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Tag: Akin Ambode

  • Who did this to Governor Akin Ambode?

    Akinwunmi Ambode that I knew way back in the 90s, was an easy going, focused and dutiful young man whose main passion was minding the book of accounts in the local governments where he served and spread compassion like manure.

    By the time he stepped up from “Locogey” (that was the fond name given to local governments back then), to the state government level, he had honed his skills sufficiently enough to let it be known that he possessed the potential to rise to the zenith of his civil service career.

    All that period, those who encountered him could attest to his kind disposition to people. He was as devoted to his accounting job, as he was compassionate to anyone who sought his help or he perceived to be in need.

    His generosity was legendary. They say if he met any cleaner on the stairway on his way to his office, who looked somewhat unhappy or dejected, he would either invite such person to his office or send to him or her by putting a smile on that person’s face.

    Many male civil servants at the Alausa seat of government bore witness to his humanity and kind disposition. I’m told he would bring suitcases containing quality neck-ties into his office and ask any visiting subordinate officials to dip their hands in the box and select ties that suited their fancy. It is assumed that he provided better things for female officials and his superior officers, if he could be that kind to his juniors. To be sure, he didn’t set out to be politically enthusiastic; he was just naturally endearing.

    He was as good to outsiders and friends as he was to his fellow civil servants. I’m not given to talking platitudes or praising people who are undeserving of it because I want to curry favours. My faith teaches me to believe that favours you don’t just get, except from God and His assigned divine helpers.

    I once experienced Ambode’s kind or large heartedness at a time he had his tour of duty as accountant general (AG) at Alausa. I was pounding the corridor of a building on my way to collect a cheque at the State Treasury Office (STO) for an executed contract, when my personal assistant with whom we had worked when I was the chair of Mushin local government, drew my attention to the fact that I was about passing by Ambode’s office, a fact of I was hitherto oblivious.

    I decided to stop by and you could see the glow on his face when he sighted me, having lost contact with ourselves for some decade before that fortuitous chance meeting. I was with him for a few minutes, exchanging some banter and the kindness in him came to the fore when he pulled one of his drawers and handed me a wad of fifty thousand naira (N50,000). That was the quintessential easy going, shy and kind person that goes by the name Akin Ambode!

    This particular trait of humaneness and kindness endeared him to the rank and file of the civil service, such that majority of them threw themselves at his service when he decided to run for the governorship of Lagos State. Their enthusiasm for his bid was swashbuckling and total, offering a clear indication to pollsters that he had gotten a vital segment of the electorate in his kitty. They rooted for him like never before!

    The disdain and contempt many civil servants today have for him at Alausa and its satellite offices you could touch and feel with bare hands. And that is inescapably puzzling. But, is it surprising? No, he earned the disdain by his doing, just as he earned their acclaim when he was one of them. If he is now so despised, it isn’t because he plugged any loophole but more because for diverse reasons, he has become a thoroughly changed person. Why? Whodunnit to Akin, of all people?

    What the hell was racing through his mind when he coined the words Mo ti be l’orun (I have chopped off his neck) to gloat before his circle of friends and courtiers any time an official is sacked, redeployed or sent to Siberia or barren land of the Service! The fact that this coinage used in the confines of his office and homes, among his ‘friends’ and which eventually filtered out to the hearing of a number of civil servants, should suggest to our governor that there is nothing hidden under the sun and that it was not for nothing God in the early part of Genesis declared that He looked at the people He created and He grieved badly.

    If he could lose his principal constituency so soon, who would be surprised if he has visited worse fate on his political constituency? I once visited some holy sites in Israel including the source of River Jordan. That river evolved from a small source and spread big to the Jordan. If that source is blocked, River Jordan will cease to exist; and that explains the Yoruba saying that ‘odo t’oba gbagbe orisun e, a gbe.’ Whoever or whatever did this to Akin to make him go down this way in public esteem has done him incalculable damage, and that’s a big pity.

    In the treatment of gangrene in the leg, it is futile to be looking for its cause in the mid riff. For anyone to be ascribing Ambode’s current woes to Tinubu or the Mandate Movement is to ignore leprosy and be treating eczema. It goes deeper than that and only psychologists could decipher where and why things got awry for the once likeable Akin Ambode in the people’s eyes.

