From someone who graduated from London Metropolitan University at 24, founded his IT firm about then, and got hacker’s certification to the bargain—expect some complications.
And Tunji-Ojo hasn’t let the side down as he ages and burrows deeper into leadership.
Trailing him now, at 42, is a string of achievements. They astounded many, and confirmed his bona fides as some management genius in politics and business. And he’s taking chances to get the best of each world.
Managing his firms fell to his wife after he ended his consultancy for the UN, JAMB, and the PTDF by 2019. He then plunged head-first into politics. The House of Reps seat (APC-Akoko North, Ondo) became his for the asking.
He made quite a mark in the green chamber even if he didn’t mind helping himself whenever he could. Especially as the NDDC House Committee chairman.
His return ticket also fell in his lap in 2023. Hands down, Tunji-Ojo won his re-election for a second term. But President Bola Tinubu snatched him for his cabinet.
The interior ministry had been a dead weight on the presidency and Nigeria for years. The old fogeys the past administrations put there didn’t know Jack about digitizing the core of the ministry—passport issuance. Stacks of uncollected passports totaled 204,000 when Tunji-Ojo came on. The real business know-how there is up his alley, sure. He quickly figured things out, and hit. Passport processing now lasts two weeks, max, down from three months or years before.
He applied a similar geeky short-cut to the National Identity Management problem. Now Nigerians can do everything in their pajamas—except for biometrics.
Tunji Ojo quickly became the face of Tinubu’s administration within six months. And when the time came for the presidency to smash that very face, many rose up in the minister’s defence. His collaborator, another pretty face Humanitarian Affairs Minister Beta Edu, took the hit—for awarding a N438-million contract to Tunji Ojo’s firm. He denied holding any position in the New Planet Project since he got into the House.
“To the best of my knowledge, the public service rule doesn’t prohibit public officers from being shareholders,” he told Channels.
It just has always happened to him like that.
He once steamrolled the House committee he chaired to probe the NDDC for corruption. A big sleaze that swamped both sides would later seep out. The committee and the then-Niger Delta Minister Godswill Akpabio eventually had a slanging match that revealed a lot. Tunji-Ojo had at some time dipped his hand in the cookie jar, too—through his company again. Akpabio popped this in a live broadcast of the probe. Some of the NDDC officials even asked Tunji-Ojo to step down from the probe—or they walked out. He had to—to save face.
Whatever that face radiates—youth, charm, innocence—has become what people use to judge him. And he’s got a lot of favorable eyeballs: the Kwame Nkrumah African Leadership Award; the Ahmadu Bello Platinum Leadership Award of Excellence; and others.
On the right side of 50, with years ahead of him, Tunji-Ojo plies his youth harder now. Whatever statement he makes with the efforts could pack more staying power. And many will see in him what they like to see—even with his mask on.
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