,794,726 votes, he was named president-elect. Atiku Abubakar of the opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP) finished in second place with 6,984,520 votes. Peter Obi of the Labour Party received 6,101,533 votes, placing third.
Drug trafficking accusations
As a result of a court lawsuit claiming that the US government had "probable cause" to believe Tinubu's American bank accounts contained the proceeds of heroin smuggling, the US government froze his assets in 1993. Later that year, he reached a settlement with the authorities and forfeited around $460,000. Court records and subsequent coverage of the case revealed he collaborated with two Chicago heroin dealers.
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