I woke up thinking about the WAEC conversation that dominated X and other platforms all weekend.
For me, this is not abstract politics. It is personal history.
While some people, like a former governor of Anambra turned presidential candidate, built reputations around inflated WAEC examination outcomes and a culture where “special centres” and malpractice became part of the national education conversation that it took a serious threat by WAEC before they were closed under a new administration in Anambra, many of us were direct beneficiaries of a different model: investment in real schools, better classrooms, stronger public education, and the payment of SSCE fees by the then Governor of Lagos State, now President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
I, O’tega Ogra, and many others across the private and public sectors, including leaders now serving in politics and governance (including two strong women currently the APC Deputy Governorship candidate of Lagos State and APC Surulere I LSHA Candidate), came through a Lagos education system that did not simply chase headlines. It expanded access. It reduced the burden on parents. It built actual education infrastructure as legacy. It gave ordinary students a fairer chance. Lagos’ payment of WAEC fees under Governor Tinubu was publicly reported as far back as 2004, when ₦214 million (about 10% of its average monthly IGR by that year) was released for students’ examination fees. (NOTE: As Governor, he started paying these fees in 2000 for all students regardless of state of origin or tribe)
That is the difference between gaming outcomes and building systems that outlive you.
Examination malpractice weakens a country. It produces certificates without competence, rankings without reality, and applause without substance. WAEC itself continues to treat malpractice as a serious threat to the credibility of education, with recent sanctions and withheld results showing how deep the problem remains nationally.
I know why I am a firm supporter, believer, and follower of our President and my leader, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu @officialABAT
His historical antecedents, his clarity of vision, and his consistent belief in expanding opportunity are not new. They did not start in Abuja. They were tested in Lagos. Many of us are living proof.
President Tinubu’s politics has always been about opening doors: for the poor child whose parents could not afford exam fees, for the young person who needed a functioning public school, for the talented Nigerian who only needed government to remove one barrier.
That is why, when we speak of Renewed Hope, some of us are not speaking from slogans. We are speaking from memory. We have seen the model before. We benefited from it. We know what it can do when scaled nationally. And we are seeing the building blocks of sustainable progress being laid for the entire country now by President Tinubu himself.
The debate should not be about who can manufacture the best statistics. It should be about who has the record, courage, and vision to build systems that give every Nigerian child a real chance for the long term prosperity of our dear nation.
For me, that answer has always been clear. It is the Jagaban himself. Asiwaju of Nigeria. Barkindo. Dike Si Mba Anambra and the Omeziri Igbo 1, His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR.
TheTigerWillTellYouSomething
O’tega