But for the desperate, last minute shifting of the polls
earlier scheduled for this month at the behest of
Nigeria’s military high command, acting obviously on
behalf of an embattled President Goodluck Jonathan and
his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), state governorship
and House of Assembly elections would have been
taking place today across the country including Lagos.
The electoral battle in Lagos would have been a two-
way affair between Mr Akinwumi Ambode of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) and Mr Olujimi Agbaje of
the PDP. Both men are household names in Lagos. Their
posters, billboards and other souvenirs dot the
landscape of the Centre of Excellence. Their variegated
messages dominate both the electronic and now
ubiquitous social media. They have a new date of
engagement scheduled for March 11th if the electoral
magicians do not abort the elections once more.
Jimi Agbaje is not new to the Lagos State governorship
race. In 2007, he contested for the position on the
platform of the Democratic Parties Alliance (DPA).
Despite having run what was widely considered a
brilliant and innovative campaign, he emerged a distant
third in that election to the incumbent, Mr Babatunde
Raji Fashola (SAN). The latter’s widely adjudged two-
term brilliant tenure comes to an end this May. Some
analysts contend that Jimi Agbaje is contesting on a
firmer, surer, more solid platform this time around. Even
though, the PDP has never succeeded in supplanting the
progressives from power in Lagos since 1999, it is still
perceived as a more viable dais for competing
effectively in Lagos than Agbaje’s defunct DPA.
Yet, others argue that the PDP platform is indeed Jimi
Agbaje’s albatross. Agbaje is often described as a good
candidate running on a rotten platform. The PDP has
monopolised power at the centre since 1999. In the
period, it has controlled the bulk of the country’s
resources. Yet, all the country has to show for it is
illusory statistical growth without concrete content in
terms of their material well-being. Indeed, under the
PDP’s watch, Nigeria lies humiliatingly prostrate and
subject to mass poverty, hunger, chronic insecurity,
monumental corruption, unbearable unemployment,
unbelievable impunity and utter ignominy in the comity
of nations. Can Agbaje convince the people of Lagos to
entrust their fate in the hands of a party with such a
deplorable record of performance especially given the
undeniably impressive strides the state has taken under
the guidance of the progressives in the last 16 years? It
is improbable.
It is possible to argue that there is really no big deal
about Agbaje jettisoning his professed commitment to
structural change in Nigeria throughout his political
career only to pitch his tent with a PDP so obviously
committed to maintaining Nigeria in her current
dysfunctional shape and structure. After all, political
vagrancy and promiscuity have become part and parcel
of our political culture and no party can self-righteously
cast the first stone against the other. In any case, have
the Afenifere old guard not assured us all that President
Goodluck Jonathan will implement the recommendations
of the moribund National Conference if he is re-elected
for a second term in office? Of course, this is sheer
baloney.
The Jonathan National Conference was an illegal and
illegitimate contraption, a sheer waste of time and
resources and a wily tactic for an administration running
out of options to buy time. If the Jonathan presidency
could do nothing concrete with the National Conference
report when it had near total dominance of the National
Assembly, is it now that it is much more considerably
weakened in both chambers that it will get the
recommendations of the conference through the national
legislature? Anyone who cannot see that Dr Jonathan
enjoys the centralized and excessive powers of the
Nigerian state and presidency as it currently exists to
genuinely desire any meaningful structural change in the
country deserves a doctoral degree in political naivety.
But then, the thrust of this piece is to seek to find out in
who’s hands – Agbaje or Ambode – it will be safer and
wiser to entrust the almost one trillion dollar economy
of Lagos State especially at this crucial period of the
state’s evolution? A careful examination of the
curriculum vitae of the two candidates as gleaned from
their respective websites should give us a clue. Let us
start with the PDP candidate, Mr Olujimi Kolawole
Agbaje. He was born on March 2, 1957, to late Chief
Julius Kosebinu, a banker and Mrs Margaret Olabisi
Agbaje, a teacher. Agbaje obtained his secondary school
education at St Gregory’s College, Lagos, and graduated
as a pharmacist from the then University of Ife (now
Obafemi Awolowo University). Agbaje’s CV does not tell
us what he did between his graduation from Ife and the
setting up of his company, JAYKAY Pharmaceutical and
chemical company in 1982. However, he was Managing
Director of the drug manufacturing and distribution
company between 1982 and 2005 when he decided to
venture into politics. Again, we have no indication of the
net worth of the company or the expansiveness or
complexity of its operations under Agbaje’s guidance.
