He attended St. John's Primary School, Aroloya, Lagos and Children's Home School in Ibadan.
In 1975, he left Nigeria for the United States of America in search of the proverbial Golden Fleece with a heart brimming with unrelenting determination to achieve his visions.
There he studied first at Richard J. Daley College in Chicago, Illinois and then at Chicago State University. He graduated in 1979 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting.
Tinubu worked for American companies Arthur Andersen, Deloitte, Haskins, & Sells, and GTE Services Corporation. When he returned to Nigeria in 1983, he obtained work with Mobil Oil Nigeria, becoming an executive of the company.
In 1992, he was elected to the Nigerian Senate representing the Lagos West constituency in the short-lived Nigerian Third Republic. In 1993, after the results of the presidential elections were annulled, Tinubu became a founding member of the pro-democracy National Democratic Coalition (NADECO).
In 1998, after the death of military dictator Sani Abacha, he returned to Nigeria to heed a call for all Nigerians to join in the National Reconciliation and Development.
During the 1999 elections, Bola Tinubu was a protégé of Alliance for Democracy (AD) leaders Abraham Adesanya and Ayo Adebanjo. He won the AD primaries for the Lagos State gubernatorial elections and later was elected Executive Governor of Lagos State.
During his eight-year period of office, he made large investments in education as well as he initiated new road construction, required to meet the needs of the fast-growing population of the state.
In April 2003, Tinubu was re-elected as Governor. In 2007, the Federal Government brought Asiwaju Bola Tinubu before the Code of Conduct Tribunal for trial over alleged illegal operation of 16 separate foreign accounts. Two years later, he and governors James Ibori of Delta State and Obong Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom State were cleared of charges by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
Tinubu received several awards: Best Governor in Nigeria for Y2000 by the Nigerian-Belgian Chamber of Commerce; Y2002 Best Practices Prize in improving the living environment, awarded by the Federal Ministry of Works and the UN Habitat Group; Y2000 Best Computerized Government in Nigeria Award by the Computer Association of Nigeria.
Tinubu is married to Oluremi Tinubu, the current Senator of central Lagos State. His youngest daughter, Abibat Tinubu, graduated from a Music college in Boston, Massachusetts, US in 2013.
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