    People no longer talk of potholes on the roads. A young but knowledgeable politician captured all street gossips the other day and summed them up that most are now agreed that we now have boreholes, not potholes, on our roads, to describe how deep the craters evident on most roads in Lagos are. Has this observation anything to do with the quality of work being done by Ambode’s contractors?

    While on that, there are murmurs from Epe North ( where Ambode’s wife hails from) that the high quality of road construction in Epe town and its environs had been compromised when it came to the stretch of Epe North (that is Mojoda, Odoragushen, Noforija stretch that leads to Ijebu Ode). Some say the potholes prevalent on that stretch were due to the heavy trucks that go through them regularly but many in that zone counter that by asking whether those trucks don’t pass through Epe township road network before exiting towards Lekki or Ikorodu?They further insist that the degree of deterioration at the road at Epe North end is higher that Epe Central’s.

    Another school of thought say the shortage of circulation of money in Lagos is not due in the main to any recession in the national economy but in the drastic reduction of contractors – micro, mini, major and mega – working for the Ambode government.

    I want to believe it is uncharitable to say, as I have heard, that contractors now working for Lagos have been downsized from several before Ambode’s advent, to a handful, at the present time.

    Is the Governor accessible as he should, even to major party leaders and members? If not, is his inaccessibility his own design or the grand handiwork of courtiers and sycophants who, as it is customary with them, erect blindfolding barriers that shield the governor from seeing the everyday reality of life outside the Governor’s residence or office, or who are the first to take flight once their principals’ political fortunes plummets to perch with news masters? These are the bad guys who railroad successful people to their doom.

    If the ‘recluse’ style is the governor’s, what’s the big deal in being governor? The position once held by Tinubu or Jakande before him? And, for which they still remain relevant, many years after they had climbed down from the governorship throne?

    Phillipians Chapter 4: 6-8 says: “Whatever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” That injunction we must all reflect on.

    Trust that philosopher after my heart, Haruna Ishola, the apala musician. He must have conceptualised this situation when he sang many years ago, in Yoruba: “Ki no fe gbe tan fi waya (copper wire) su osuka ka’ri? Se ile aiye ni won fe gbe kari?” What’s the big deal in governance that can make a man lose his essence and become a strange and estranged ‘homo sapien’? Or is it forgotten that no matter the duration and glamour of a high office, it has an expiry date; and as it is said in my language, “ise a tan omoluabi lo ma ku”. I join Sunny Ade in praying that “ma fi kan gbakan lowo mi, mama fikan gbakan lowo mi, mo n be o, Baba”

    Instead of Ambode to be led into the error of believing that his travails came from Tinubu’s end, he should pick up his spiritual church activities from where he left them, when he did, and turn to his God, the Author and Finisher of our faith, for answers to his predicament. God of second chance is still alive, to give him the enablement to right the wrongs of this governorship era in his future undertakings.

    If anyone asks me about a second term, I will say there’s no ghost of a chance for ice in hell!

  • Akin Ambode’s Tarpaulin State hit by fiery winds

    All of a sudden, the cosmopolitan megalopolis of Lagos has been hit by a fierce wind of discontent. It is all about a quarrel over what many of its denizens consider  a case of over-taxation. At the end of the day, the sturdy canopy is still standing, although it has taken quite some heavy knocks. Akin Ambode is a remarkable combination of policy wonk and technocratic self-belief.

    Nobody who has come in personal contact with the youthful Lagos State governor will fail to be impressed by his deep sense of compassion and empathy as well as his passion for social justice. It was such a personal delight combined with deep fascination monitoring the Lagos State governor on television last Tuesday elaborating and enunciating his vision of inclusive governance to a select audience of business magnates.

    Although he did not call it so, it was obvious that Ambode was carefully laying out his template of a tarpaulin state which caters for both the needy and the needful. The needful are of course the filthy rich who have no sense of compassion for the dirt poor. The animal farm that is contemporary Nigeria is replete with this historic obscenity. Needless to add that the Lagos governor’s grasp of details and mastery of even the most mundane minutiae is a tad short of the miraculous.

