While working as the Quality Control Manager of Mangrovetech Construction and Engineering in Abuja from 2011, it got me to 2015 in same position plus a combination to serve as the Site Manager at the same time. My father was to contest the gubernatorial primary elections of my state and my friends had started to suggest how I have to leave my job to proceed to the government house where we could run things but I will always insist to them that I wasn’t going to go anywhere and preferred to keep my job, my father eventually became second to Badaru in the primaries and the rest is now history.
Furthermore, apparently coming from a history of the involvement of family in governments over the years and especially coming from Jigawa State where we had witnessed father and son being docked for allegations of monetary misappropriations, I had always personally being skeptical about seeing the involvement of family especially offsprings in the governmental affairs of their parents, but Seyi Tinubu has easily and simply changed such notion and thoughts of mine by exhibiting an absolute departure from the usuals and such must be highlighted for posterity sake.
I had hardly known Seyi Tinubu despite my patronage of the social space and follower-ship of the ways of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu for as long as I can remember, I equally admired atiku cos I felt they somewhat had alignments in thoughts so I had written so much about both. In all of it I hardly ever knew Seyi until later after 2015 when his name started to trickle in as the son of Asiwaju who had interest in the management of the signposts and advertisement in lagos. In my head, I tried to align the wealth of his father and the sort of the trade he was into without finding any correlation. This is because, I honestly see advertisements as some sort of a tedious enterprise as well as my previous knowledge of how children of Nigeria’s big men behave with wealth they display without any known trade, this caught my eyes in the first instance but because he was hardly ever in the news or shouty in nature, there was no need to make further scrutiny about his person or his ways.
Fast forward to the run up to the 2023 elections, the ease with which Seyi was able to move into Abuja and beyond and the sort of honest movement and goodwill he was able to gather for his fathers election mobilization is worthy of mention and amplification especially in a country desperate for mentorships. His foray into the matter was more of a soft work because no one really saw it coming, he would easily move with his team to the hinterlands and villages and mingle with the people in an absolute down to earth manner, there’s no way that your team and people you are soliciting support from will not align, all people ever want is originality and Seyi had and still displays excess of it. However, there’s an adage in Hausa that transliterates that ‘ the leopard will not run and her son will crawl’ literally meaning Seyi came out an ideal son of his father.
Seyi visited Buhari in Daura penultimate the elections in clear show of a desire for the presidency, a lot of people wanted the presidency but shied away from indicating an absolute desire for it. Asiwaju and his family showed a desire for it albeit more original and honest that all others and they got it. They appeared to never ‘whining’ us.
What caught my attention to pen this matter was a watch of the Renewed Hope Concert and the part where he was personally involved in the sharing of wheelchairs to the disabled people and I looked at his face and saw a honest and real dude who was executing the gesture from deep within. Afterwards, you could see him by the side of the stage appearing very original, down to earth and ready to mingle; wow. Ahmad Gana is a young man I had worked with from NYSC in 2018 and he ventured into passive politics afterwards until the Tinubu movement came by and I heard he had joined that Seyi movement I described above. Normal Nigerian thought would imagine that he will not see Seyi anywhere after the election talk less of having his calls to him answered, guess what? Ahmad was with Seyi closely in lots of pictures during organization of the concert, he was also listed in one of the committees. If this is not a classical case of an ideal son, what else could ever be!
Having said all these, something needs to be highlighted which Seyi himself may not be aware of but it’s instructive, some members shouted the removal of certain names from the concert committee and that was done by some quarters, I felt adherence to such could deplete a movement that’s expected to grow bigger owing to an imminent bigger challenge going forward, incumbents naturally find it difficult during re-elections, so much more people are needed into the net including frenemies and enemies alike, that much was highlighted by Uhuru Kenyatta and other speakers today at the Inauguration lecture. Seyi must be wary of sycophants and busy bodies in his bid to advance his lofty movement of which Nigerians of all creed look to be ready to join with the consolidation of its originality.
If Seyi is seeing playing a critical role in his fathers government, it’s a consequence of deserving and nothing more!
God bless Nigeria!
Hashim Suleiman can be reached on oneheartnaija@yahoo.com