Agbaje served as a Member, Pharmacists Council of
Nigeria (1999-2006); National Secretary, Nigerian
Association of General Practice Pharmacists
(1987-1990); National Chairman, Nigeria Association of
General Practice Pharmacists (1987-1990) and
Chairman, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Lagos
State Branch (1994-1997). Other non-executive public
service appointments Agbaje has held include Member,
Lagos State Task Force on Fake and Adulterated Drugs
(1989-1993); Member, National Drug Formulary and
Essential Drugs List (1986-1993); Member, Lagos
Hospitals Management Board (1994-1999). In addition
to being a Faculty Member of the African Centre of
Leadership, Strategy and Development Centre, Agbaje is
a Merit Award Winner of the Lagos State Chapter of the
Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Fellow,
Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria and Fellow, West
African Post Graduate College of Pharmacists. Agbaje
has participated in various international programmes
including the Executive Management Programme at the
Wits Business School, Johannesburg, Cape Town
Business School, South Africa and the World Health
Organization training course on good manufacturing
practice in the pharmaceutical sector.
Now, what about Mr Akinwunmi Ambode? Born on the
14th of June, 1963, at Epe General Hospital, Epe,
Ambode had his primary school education at St Jude’s
primary school, Ebute Meta. His father served as a
teacher in Lagos State before retiring after 34 years in
service. Ambode passed the National Common Entrance
Examination in primary five and gained admission into
the Federal Government College, Warri. Ambode
recorded the second best result in West Africa in the
Higher School Certificate Examinations in the Social
Sciences in 1981. At the age of 21, Ambode graduated
with honours in Accounting from the University of Lagos.
He scored a double when he both qualified as a
Chartered Accountant and completed his M.Sc degree
programme in Accounting from the University of Lagos
specialising in Financial Management at the age of 24.
Ambode started his public service career in November
1985 as Accountant Grade 1 at the then Lagos State
Waste Disposal Board (now Lagos State Waste
Management Authority). Over the next 10 years, Ambode
acquired considerable experience serving as Council
Treasurer in several Local Government Areas of Lagos
State including Alimosho, Shomolu, Mushin, Epe,
Badagry and Ajeromi-Ifelodun. In 1988, Ambode earned
the award of the United States Fulbright Scholarship for
the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship Program in Boston
University, Massachusetts, on Public Leadership with
emphasis on Finance and Accounting. In 2000, Ambode
was appointed as the youngest ever Auditor-General for
Local Government in Lagos State. Thereafter, he was
elevated as the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of
Finance in January 2005 and in February, 2006 he was
given the additional responsibility of Accountant General
of Lagos State. At the time, he was the youngest
Permanent Secretary in the service and only the second
person to hold both positions of Permanent Secretary
and Accountant General at the same time.
Under Ambode’s leadership, the State Treasury Office
(STO), raised the state’s budget performance at an
average of 85% annually, ensured payment of civil
service staff salaries before the end of each month,
launched the e-platform for the payment of monthly
staff salaries, ensured prompt payment of gratuity and
pension arrears of the State Universal Basic Education
Board and Local Government old pensioners. Apart from
initiating and sustaining the annual retreat for Heads of
Accountants in the Lagos State Public Service as well
as Local and International training for staff, Ambode co-
organised the first ever National Tax Retreat in
association with the Joint Tax Board/Federal Inland
Revenue Service in 2005. He was the Chairman of the
Technical Committee that produced the Lagos State
Economic, Empowerment Development Strategy (LEEDS)
document and helped achieve the feat of clearing and
publishing arrears of statutory audits of Local
Governments in Lagos State from 1995 to 2004 within
12 months. His financial ingenuity has been publicly
acknowledged as a key factor that enabled Local
Governments in Lagos State survive the illegal seizure
of their statutory allocation for over one year by the
Obasanjo administration.
Ambode is an Alumnus of Wharton Business School and
also attended courses at Cranfield School of
Management, Cranfield, England, Institute of
Management Development, Lausanne, Switzerland,
INSEAD, Singapore and the Harvard Kennedy School of
Government, Boston, Massachussetts, USA. On
voluntarily retiring from the Lagos State public service
in August 2012, Ambode successfully transited to the
private sector by establishing Brandsmiths Consulting
Limited, a company that is presently consulting for
Federal, State and Local Governments on the transition
to the new International Public Service Accounting
System and offering other financial advisory services.
These then are the profiles of two illustrious and
accomplished sons of Lagos State seeking the consent
of Lagosians to pilot the affairs of the state after
Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola’s distinguished tenure.
Who has the requisite experience and expertise to build
on current achievements and lift Lagos to a new
pedestal of excellence in a world characterised by
unpredictable financial and economic turmoil? I leave
the answer to you, dear reader.
