The Minister of Works Babatunde Fashola has revealed the leadership attitude between his current boss President Muhammadu Buhari and his former boss and the President-elect Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
Fashola said while both leaders are inspired by the desire to work in the interest of their people they have different approaches to governance.
The former Lagos State governor said Buhari is the type of leader who delegates responsibility with utmost trust and will not interfere with the activities of his appointees.
However, Tinubu, according to Fashola, is different in the sense that he would guide you even further in the discharge of assignments he delegates to his appointees.
“I want to describe them as two football coaches with different styles. President Buhari is the type of coach that will prepare his team, select the best legs and sit down on the bench allowing you to carry out all he expected you to do without interfering. I can tell you that President Buhari has never interfered in my ministry, not for one day.
“However, Asiwaju is slightly different, he is a sort of a coach that will prepare his team and will still not just sit down during matches; he wants to see everything perfect during the engagement,” he said.
Fashola worked as the Chief of Staff to Tinubu when the latter was the Governor of Lagos State.
The minister also admitted that his party All Progressives Congress was surprised the candidate of the Labour Party Peter Obi won in Lagos during the presidential elections.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who headed the Election Planning Directorate of the Tinubu-Shettima campaign, said his party knew states where it had high chances of winning and had concentrated its energy in those states.
However, Fashola said his party was blindsided in some cases. “In some cases, you get blindsided. We were blindsided in Lagos because the opposition turned out their voters there,” he said.
“And you also saw that a party that has been competitive for 24 years, the umbrella party, suddenly disappeared. It showed that their support base has shifted.”
Asked whether LP’s victory in Lagos at the presidential poll surprised the APC, he said, “Yeah, blindsided us, without a doubt. They turned out their voters and in the subsequent gubernatorial election, we turned out our voters.”
At the February 25 poll, Obi polled 582,454 votes to trounce Tinub, also a former Lagos State governor who scored 572,606 votes. However, Tinubu won the highest total votes in the election and was declared the winner by the electoral umpire.
