Who is Bola Tinubu, Nigeria's President elect

Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu was born 29 March 1952. He is a Nigerian accountant, politician and the president-elect of Nigeria who served as the Governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007 and Senator for Lagos West during the brief Third Republic.

Tinubu is a Muslim and he is married to Oluremi Tinubu, the current senator of the Lagos Central senatorial district

Tinubu spent his early life in southwestern Nigeria and later moved to United States where he studied Accounting at Chicago State University. He returned to Nigeria in the early 1980s and was employed by Mobil Nigeria as an accountant, before entering politics as a Lagos West senatorial candidate in 1992 under the banner of the Social Democratic Party. After dictator Sani Abacha dissolved the Senate in 1993, Tinubu became an activist campaigning for the return of democracy as a part of the National Democratic Coalition movement. Although he was forced into exile in 1994, Tinubu returned after Abacha's 1998 death triggered the beginning of the transition to the Fourth Republic.

In the first post-transition Lagos State gubernatorial election, Tinubu won by a wide margin as a member of the Alliance for Democracy over the Peoples Democratic Party's Dapo Sarumi and the All People's Party's Nosirudeen Kekere-Ekun. Four years later, he won re-election to a second term over the PDP's Funsho Williams by a reduced margin.Tinubu's two terms were marked by attempts at modernizing the city of Lagos and his feuds with the PDP-controlled federal government.

In 2006, Tinubu worked on convincing the  Vice President of Nigeria Atiku Abubakar to become the flagbearer of his party, the Action Congress. Atiku who was a member of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) then had fallen out with his principal at that time Olusegun Obasanjo over his ambition to succeed the former as president. Tinubu offered Atiku the chance to cross carpet to his party, offering him the slot of his party's presidential candidacy with the condition that he, Tinubu must be Atiku's running mate. Atiku declined the proposition and instead chose a running mate from the South East in the person of Ben Obi. And although Atiku still went ahead to contest the election on Tinubu's platform in the forthcoming elections, the PDP still won in a landslide with Tinubu barking up the wrong tree.

In 2009, following the landslide victory of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) in the April 2007 elections, Tinubu became involved in negotiations to bring together the fragmented opposition parties into a "mega-party" capable of challenging the then ruling PDP.

 In February 2013, Tinubu was among several politicians who created a "mega opposition" party with the merger of Nigeria's three biggest opposition parties – 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 – into the All Progressives Congress (APC).

In 2014, Tinubu supported former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari, leader of the CPC faction of the APC – who commanded widespread following in Northern Nigeria, and had previously contested in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 presidential elections as the CPC presidential candidate.[55] Tinubu initially wanted to become Buhari's vice presidential candidate but later conceded for Yemi Osibanjo, his ally and former commissioner of justice. In 2015, Buhari rode the APC to victory, ending the sixteen year rule of the PDP, and marking the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate.

In 2019, he supported Buhari's re-election campaign defeating the PDP candidate Atiku Abubakar. In 2020, following an internal party crisis which led to the removal of Tinubu ally and party chairman Adams Oshiomole, it is believed the move was to scuttle Tinubu's presidential prospects ahead of 2023.

On 10 January 2022, Tinubu announced his intention to run for the President of Nigeria to President Buhari, this was the formal form of announcement from him. On 8 June 2022, Tinubu won the presidential primary of the ruling All Progressive Congress scoring 1,271, to defeat Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Rotimi Amaechi who scored 235 and 316 respectively