    But at the end of the day, it was obvious judging from Malam Aliko Dangote’s intriguing intervention that the Lagos governor was preaching to the converted. The real battle was being fought somewhere else. A raging battle had broken out in the social media with internet warriors and other cyber-insurgents taking Lagos officialdom to task with their own facts and figures. The Ikeja Branch of the NBA put out a notice that it rejects “ oppressive, extortionate, arbitrary and exploitative taxation by Lagos state government”, urging its members to take to the street on a date to be announced.

    If Governor Ambode were so minded, he could have chosen to play Stalin to the Pope of the Lagos elite. How many divisions does the Pope have? Stalin famously asked upon hearing some threatening comments by the catholic supremo. But that would be purely delusional and unhelpful. In any society, the elite rattle far more than they actually rally, and may lack the voting fire-power but they have the economic muscle and the intellectual firepower to unhorse a government through agitation and propaganda. Happily, the Lagos government has chosen the path of engagement and renegotiation.

    The result of this re-ordering and recalibration of the Lagos tax regimen should be a win-win situation for everybody concerned. From time immemorial, the welfare government or the tarpaulin state has been a sine qua non for political stability and social cohesion. Armed guards may face down the people on ordinary days, but on the extraordinary day no force can hold down the rage of an embittered populace.

    From feudal antiquity where nobility must come with its obligation to the poor down to the modern welfare state where the most deprived in the society are kept in a condition of relative comfort through heavier taxation of the better off, human societies have bought peace and progress with adroit social engineering.

    It is a question of enlightened self-interest. The rich cannot sleep if the poor are awake. Hunger and homelessness are the greatest anti-sleep stimulants that human society has known. Whatever its imperfections, Lagos State has been the revelation of the Fourth Republic, taking into its capacious bosom miscreants and vagabonds from infamous hellholes and others simply looking for a better life in a situation facilitated by its genial and cultured hospitality. In a condition of improper federalism and having obviously lost the argument for a Special Status, Lagos will have to rely on its wits and financial ingenuity.

    Akin Ambode was surely within his right and historical remit when he asked last Tuesday where the money for the patrol cars that dot every corner of Lagos was supposed to come from, or who was supposed to pay for the continuous street-lighting that has kept Lagos relatively crime-free at night. But things must be done with greater transparency and accountability. In its own way and in God’s own time, Lagos will surmount the contradictions of a tarpaulin state within the context of crippling unitary federalism.

  • Akin Ambode, a nice chap finishes first

    Snooper has been watching and following the intrigue-soaked, fiendishly quicksilver political milieu of Lagos with quiet animation. In the Fourth Republic, Lagos has gradually replaced Ibadan as the epicentre of progressive politics. It is the nerve centre and engine room of the transformational politics that has taken the old west and now the rest of Nigeria by storm. Have political brains and will travel. As the column never tires of positing, the artillery of knowledge is superior to knowledge of artillery.

    But all over the world and particularly in post-colonial societies, progressive clans are a fractious troublous lot, quarrelling openly and quietly making up behind the scene even as the machine constantly purges itself of unworthy accretions. It is in the nature of radical organizations seeking changes to be riddled with even more violent contradictions than the status quo they seek to supplant.

    Early in life, snooper developed a mantra which often sees him through political turbulence. It is that no matter what happens, the party is supreme. You may quarrel viciously and violently before decisions are taken, but once they are taken you have to abide by them. This mantra was taken from an old western political warhorse whose one-liner retort to internal protest was: (Wo, parti o gbodo fo!) Look, the party must not break up, no matter what!

    This is why it is meet to congratulate the Lagos state governor Akin Ambode over his sweet victory at the electoral tribunal. Now that the electoral hurdle has been scaled, it is time for the calm and methodical fellow to unfurl his bag of surprises for Lagosians.  Humane, polished, cultured, sincerely solicitous of other people’s wellbeing, and impeccably well-mannered  , Ambode is quite a revelation in the coliseum of political roughnecks.

