Babatunde R Fashola at 50

The Governor of Lagos State, His Excellency, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) also known as BRF, turned 50 on Friday, June 28, 2013. He was first elected on April 14, 2007 and assumed office on May 27, 2007 and was reelected on April 26, 2011 and sworn in to his second and final term on May 29, 2011. Before his initial election in 2007, this column wrote a strong endorsement of Fashola based not on personal or partisan considerations, but on an objective review of his performance at an interaction with segments of the Lagos business and professional elite at the LBS Breakfast Club in the run-up to the 2007 elections. I sat through that presentation attempting to look into his soul, character and person and I concluded that this was an atypical public servant whose motivation was likely to be service, rather than power and self. I have been very gratified that he has not disappointed me and the vast majority of Lagos voters who endorsed him in 2007 and more overwhelmingly in 2011. Fashola attended Birch Freeman High School, Lagos and Igbobi College Yaba, Lagos for advanced level studies. I was in Form 5 at Igbobi while BRF was in Lower Six, but we were neither friendly nor close. He studied Law at the University of Benin, graduated in 1987 and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1988. I am told by those who closely watched him that Fashola was dedicated, focused, well-prepared and thorough in his court room presentations. He has brought those same attributes to bear on his gubernatorial duties in Lagos State. He practiced in the law firm of Sofunde, Osakwe, Ogundipe and Belgore engaging in varied aspects of litigation and commercial law practice and became a Notary Public of the Supreme Court and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). Apparently BRF had been involved behind the scenes in the transition committees that laid the ground work for the Bola Tinubu administration in 1999 and served on a panel of enquiry into certain housing matters in the state. When Tinubu’s erstwhile Chief of Staff, Alhaji Lai Muhammed (now ACN/APC publicity secretary) resigned to contest the Kwara governorship in 2002, he turned to Fashola to take up the role and to the surprise of everyone, including Fashola himself, Tinubu tapped him to contest the 2007 governorship on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). Fashola’s performance in office has been nothing short of remarkable! He has made huge impact on Lagos across a wide and diverse array of sectors-infrastructure, security, education, health and social welfare, sports, ICT and innovation, agriculture, trade and investment etc. Most importantly he has shown Nigerians that the possibilities are immense, where there is the right leadership. In the area of security, he has kept Lagos secure, against significant odds- an under-resourced federal police with low morale has been made to function effectively with resources generated through an innovative public-private partnership funding mechanism, the Lagos State Security Trust Fund which has improved policing logistics and improving personnel welfare and infrastructure. Fashola has transformed infrastructure in Lagos State. A visitor who was last in Lagos in 2006 would not believe the changes in the state-the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge, the Lekki-Epe Expressway, the ongoing Badagry expressway and rail line, the Ikorodu road expansion and BRT project, and new roads in virtually all areas of the state will astound any objective observer. The concentration on social spending on the education and health sectors continues apace with investments in infrastructure-new general hospitals, new primary health centres, specialized hospitals, significant upgrades at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) etc. have improved the delivery of health care across the state. Many schools have been upgraded and teachers training and morale has also received significant attention. A Lagos State Innovation Council is seeking ways of fostering creativity and innovation in the state; the state is quietly transforming agriculture, building rice mills and positioning to achieve food independence in the short and medium term. There is an airport project; a seaport project; a free trade zone; a new ministry of energy to drive energy self-sufficiency,…no sector has been left untouched by Fashola’s truly transformative touch. Most importantly in my view, BRF has brought a new ethos and values to governance in Lagos State and offered a worthy alternative model to his colleagues in the rest of Western Nigeria and the country. He has shown that there is nothing intrinsic in our genes as black people that makes us unfit for leadership; he has demonstrated that government can indeed be an effective instrument of transformation even in a corrupt and dysfunctional nation like ours; he has proved that it is possible to assemble a leadership team in the public space that can function as effectively and competently as any in the private sector. I have said on my TV programme, “The Policy Council” that if Nigeria was a rational country where people acted in their own best interest rather than in a subjective and ultimately self-destructive way, there would be an overwhelming clamour for Fashola to contest the 2015 presidency. That is my own personal preference and that seems to me like the path his political party, the ACN/APC should be taking rather than considering presenting obviously unsuitable options to the Nigerian people based simply on ethno-religious considerations.