You Can Only Become President After I’ve Become One, 69-year-old Tinubu Tells Nigerian Youths (video)

Bola Tinubu has stated that Nigerian youths will become president, however, it will be after he has become one.

Speaking in Yoruba, he said,

“You won’t give room for the elderly to pass and you haven’t become president. What if you become president, you will chase us out of town?”

“You will grow old, you will become president but I will become president first.”

His political career began in 1992, when he joined the Social Democratic Party 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 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.