Ogun State-born Security expert and international businessman, Otunba Adejare Adegbenro, at a recent interactive session with journalists in Lagos gave an assurance that President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will deliver on his 2023 election campaign promises. Excerpts:
What are some of the urgent national issues agitating your mind, at this time?
It is majorly about the President-elect who is like a father to me. I am like his son. He is someone I have known since the age of 16. He is like my grandfather’s son and they worked together at the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) before my grandfather, Pa Alfred Rewane was assassinated for fighting for democracy.
A lot of people, especially the young ones do not know what our President-elect has been doing since. They don’t know what NADECO stood for. They don’t know that the blood of my grandfather was shed for democracy.
What do you know about Senator Bola Tinubu who is set to become Nigeria’s next President?
What I know about our President-elect, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu is that he is fond of helping people and fighting for the cause of democracy in Nigeria.
It saddens me when I hear many untrue stories being narrated about him. But he is very humble and he doesn’t react. Lagos is the third biggest cosmopolitan city. Lagos accommodates every single tribe, religion and culture. But in politics, we shouldn’t hold unto these sentiment of culture, religion and so on, but focus on the main thing.
The main problem is harmony.
There are always winners and losers in any contest and the aggrieved know where to go to seek redress. The courts are there.
The affected groups or individuals should go there instead of overheating the polity of Nigeria. We have already done the election. The election results have already been announced. Winners have already been declared and given their certificates of return. Tinubu was given the certificate of return as the President-elect to be sworn in on May 29, 2023.
What was your reaction when someone recently claiming to be a member of NADECO abroad discredited the election of the President-elect?
There are a lot of stories going around. There was this gentleman impostor that said he was part of NADECO, claiming to be Executive Director of NADECO, United States (US) chapter. Please, disregard him because I don’t know him and I am a member of NADECO family.
How did you feel when your ‘father,’ Tinubu was declared winner of the February 25, 2023 Presidential election?
I felt great and happy for Nigeria my fatherland. I felt satisfied that, eventually, Nigeria has elected someone who knows the road to political stability, economic revival, wealth creation and financial growth.
Tinubu, a known talent hunter and builder of the youths will bring all the people he has built across the globe on board to turn the country around politically, economically and financially across all the economic sectors.
He would also bring the new hands on board to join the old hands to make sure things work out well. I can tell you that for free. Nigerians, let us do this thing with him for the welfare of the generality of the people and the generation unborn. Let us talk about the things we need and expect now amicably.
We know what is going on. Don’t let us over heat the situation.
I am very ashamed of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC), for allowing foreigners like the European Union (EU) to be coming to talk about our presidency or our elections. Can we do that as Nigerians in their own elections? Or go and make disparaging comments on their radio, television or their newspapers?
We have to change our mind. We are Nigerians and we have to keep our affairs to ourselves. We don’t need to believe in them, CNN or whoever. I am sorry but who are they? People forget easily because of democracy. We need to rethink drastically and put on our patriotic cap as Nigerians. I am a Nigerian and I am very proud of it..
Don’t you remember the whole world is a global village where nations interact freely?
Remember we are an independent country. We don’t go to their country to say we want to watch elections. So many people don’t like Trump. How many people congratulated him? That does not however matter, it is neither here nor there.
Asiwaju Tinubu, the Jagaban Borgu and former Lagos State governor is our President-elect, we have congratulated him. I have congratulated him and I think that is all that matters. Nigerians have congratulated him, the world too has congratulated him and that is fine.
But do we interfere in how other countries do their election? Do we know about it?
NBC should not allow them here. They should keep to their countries. They should not be allowed to come here and say what they like. NBC has a challenge; the Foreign Affairs Ministry has a challenge. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has a challenge too.
We should not say any bad thing about other countries. Nigerians should wake up and follow the man that knows the road. And that man is our President-elect, Asiwaju Tinubu.
My general advice to our great party, the APC, is that we should shealth our sword with the belief that it is God who makes rulers and He has chosen our own for us this time and we should work along with him. No one man can totally solve all the problems of Nigeria.
No one man. Only God can pick different candidates as He so chooses at a particular period in time.
However, it is gratifying to know that, the President-elect has been saddled with what he knows how to do best regardless of what the naysayers have to say about Asiwaju Tinubu. Nobody has said he doesn’t know how to fix squabbles. Nobody has said he is not a hard worker. Nobody has said he is not an exemplary administrator. Nobody has said, he is not a 21st Century thinker.
Just look at what he did in Lagos. You will say he is the godfather of Lagos. But Lagos has the biggest economy and Lagos is one of the states being sought after. Everybody wants to go to Lagos, because Lagos is London to a lot of people.
