For stepping down as a presidential aspirant on the platform of the All-Progressives Congress, APC, to enable Asiwaju Bola Ahmed emerge the presidential candidate of the party as well as his ceaseless presence at Tinubu’s campaigns, former speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole had banked on playing a crucial role in Tinubu’s government as pay-back for his efforts.
Unfortunately, Bankole’s aspirations did not come to fruition. Recall that THEWILL had exclusively reported how Wale Edun, a ministerial nominee who was the Honourable Commissioner for Finance in Lagos State during Tinubu’s two term tenure as governor and is currently the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Monetary Policy, was moved as a former nominee from Lagos State to Ogun State.
Dimeji Bankole was reportedly supposed to make up the third nominee from Ogun State which currently has the highest number of ministerial nominees. The other nominees are Bosun Tijani and Dr Isiak Salako.
But Edun getting moved to Ogun State to make up the third nominee, ended his chances of being the third ministerial nominee. His supporters are however hoping Tinubu will do right by them and at least give Bankole a federal appointment. The 53-year-old has remained politically irrelevant since his tenure as the youngest Speaker in Nigeria ended in 2011.
He had tried to run for governor in Ogun State on the platform of Action Democratic Party in 2019, but in vain. In 2022, he imagined himself emerging as president of Nigeria on the platform of the APC, but realising that he didn’t stand a chance, he changed his mind and stepped down for Tinubu.
In 2021, he tried to align himself politically by divorcing his long-suffering wife, Olaitan, in 2017 and marrying Aisha Shinkafi Saidu, the stepdaughter of the immediate past governor of Kebbi State, Abubakar Atiku Bagudu and a granddaughter of late political heavyweight Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi, a one-time head of Nigeria Security Organisation, which metamorphosed into Department of State Security Services, (SSS).
The result of the ‘political marriage’ is however, yet to manifest.
Ivory Ukonu is a versatile journalist with many years of experience, with entertainment and society reporting as her area of core competence.