    In the course of the last electioneering campaign, snooper sat down alone to drill the then gubernatorial aspirant and found his logical and intellectual grasp of issues, political, economic and even cultural, a tad short of prodigious. His answers were extensively well-researched and deeply thought out, shorn of pomp and pomposity. His quiet unassuming mien belies a ruthless streak which does not take hostages when sufficiently roused. Well-educated, well-travelled and very cosmopolitan in outlook, Ambode should take Lagos state to the next level after the labours of earlier avatars.

    Here is wishing the governor a successful tenure. Good guys also finish first.

  • Beyond winning and losing

    Beyond winning and losing

    The Lagos All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial primaries have been won and lost, with Akin Ambode emerging victorious.  But why does it evoke eerie parallels from the Femi Agbalajobi-Dapo Sarumi titanic primary of 1991?

    Dr. Agbalajobi (of blessed memory) was the undisputed favourite of the then Alhaji Lateef Jakande Lagos political establishment.  Then, the 2nd Republic Action Governor of Lagos’ word was law.  But the Sarumi camp was bent on resisting any Baba so pe (“Baba has decreed”) alleged imposition.

    Mr. Sarumi, on the other hand, was the Lagos face of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida’s “new breed” — fresh, nimble and dynamic Olympians on Nigeria’s political firmament; come to run, out of town, the stale, awkward and rickety Titans, veteran politicians of the 1st and 2nd Republics, who little realised their epoch was over!

    For Agbalajobi  and Sarumi, the primary was a hideous stalemate, resolved only by their party, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), disqualifying them both.  But the battle continued by proxy.

    Yomi Edu, the eventual SDP candidate, who faced Sir Michael Otedola (God bless his soul) of the National Republican Convention (NRC) was perceived, by the Jakande camp, of the Sarumi provenance.

    Both camps banded together to win the legislative election with a near-clean sweep.  But on the governorship, the Baba sope camp triggered mutual destruction as combat tactics.

    They allied with Otedola’s NRC  and gave their own candidate a terrible electoral hiding.  When the dust cleared, the political progressives, for the first time in Lagos history, had lost the governorship to the conservative NRC.

    Now, the eerie parallels between 1991 and now.

    In 1991, Lagos East Senatorial District was theatre of war.  It is also now.    After Asiwaju Bola Tinubu (Lagos West) 1999-2007 and Governor Babatunde Fashola (Lagos Central), 2007-2015, APC has zoned its governorship, from 2015, to Lagos East.

    Like in 1991, a pre-primary din alleged “imposition” of a “favoured” candidate, thus leading to horrific bad blood among the contestants.  Like in 1991, though the governorship primary delivered a candidate, there is probably no guarantee that candidate would be acceptable to all the feuding camps.

    That must explain why, before the primary that eventually produced Mr. Ambode, Asiwaju Tinubu, the party’s leader, had pleaded with everyone to accept the result.  It is also heart-warming that, after, Governor Babatunde Fashola has asked Lagosians to vote Ambode for continuity.

    But much more than a historical parallel, a direct link, between 1991 and now.

    The anti-Jakande crusading boys of yesteryear have become men.  Mr. Sarumi, no thanks to series of bad political decisions, may have vanished from the horizon.  But Asiwaju Tinubu has taken his place, thus replacing the Jakande political hegemony with their own.

    And, to be sure, they would appear to have done Lagos some hefty good.

    Whereas the Olusegun Obasanjo-Umaru Yar’Adua-Goodluck Jonathan Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) continuum at the centre appears to have bankrupted Nigeria, with the present fiscal panic over crashing prices of crude, the Tinubu-Fashola Alliance for Democracy-Action Congress-Action Congress of Nigeria-APC continuum in Lagos has led the state from a revenue profile of N600 million a month in 1999 to about N23 billion in 2014.

    On the balance, Lagos appears clearly to have moved from point A to B; signalling progress in enhanced security, infrastructure renewal, a greener environment and a far cleaner Lagos — Lagos, hitherto among the dirtiest on the globe.  There is always, of course, a lot more to do.

    Conversely, on the balance, the centre would appear to have regressed from B to A, with a harvest of decayed infrastructure nationwide, though President Jonathan, in his 2015 declaration speech, claimed stats that suggested he was fixing that.

