Tag: Sanwoolu

The Chinese, in one of their business forays in Africa, came up with this brilliant advertising catch-phrase Yo Sinai, Yo Kangayi (good product, good thinking) to market one of their products. They most probably had never heard of a Babajide Olusola Sanwoolu before then. Neither did they have him in mind when their advert wizards went into their observatory to invent those catchy and meaningful words.

Encountering the Lagos APC governorship candidate, Sanwoolu, even in a one-off discussion, will convince you that like those Chinese words, this nimble and focused young man is indeed enigmatic. Truly, a good product with clear thinking! On any given issue, you know where he stands and what his thought process is. Unlike some other opponents of his, who are oftentimes lazy, hazy, unconvincingly generalistic and, for the most time, evincing poison of the basest ethnic chauvinism.

Unlike his number one challenger, who has earned the sobriquet of being a serial loser, Sanwoolu comes off every day as a banker bet, as someone long committed to the re-ordering of society along values that are endearing and elevating – a mindset eager to take Lagos to greater heights more than the vision of a Lateef Jakande, the trailblazer; and Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the digital moderniser!

You assess a person from everything that surrounds him. For example, Jimi Agbaje, the PDP opponent, in his outlook and campaign style, is dull and flatfooted. Conversely, Sanwoolu is bubbly, outgoing and bristling with fresh ideas, compatible with this age and time.

With regard to their campaign offices, when you see the feverish activities going on daily at Sanwoolu’s campaign office at Ikeja GRA with the seemingly unending innovative meetings of diverse groups, and you observe that of his opponent at Obanikoro area of Ilupeju on Ikorodu Road, it does not confuse to come to a quick and unimpeachable conclusion that whereas one comes committed to seeking solutions to the problems confronting development and progress, the other, perhaps, is merely waiting in the wings, relying on negativism as a campaign theme.

You never know, it is possible that Jimi Agbaje was part of the “Dubious Dubai” team that went to desperately plot how elections can be won by other means than the universally acceptable route. The reason why plots had been hatched on how candidates to stand for elections could be chosen through the courtrooms and not by their political parties; and how such or other candidates should just go to sleep, allow proper elections to be fought and ‘won’ at polling booths while eventual victory will be declared in their favour, not by INEC, but by the Supreme Court of Justice Walter Onnoghen. Mercifully, all that evil plot has been exposed and aborted by divine intervention of God, the Master Planner, even before President Muhammad Buhari got wind of the evil meeting in Dubai.

While the Dubai game was busted, the Sanwoolu phenomenon is catching on; the reason why it is on many lips now that Sanwoolu’s victory at the coming governorship poll in Lagos, is a DONE DEAL.

I do not know the details of what is going on in PDP’s Jimi Agbaje’s camp, but with the facts staring us in the face, he looks set to retain his record as the serial loser of guber contests in Lagos State.

Since the Ikeja GRA was created, I doubt if it has ever witnessed the kind of deluge of humanity that descends on it, since Babajide Sanwoolu arrived in the area with his governorship project. In spite of the fact that formal electioneering campaigns are yet to take off, 58-60 Oduduwa Crescent has been attracting people like bees to honey in the past couple of weeks in a way suggesting that if you don’t join this Sanwoolu train ‘sharp, sharp’, you may miss it.

I’m a witness to the goings-on there and I can state emphatically that even without prompting, several thousands of Lagosians troop to the place daily (Sundays not excluded), volunteering to work for the actualisation of the Sanwoolu-for-governor mission. It is unbelievable but it is true. Not even in Awo’s time in the Second Republic, when his Unity Party of Nigeria dominated the Lagos political scene, has Lagosians seen a candidate so massively embraced and loved as Jide Sanwoolu.

I see in the Sanwoolu project God’s hand, so visible. Where a handful of unbelievers are still day dreaming and plotting how to thwart the project, divine help, in various shapes and sizes, is pouring in like a deluge to make me, an incurable optimist, believe that Sanwoolu is a done deal. You need to observe the man and his equally cerebral running mate, Dr Quadri Obafemi Hamzat, in chummy interactions with the sea of volunteers flocking around them in their campaign headquarters in Ikeja GRA, and you will not fail to agree that God is indeed the master planner of their project. I cannot see it fail.

From the way the APC governorship candidate in Lagos State, Mr Babajide Sanwoolu, has commenced his electioneering, it is evident this adaptable, well exposed and brilliant young man has hit the ground running—and in a promising and uniquely positive manner.

