Lulu Bola Ahmed Tinubu: The Making of Nigeria"s 16th President

NIGERIA, Africa's most populous sovereign state, enjoys the peculiarity of being home to the world's largest concentration of indigenous people in terms of diverse cultures and spoken languages. While India and China share between them 35.48 percent of the world's population, with 2.76 percent making her the world's sixth most populated county, but boasting of over 500 ethnic nationalities, Nigeria stands worlds above both Asian countries. Of the three most visible ethnic groups, namely, Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa/Fulani, the Yoruba enjoy the reputation of being Nigeria's best educated and most politically sophisticated. The only ethnic nationality with land, air and sea borders, they occupy the South West of Nigeria, a territory globally recognized as the best developed zone in the entire West African sub-region. Hemmed in by the Hausa/Fulani to the north and to the south by the Igbo in a tripartite structure upon which reclines the Nigerian state, the road to the leadership of the country for the Yoruba has been problematic since the attainment of independence in 1960. The four southerners who have been Presidents and Heads of State are all of Igbo origin. Finally, after a protracted period of failed attempts by, firstly, the sage Obafemi Awolowo, and latterly Bashorun MKO Abiola, on May 29, 2023, a Lagos politician, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was sworn in as the country's 16th President and the first of Yoruba extraction. The Jagaban Borgu, as he's known to a nationwide base of ardent loyalists, Tinubu broke the jinx, having swept the polls in the February 25, 2023 election with an overwhelming majority in a country bedeviled by the bane of politics of provincialism and ethnicity. The first President to pass through the crucible, Nigerians look forward to a prosperous new beginning with the senator and erstwhile governor of Lagos State in the saddle.