The Director of Strategic Communication of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council, Dele Alake, has defended the source of wealth of the party’s presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, saying he has known Tinubu to be wealthy before politics.
Alake spoke on Sunday during an interview on Channels Television. He said Tinubu made his money from buying stocks in blue chip companies.
The source of Tinubu’s money has been under scrutiny ahead of the 2023 elections.
Commenting on the matter, Alake said the former Lagos governor was not a “pauper” before he become a senator in 1992.
“I knew him to have been spending money even before he got to the office. In 1991, he was going into politics, he contested a senatorial election — Lagos west — and he won,” he said.
“Most Nigerians know that contesting elections in Nigeria is not a child’s play. Paupers don’t contest elections. How much more is a senatorial election?
“He must be a man of some means. In fact, before then, he had been contributing to political organizations and causes before he took up the gauntlet and went into the senate.
“He polled the highest number of votes nationwide in that senatorial election of that year and became a senator in 1992.
“Fast forward to 1993, we started the June 12, he was in the Yar’Adua’s caucus — the Peoples Font — within SDP at that time. He was also funding. He was not a pauper.”
Alake said those questioning Tinubu’s source of wealth are expressing the “hatred” they have for the former Lagos governor.
“What I know is that right from his days in the corporate world, he has been trading in stocks even in foreign currencies,” he added.
“He has been buying stocks, bonds, and all of that. I’m not a finance person. I’m not going to be interested in the nitty-gritty of it all.
“But I know he has been trading in stocks. He was buying stocks of blue chip companies and all of that. He was making money and spending money. He has been doing this all of these years before he got to the office.
“Why people are querying his source of wealth is because he had been a successful governor of Lagos and a successful politician even after office.
“He is about the only one of the class of 1999 who is at that enviable height, politically. He is bound to attract all of these negative comments.”
