Former Lagos state governor and now Minister of Works, Power and
Housing, Babatunde Fashola in this interview with The News magazine went
down memory lane on how he met with his predecessor and political
godfather, Bola Tinubu. According to Fashola, he met with Tinubu
sometime in 1990 or 1991.
That is an invitation to walk down memory lane. I think it must have
been 1990 or 1991. He was treasurer in Mobil, then. His office was at
the Bookshop House at CMS on Odunlami Street. I didn’t directly meet
him. I had seen him at parties, but we never met.
At that time, I was a senior associate at the law
firm of Sofunde, Osakwe, Ogundipe and Belgore, where I was practising.
Wale Tinubu, his nephew, came to join the law firm, then. He was always
mentioning “Uncle Bola”, and one day, he said: ‘’let’s go and see my
uncle.” We got there and went out to lunch with him. That was then I
could say we formally met. From then on, he would consult us on legal
issues and we would help and give him advice. Sometimes, he would just
come and say. “See we have this issue, what do you lawyers think?” We
ran around and he would always give us pocket money. I think one thing
that left some impressions on me was his commitment to his staff and
that was symbolised by what I witnessed on a particular day after the
Sallah celebration. He brought Sallah meat to the office and supervised
its sharing from floor to floor. As exalted as his office was, he was
concerned to ensure that those who could not come to his house, even to
the lowest driver, got part of the Sallah meat. I recalled that after
the sharing of the meat, he sent someone to aggregate how much it would
cost to buy soft drink for everybody and equally distributed money to
them. The incident left an impression on me and what became a practice
when I started observing the killing of rams for Sallah. For me, it
speaks of his concern about those working for him"he said
Fashola says he is now under more pressure to become a better leader
even after Tinubu had described him as one of his achievement
"Well, there are many ways to look at it. For me, that kind of statement
coming from him puts more pressure on me. I thought that I had seen all
the pressure that could come from this experience to be governor of
Lagos State. That adds pressure on me in no small measure.
I think how I became governor is public knowledge. Nothing could put
pressure on me than the commitment in pursuit of his decision in 2006
that I was the candidate he was endorsing for governor and the cost in
terms of stress, disagreement, fights and long-draw emotional arguments.
Of course, immediately I won the election, the biggest pressure was to
ensure that I didn’t regret the decision. One, the people of Lagos
State could have said: “We didn’t know the man you have brought and he
has turned the state upside down.” There are other sides to it that I
would want to keep to myself. As I have said time and time again, he
should sit down and write his memoirs so that people may know the story
of that election. This is what he should use to explain to Lagosians the
offers, the counter-offers and choices he made and why he, as it were,
went for broke. The question to ask is: What was his abiding commitment
after eight years as well as questions on who became governor, and who
did not? But, in terms of a next step from there, it is to say that it
is an enriching experience for our democracy, and not simply about me.
It is also about institution building in the sense that I have continued
to compare our 13-year journey in spite of its twists and turns with
those that we seek to benchmark ourselves against.
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