SAN FRANCISCO, May 28, (THEWILL) – The Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, at the weekend revealed that he never met personally with the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, before he was appointed Attorney-General and commissioner of Justice during the latter’s reign as governor of Lagos.
Speaking at the gala night of the Lagos State Government organised to mark the state’s 50th anniversary at Lagos House, Alausa, he noted that Tinubu, who served as governor between 1999 and 2007, obviously looked at the socio-political make-up of Lagos megacity before forming his cabinet.
Osinbajo, therefore, commended the leadership virtues of the APC stalwart, who he said transcended all forms of parochialism and equally accommodated diverse talents irrespective of political ideology, race and religion.
His words: “I did not and I had never met Tinubu before I was appointed the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State. That says a lot about the kind of individual that he is.
“This is the kind of thinking that makes nations great. That is the kind of thinking that would make Nigeria great. Asiwaju thrives on a kind of thinking that considers all of our diverse talents; a kind of thinking that does not allow parochialism; a kind of thinking that does not allow us to say anywhere belongs to only a set of people. That is when our country would be truly great.”
While being sympathetic to the argument of those craving for a Lagos for only its indigene, he said it was now evident that the momentum of history could no longer hold down the elemental force of the state.
The acting President held that it is on this basis that Lagos “is going to be a leader; it would be a leader in expressing the world’s view that the black man is capable of governing not just himself, but the world”.
Stressing that the strategic contribution of the state to Nigeria’s domestic economy could not be overemphasised, he referred to a recent statistics, which the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, released, attesting that Lagos alone accounted for 912 out of 914 individual businessmen who pay self-assessed tax of over N10 million.
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