    Still, there is legitimate feeling that, had post-1999 Nigeria (with its quantum of funds) been blessed with the leadership of post-1999 Lagos, the country would have been better.

    But success does have its hassles!  After the halcyon days of collective success, it appears now the era of “what is in it for me”!  That would explain the fierce contest — all the contestants Tinubu’s close protégés — to succeed Governor Fashola, who has boasted, from all objective accounts, superlative governance.

    Now, back to a peep at 1991!  At the start of the Ambode phenomenon, a band of demonstrators stormed the Ikeja seat of the Lagos government: first, at the precincts of the Lagos House of Assembly and later, at the adjoining Lagos House.  The message: “No more Oga sope!”

    If “Oga sope” echoes the Jakande era “Baba sope”, it is because the wished-for Utopian, all-equal Animal Farm of the anti-Jakande crusaders of yesteryear has morphed into something more earthly, of some animals more equal than others, to parody George Orwell.

    Let’s not beat about the bush — to use Soyinka-speak in his Jonathan Nebuchadnezzar putdown — though the battle has been lost and won, too many are aggrieved.  If things were not to degenerate to the Agbalajobi-Sarumi tragedy of 1991, then urgent, conscious and deliberate efforts must be made to placate the aggrieved.

    But first, both winners and losers must agree: theirs is a milieu that needs urgent reformation.  Starkly put, reform or die!

    The APC and its forebears may have got governance — brilliant governance at that — right.  But not their internal politics, which is always in a shambles, with today’s beneficiaries — and tomorrow’s victims — shouting “fairness!”, only later to scream “imposition!” when the table gets turned.

    The party must work some consensus on its internal business, without threatening to bring down the roof each time.  Since “consensus” is simply “imposition” to not a few, APC should deepen its primary elections, and make them a fresh start at deepening its own internal democracy.

    If the combatants won’t embrace entente for charity, they must, out of sheer enlightened self-interest.  They must not destroy  the house they built.

    In 1991, a dominant segment of the SDP got Edu as candidate, in lieu of Sarumi.  But the Jakande faction, dominant in the electoral streets, deployed the ultimate hammer — the classic Yoruba “Kaka k’eku maje sese, a fi sawa danu” [virtually in English: my private loss must turn a collective disaster].

    Lagos was the worse for it: Sir Michael was an excellent elder and citizen.  But as governor, he was far from excellent; and his electoral war cry, “That Lagos may excel” turned a hollow joke, as Lagos nearly stagnated.

    In 1991, the progressives were a shoo-in; even in 1999.  But in 2015, not so: no thanks to haemorrhaging over the years, despite proving their mettle.

    Again, no thanks to President Jonathan’s playing the end against the middle: Christians against Muslims, Igbo against Yoruba, subverting state coercion for partisan gains; and vicious Tinubu demonization by embittered Yoruba enemies, 2015 will be a far tougher proposition.

    That is why Tinubu himself should reach out and placate those who lost out on December 4.  Anything short may just replicate the Agbalajobi-Sarumi tragedy.

    With how PDP has beggared the nation at the centre — and that party stands to benefit most from any ensuing crisis — Lagos would be the worse for it.

     

  • Akin Ambode: Awakening the giant within

    Akin Ambode: Awakening the giant within

    In his over 500-page tome titled ‘Awaken The Giant Within’, the American life coach, self- help author and motivational speaker, Anthony Robbins, offers techniques, formulas and principles to help anybody snatch success from the jaws of failure, triumph over adversity, become a valuable asset to society and leave an enduring legacy for successive generations. Robbins believes that within each human being, no matter how seemingly disadvantaged, lies the spark of potential, which can be fanned to a bright light of accomplishment that adds value to the human enterprise and shows the light for others to find the way. If Anthony Robbins’ book makes rather tedious reading with its sheer daunting size likely to discourage and intimidate the average reader, the same purpose is more easily and pleasurably achieved by the new book, ‘The Art of Selfless Service’, which has just been presented to the reading public.

