-Tinubu has revealed how he travelled out of
Nigeria -He also speaks about unpleasant moments of
his life while he was working as a cab driver
and a security guard Tinubu assisted by his wife and the Osinbajos to
cut his cake at the event Bola Tinubu, one of the most respected
politicians in Nigeria, has revealed some secret
details of his personal life. The national leader of the ruling All Progressives
Congress (APC) in a special publication by
TheNEWS magazine, detailed how he worked as a
cab driver and a security guard. President Muhammadu Buhari alongside with
other APC chieftains attended the 8th annual Bola
Tinubu Colloquium in Abuja, who was celebrating
his 64th birthday on March 29, 2016. Many Nigerians believe that former Lagos state
was born right at the middle of a money-printing
machine, but that is not true. READ ALSO: Tinubu talks about his political career, legacy However, Tinubu had to work hard to become a
great politician. He was once a cab driver and
even a security guard. The politician narrated how he travelled out of the
country: “I was lucky. Even though I was
ambitious about travelling out of the country,
particularly as my friends like Folabi Salami and
Tokunbo Maxwell had just travelled to Germany, I
would say that I was just lucky. Others, like Nurudeen Olowopopo, of blessed memory, and
Sola Popoola headed for the United States and it
remained Tunde Badejo, Bolaji Agaba and myself.
So, the three of us were determined that we must
get out of Nigeria, too. “I went to Ikenne, with my late sister, for a big
ceremony. We had gone to pick bottles of Coca-
Cola from the cold room and wanted to quickly
return to the St. Saviour’s Church, where my sister
was. There was a sudden rain of bullets and had
we not been rushing to the church to ensure that we didn’t miss what was going on there, I would
have died. The young man that was standing with
me was hit. He slumped and died. President Buhari being received by Chief Bola
Ahmed Tinubu and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo
at the International Conference Centre Abuja “Based on the sad incident and how I had
narrowly missed death, my family said to me:
‘This boy, you have always said that you wanted
to travel out of the country, it is time to do so.’ So,
my mother gathered some money, sold her
trinkets to make up for the remaining part of my allowances and joined it with proceeds from the
sale of the Volkswagen Beetle given to me by my
uncle, the late Ganiyu Tinubu, who used to work
at Simpson Street, Ebutte-Metta. He had a Beetle
car he bought from a Canadian and had it
converted into a convertible, which I used to drive. Nobody taught me how to drive. He asked
that I sell it and add the proceeds to the money I
needed for my trip. That was what I did.” “Bolaji Agaba and I left the same day for the
United States, while Badejo left some months
later. We got our visas through my family
connections. Bolaji’s own had almost expired
before we left. On our arrival in the US, we
thought we would stay in New York. But Nurudeen Olowopopo said no and we put some
money together for Bolaji’s ticket and we headed
for Washington D.C. I stayed with the late Sola
Popoola at Washington before we started finding
our way. We were running out of funds then. READ ALSO: Photos: Tinubu receives President Buhari in Lagos “He helped us secure a one-room apartment in
Alexandria, Virgina. We got an unregistered used
car (they left the licence open) commonly called
Gypsy, which we ran as a taxi. We operated at the
airport, where we picked passengers, and not
anywhere else, like the hotel because it was forbidden for unlicensed cab drivers to do so. We
did that for a while to raise some money. We did,
and Bolaji went to Tennessee, while I headed for
Chicago.” He also spoke about the unpleasant moments
that he had then: “One experience I will not forget
was when I over-charged a naval officer, who was
returning to the country. It was not intentional.
Apparently, I didn’t know the direction; there was
no GPRS in those days to locate directions. So, he gave me the direction to his house in a Virginia
suburb. I gave him the price and the man
responded with a slap to my face. He said I
should know the correct fare to charge to the
location he mentioned. He slapped me and gave
me the money. L-R: Wife of the vice president, Dolapo Osinbajo,
Tinubu and APC national chairman, Chief John
Odigie-Oyegun “Another experience was when I took a guy
whom I didn’t know was drunk. When I drove to
his house, he pointed a gun at me instead of
paying the fare. He took my leather jacket and
said: ‘Get into your car and get lost.’ He did not
pay. “Another interesting one was when I was taking
the third accounting class and equally working as
a security guard at a construction site. They were
very serious with their kind of security. You just
had to do that job. There were about six points
with six clocks at the site, which the security man must wind every hour and with a dog in hand. So,
there was never a chance of trying to catch a nap. READ ALSO: Revealed: Why Saraki, Tinubu, Atiku met in Aso Rock without Buhari “As I was doing my accounting assignment, I fell
asleep. I was dead asleep! The inspector came to
the site and found me sleeping, with my head on
my books. He simply pulled the register and
wrote: ‘I have been here. You were sound asleep.
So, see me tomorrow.’ When I woke up, I found that Skiddo (the dog’s name) was gone, and then
the register. I just went to a corner, cleaned my
face and concentrated on my assignment because
I knew the job was already gone. You can’t lose
two things. I ensured that I read well for my test
and passed the next day. I opted to post their uniform and the cap to them, but suddenly ran
into the man and he handed me my cheque and
said the job was gone. I told him I knew and we
said goodbye to each other! I had to start looking
for another job.”