‘He has lost his soul’: Babachir Lawal’s explosive interview reveals the Tinubu he knew and the Tinubu he fears

Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir Lawal has revealed in a Symfoni TV interview that President Bola Tinubu was the financial and strategic backbone of both the APC’s formation and Buhari’s 2015 presidential victory, while simultaneously declaring the Tinubu administration a failure and saying the president has “lost his soul” since assuming office.

BABACHIR LAWAL JUST TOLD US EVERYTHING ABOUT TINUBU — THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE LOST SOUL

Babachir Lawal has seen Bola Tinubu at his best. He has now concluded he is watching him at his worst. And in a remarkable Symfoni TV interview released on Saturday, the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation held nothing back.

The revelations begin with history. Lawal, who served as SGF under former President Muhammadu Buhari, has offered the most detailed first-hand account yet of how Tinubu engineered the formation of the APC and personally bankrolled the 2015 campaign that brought Buhari to power. The story Lawal tells is of a man who sacrificed his own presidential ambition for a larger goal.

“BD, you know my ambition to be president,” Lawal recalled Tinubu telling him. “But the way the country is going, the primary goal is to get rid of PDP. I will defer my ambition, put it aside until we achieve this goal.”

That deference came with a massive financial commitment. Lawal revealed that Tinubu personally funded the campaign — not from the central campaign purse but from his own pocket. He separately financed former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s campaign activities because Osinbajo was operating semi-independently, targeting Christian voters and ethnic communities that harboured doubts about Buhari. “Tinubu was funding it,” Lawal said flatly.

Beyond funding, Tinubu brought in American political consultants he described as “Obama people” to transform the APC’s campaign strategy. “I don’t know their names. I just know that they were Obama people, and they came and they transformed our campaign, and I knew that the money he paid them was in excess of two billion naira equivalent in dollars,” Lawal said.

At the APC presidential convention, it was Tinubu who delivered the crucial South-West delegate support that put Buhari over the top. Lawal said he approached Tinubu with data showing Buhari’s massive northern support base needed supplementation. “Sir, why not support your winning ticket?” he recalled asking. “He saw the logic, persuaded them with the argument. And coming from Tinubu, of course… So at the last minute, around 4 a.m., they agreed that they were going to support Buhari.”

Then came the 2023 primary — and a far more complicated picture. Lawal revealed that Buhari harboured deep personal reservations about handing power to Tinubu, rooted in “religious and ethical” concerns about his suitability as a successor. Lawal brokered a deal: Buhari would stay neutral, allow the convention delegates to decide, and keep his personal reservations out of the process. Buhari agreed — though not before warning Lawal with remarkable prescience: “I know you, you will give Bola Tinubu this ticket.”

Tinubu won the primary, won the general election, and became president. But what has happened since, in Lawal’s assessment, represents a profound personal transformation — and not for the better.

“The people running the government don’t seem to be people who love the country. They are people who love themselves,” he said. “Everybody is bitter that life is tough.”

On Tinubu personally, Lawal was even more stark: “Suddenly, I don’t know what has happened, he has lost his soul… Having come to this government, he has lost his soul.”

He described the pre-power Tinubu as extraordinarily generous — someone who gave “stupendous amounts of money” to people in crisis without expecting anything in return, someone who possessed the rare quality of seeing future potential in others before they saw it themselves. “He has a gift,” Lawal said. “He can see in you a future return for himself in advance.”

That man, Lawal implies, and the man now occupying Aso Rock, are not the same person.