    Written by Mrs Marina Osoba, a lawyer, poet, columnist and administrator, ‘The Art of Selfless Service’, focuses on the life and exemplary public service career of Mr Akinwunmi D. Ambode, to illustrate the path to success, fulfilment and a truly valuable existence for anybody desirous of making a lasting and positive impact this side of eternity. The subject of the book, which runs into a highly readable 120 pages divided into 15 chapters laced with scores of inspirational, philosophical and motivational quotes from diverse sources, Mr. Akin Ambode, posts intimidating academic and professional credentials.

    An alumnus of the University of Lagos, Ambode holds a B.Sc degree in Accounting and a Masters degree in the same discipline with specialisation in Financial Management. Apart from being a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Ambode has over time enriched his mind and honed his managerial skills through several specialised courses at highly reputable institutions such as Harvard Kennedy School of Government, USA; Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield, England; Institute of Management Development, Lausanne, Switzerland and INSEAD, Singapore. His experience as a Hubert Humphrey Fellow in Accounting and Finance from Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, had a major transformational impact on Ambode both as a professional and a human being committed to offering selfless service to humanity.

    It is thus not surprising that he has had a most distinguished and accomplished career as a public sector accountant and administrator spanning close to three decades. During his mandatory National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) posting in Sokoto in 1985, Ambode was deployed to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) where he had to work as hard as the regular staff in the Accounts Department of the institution. He thus learnt to develop a diligent work ethic right from the commencement of his working life. After his Youth Corp, Ambode’s career started in earnest on the 4th of November, 1985, when he was employed as an Accountant Grade 2 with the Lagos State Waste Disposal Board at the age of 22 and on a starting salary of N324 per month. Three years later, armed with his professional ICAN certification and theMasters degree in Accountancy, Ambode was employed by the Lagos State Local Government Service Commission as a Senior Accountant on Grade Level 10.

    For the next ten years (1988-1998), Ambode accumulated considerable and invaluable experience working in various capacities at the Local Government level in Lagos State. This experience not only gave him an intimate knowledge of the state, it sensitized Ambode to the crucial role of the Local Government level as the foundation for meaningful development because of its proximity to the majority of the people. During this period, he served at various times as Assistant Treasurer to the Badagry Local Government, Auditor and later Council Treasurer to the Shomolu Local Government, Council Treasurer to Alimosho Local Government and Council Treasurer to Mushin Local Government and later Ajeromi/Ifelodun Local Government.Of his experience in managing the finances of the grassroots governments in Lagos State, Ambode notes in Chapter six of the book that “…if you work successfully at Local Government level and you are able to make a difference, there is nowhere else you cannot make a difference”.

    Following his transformational experience as a Hubert Humphrey scholar at Boston, United States (1998 – 1999), Ambode returned to Nigeria and transferred his service from the Local Government to the State Public Service. Courtesy his hard work, commitment, proficiency and dependability, Ambode’s rise at the state level was meteoric. He rapidly rose from the post of Assistant Director in the Office of the Auditor General for Local Governments to Acting Auditor General for Local Government and then substantive Auditor General for Local Government. In January 2005, he became Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and in February, 2006, Permanent Secretary and Accountant General of Lagos State, a position he held till his resignation from the public service in 2012. One of his lasting legacies as Accountant General of the state was the creation of the State Treasury Office (STO), which revolutionized public sector financial budgeting, management, planning and expenditure in Lagos State.  It is impossible to accurately write the story of the remarkable transformation of Lagos over the last 15 years without acknowledging the role of Ambode as a key Actor in re-engineering the finances of the megacity as a basis for her rapid development.

    What then are some of those essential and indispensable building blocks that enabled Ambode to awaken the giant within and make a success of the opportunities that came his way? First is a warm and supportive family environment into which he was born and grew up in Epe on the 14th of June, 1963. Secondly, is a solid primary and secondary school education particularly the excellent facilities, curriculum and teachers at the Federal Government College, Warri, which had such a tremendous impact on the development of his personality between 1974 and 1981 when he completed his O’ and A’ Levels. Third was his sheer determination, discipline and self- sacrifice, which enabled him to overcome such an adversity as the death of his father when he was still a youngster and his decision to set the goal of pursuing both his ICAN certification and M.Sc degree simultaneously and achieving his objective within his specified time frame. Fourth is a life- long commitment to cultivating and improving his mind through continuous education.

