Posted by Kayode Akinmade and Adewale Ajayi, Lagos on
THE controversy surrounding the paternity of the former Lagos State governor, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was renewed on Monday as members of the Tinubu family in Lagos confirmed that he had no genealogical relationship with the family.
THE controversy surrounding the paternity of the former Lagos State governor, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was renewed on Monday as members of the Tinubu family in Lagos confirmed that he had no genealogical relationship with the family.
The family, in a book entitled, 'Onijumu Wura; the Tinubu dynasty of Kakawa Street, " launched in Lagos, said the former governor was just an acquaintance of the family.
Senator Tinubu had earlier traced his family background to the popular Tinubu family of Lagos, but some critics debunked this claim, insisting that he is from Iragbiji in Osun State.
A section of the Tinubu family, apparently worried by the controversy this had generated in the state, decided to write the book that chronicled the descendants of the family which excluded Senator Tinubu.
The author of the book, Mr. Rafiu Babatunde Tinubu, who is also a former Head of Service in the state, insisted that 'anybody that bears the name must have biological relationship with the cleric, the late Alfa Muhammed Bugara Tinubu."
Though, he said the book was not meant to attack the personality of anybody, the family needed to put the record straight for posterity.
He said the family recognised anybody that had legal relationship with any of Tinubu offspring as acquaintance of the family, adding that the decision to publish the book was to ensure that the name of the family was not polluted.
'Hence, the research into the origin and place of the family became a prominent agenda that kept reverberating at every meeting of the family.
'...I was mandated by the family at its meeting sometime in 1982 under the chairmanship of Papa R.B. King to research into the evolution of the Tinubu family in Lagos in view of my antecedents as a lecturer at the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University."
He described the purported disclaimer on the book in some newspapers as an attempt by some people to distort the truth.
'If truly, the sponsors of these advertisements have the genuine interest of the family at heart, and they are consciously pursuing the interest of their paymaster, the best they can do is for them to wait until they have a copy of the book."
The book, which was reviewed by Professor Adele Jinadu, has the list of the descendants of the progenitor of the Tinubu family.
Reacting, Chief Press Secretary to the former governor, Mr. Kehinde Bamigbetan, said Tinubu stands by the position of the authentic family members as advertised in some newspapers.
In the said advert, the trio of Kayode Alade Tinubu, Shanusi Lawan Oluwa and Rafiu Olubodun Tinubu described the book and its author as outright falsehoods, misinformation and disinformation 'cooked up by Alhaji Rafiu Tinubu to massage his own ego and pursue dishonourable aims."
The book, he said, was not a true reflection of all the branches of the Tinubu family which have been long in existence before the author was born.
'The Tinubu family is one cohesive, honourable and noble family and will, therefore, not want Rafiu Babatunde Tinubu to use the name for his selfish aims that are politically-motivated," he said.