I have been a close and keen observer and participant in the politics of this state since I joined Jakande’s governorship bid in Lagos State in 1978 (minus the interregnum of 2001 to 2007 when I ran into self-exile to escape what could have been the first political assassination of the Obasanjo-Atiku era), and I can say that since the present republic, I doubt if any governorship aspirant in this state has hit the road as Sanwoolu is doing.

Soon after his overwhelming triumph at the governorship primary, he made it known that he needed to embark on a thank-you tour of the three senatorial districts in Lagos State, in appreciation of how leaders sensitized their followers within a very short period and bought into the Sanwoolu project, without any financial inducement. The voting pattern was unprecedented, with Sanwoolu ‘walloping’ the sitting governor by close to 900,000 votes. His decision to go round to thank the leaders, and through them their followers, immediately after the governorship primary, is a unique innovation in the annals of this republic.

His speeches at Victoria Island, Shangisha and Ikeja on three consecutive days he visited the three senatorial districts’ leaders, did not tell of a political neophyte but a well-baked practitioner of the political act. Bringing back fond memories of the Jakande’s beginning on the political turf, he spoke of working for the greatest good of the greatest number; a phrase whose authorship undoubtedly belongs to LKJ.

Sanwoolu knew of what had happened to the party in recent years and realising the effect on members’ psyche, he promised to join hands with the leadership to return the party to the people when elected as governor. According to him, the era when politicians were looked down upon with disdain by those who got into office through their votes was gone.

He had better implant those words in his heart and see the promise through, because as it has been proven, one good turn deserves another. A breach of that solemn promise can be costly as everyone has seen in the last two months.

One other thing I observed in all his speeches is that he realises the essence of being good to the people one meets on the way up the ladder of success, as one may need them on the way down. He felt touched seeing that aged woman in Badagry or the bubbly youth on television bearing his pictures during the primary, and said his preoccupation would be to find a quick means of reaching such people, who number thousands, to reciprocate their kind gesture. You could touch the empathy he exhibited with bare hands.

Although his own primary and that of President Buhari went without any sustainable disputation in the state, he didn’t turn a blind eye to complaints of evident misdeeds in the legislative primaries; the reason why he has also been reaching out to the aggrieved among the contestants with a view to assuaging their hurt.

Given his style, and if he sustains it, Sanwoolu looks well prepared to return the politics of this republic in this state to the populism of the people while also sustaining the developmental policy blueprint universally adopted for the state without any fundamental deviation that can imperil it, as is evident with waste management across the state at the moment.

Now, I know that in truth, ability without opportunity is a nullity. If circumstance didn’t throw Sanwoolu into the political ring, many, like me, would not have known that he packs a lot of ideas and political punches up his biceps. I can’t wait to see him elected as governor – for fresh wonders of performance to commence in the Centre of Excellence!

Fayose and his latest theatrics

I do not know which one comes first for an award in comical absurdity and infamy between the theatrics of ex-governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State at the gates of the EFCC in Abuja and the bad ballard danced to in the Abeokuta abode of former President Olusegun Obasanjo recently, between the Otta chicken-farmer turned humongous moneybag and his erstwhile estranged deputy in Aso Rock, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to worm their way back into the hearts of the citizens they had so pitiably exploited during their eight years sojourn in the nation’s main political driving seat.

If a lot of unearned income didn’t get to some smart Alec’s hands, why should a man going into the gulag be celebrating his journey into opprobrium in specially printed T-shirt emblazoned in front with the inscription ‘EFCC, I’m here”, as if he is going to stand before a distinguished national audience for an award of the highest honour in the land – the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic!

Well, it seems the norm now is celebrating absurdities in some of our people. Otherwise why should elected representatives of the people, be they governors or legislators, be so mindless and disdainful of their official duties that they would shunt them aside to escort a ‘wanted’ person to a detention camp? Law – this law! It amuses me that its interpretation, or is it application, is so loose that something can mean one thing in this instance and mean another thing the next hour.

However, just as Haruna Ishola reminded us in one of his songs, if a 20-year-old is not an imbecile, he should know what life is all about. In the celebrated musician’s words: “B’omode o ba ponu, to ba p’ogun odun, o ye k’omo b’aiye se je.” Within the two weeks Fayose will go through EFCC grilling, he will come to the full realisation that a detention camp is a far cry from the palatial precincts he has been used to in the last few years – a new abode from where friends and foes must maintain a safe distance.