    The author, Marina Osoba, drawing from Ambode’s life and career, identifies seven essentials of selfless service namely, ‘Courage, Time, Effort, Persistence, Patience and Focus, Love and Charity as well as Vision’. In chapter ten of the book, several of those who have worked with Ambode over the years offer testimonies of how he had positively impacted their lives through self-sacrificial mentoring and being a worthy role model.  Ambode over the years has sacrificed the time, resources, energy and efforts to mobilise old students of his alma mater, Federal Government College, Warri, to identify with and help restore the glory of the school. This initiative has been expanded and has resulted in the establishment of the Unity Schools Old Students Association (USOSA) comprising alumni of 100 Unity Schools in Nigeria to provide “a National platform through which alumni can focus on rekindling and sustaining the vision of the Unity School concept as centres of academic excellence, integration, leadership and unity as well as influencing policy changes in the way and manner these schools are administered”.

    In offering such selfless service over the years, Ambode was motivated by sheer altruism with no expectation of reward. It is in this same spirit of selfless service that in 2012, Ambode founded the La Roche Leadership Foundation to offer support to Nigerian students at all levels of their educational endeavours. As the call of destiny and selfless service at higher levels beckons, the best for AkinwumiAmbode certainly lies ahead.

  • That Akiolu’s statement

    SIR: Through the Oba of Lagos, Akiolu has spoken, the race has not  ended. It has just begun. I have followed the reactions of  many Lagosians to  Oba Akiolu’s open endorsement of  Akin Ambode for the Governorship of Lagos. The alacrity and  suddenness of his endorsement shocked many people. Many have criticized him for such brazenness and others are already plotting how to deal with him. There are also insinuations in many quarters that he is on an errand sort of. That there is a hand of Essau and the voice of Jacob, sorry, the voice of Akiolu. Again, Bola Tinubu is being fingered to be behind the message so brazenly delivered.

    I however beg to differ.

    Those that share this position do not know him well enough. If they do, they will know that he holds his cards close to his chest. A political generalissimo, he never pulls the chestnut out of the fire until the last moment. He distracts to surprise. He waits to pounce. He hibernates to be able to spring a  surprise. Such are his ways. He weighs every option carefully and never plays his hand too soon because he knows that will give his detractors enough time and ammunition to attack.  For him, the surprise element is an asset as risky as it may be. But later on Tinubu and his political abracadabra.

    Back to Oba Akiolu’s endorsement. Here is my take. We are in a democratic setting. Lagosians have become more politically savvy but that should not deny any one the right to exercise his freedom of speech. Akiolu has expressed an opinion that is well within his right to express. He may have done it in an unexpected manner with the timing suspect, but there is no denying him the right to do so. All this talk about Obas not being involved with politics is hogwash. All Obas are leg and neck deep in politics. Politicians seek and court their support for electoral victory and to solve problems.  Akiolu’s idea about the man that is good for Lagos will be tested come February 2015. Lagosians will choose who will be the next governor and not Akiolu. He has had his say. The people will have their way.

    We must give Akiolu a pass. Lagos has become a country within a country. It is the biggest prize after the centre. It is attractive. AKiolu;s love for Lagos must have driven him to want the best qualified man for Lagos, even though what he announced publicly ought to have been left for the privacy of his palace. There is no faulting his love for Lagos.

    The APC will still hold primaries and I urge all that come from within the zone to see Akiolus’s statement as a challenge. They must come out and compete and not close shop. If they simply close shop because of what Akiolu said, then that means in the first place, they lacked the courage and temerity to contest and to govern Lagos. Against all odds, let’s have all of them at the track and at the starting point. The months ahead will be interesting. These permutations will change. New alignments will emerge. Even Oba Akiolu’s feet which now seems set in wet cement may soon soften. Akin Ambode now the front runner has his job cut out. He will soon realize that an Akiolu endorsement will not be enough for him to get the trophy. The lion of Bourdillon has only hummed and not said a word. It’s amazing how people attribute so much to him and also swear by what they do not know. His silence right now should worry the contenders while it should give we the voters hope. The APC owes Lagos and the country transparent primaries in Lagos to set the tone for other countries.

    While the dust of Akiolu’s state