Leader of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, travelled over 1606 kilometres from Lagos to receive a rare honour in Borno State capital, Maiduguri.
Tinubu was honoured by Gov. Kashim Shettima of Borno, who named an estate after him, in appreciation of his role in ensuring transparent primaries in the state APC chapter during the 2015 general elections.
Shettima expressed his appreciation in Maiduguri at the inauguration on Monday and Tuesday by Tinubu of development projects executed by his administration.
The projects included 432 houses, 13 primary and junior secondary schools as well as a fully furnished estate with 26 apartments in five blocks of three-storey buildings for medical doctors, named ‘Bola Tinubu Court’.
The governor recalled that his success in taking control of the Borno APC in 2015 was largely because Tinubu refused to support the game plan of a wealthy tyrant that fought hard to seize the Borno APC as his personal estate.
He said, “For us in Borno State APC, I must confess that we owe our political freedom and independence to not only our firmness but importantly, but the wisdom and sincerity of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
“Someone had sought to know our reasons not for inviting Tinubu for commissioning of projects but for naming a project after him in Borno State.
“I replied the person in six words by saying `it is our show of gratitude’. Naturally, the person asked me, gratitude in what sense. I explained that after the APC was created in the build up to the 2015 elections, we firmly resisted serious attempts by someone who wanted to completely hijack the entire party machinery with total disregard for our existence.
“But despite our resistance, that person would probably have had some oxygen if he had secured the support of Asiwaju.”
The governor explained that from day one, Tinubu was opposed to political tyranny in the state and was in support of political freedom and democratic liberty.
He added that the APC leader showed clear support for the party machinery in Borno, rather than pander to the political wishes of a single individual.
According to him, another person who played an important role in Borno politics was President Muhammadu Buhari.
“We had President Muhammadu Buhari’s electrifying popularity to our advantage which significantly helped us during the elections.
“Before the elections, we had the wisdom and sincerity of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who supported us to remain in control of the APC in Borno State, secured our primaries and deployed energies to winning not just the Governorship but also all the three Senatorial, 10 House of Representatives and 28 State Assembly seats in Borno State.”
Shettima stressed that the party in the state is ever grateful for the APC national leadership for its support in what he called “battle of freedom from political tyranny, freedom from a one-man-show, and freedom from politics of being APC in Borno and PDP in Abuja”.
Shettima also eulogised Sen. Oluremi Tinubu, wife of the APC leader, for what he described as her kindness, humility, dutifulness and Africaness.
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