By Bayo Osiyemi
Babajide Olusola Sanwoolu has won a second term as governor of the Centre of Excellence.
His return is hinged on certain factors, chief of which is REALISM.
It is real that God is alive and well. Unlike mere mortals who are most times open to negative influences and wrong and hateful judgements, the Almighty God sits in cathedral majesty over the affairs of man: He does not, like mortal men of justice, pronounce the innocent as guilty or robe the incompetent in the garb of the genius.
In almost four years of a nerve-wracking first term as governor, he has come off as an administrator with a genuine fear of God who lives in God and in whom God lives. How do I mean?
Unlike some others in his privileged and authority-infested position, he did not remove or replace officers in the state service system on the account of their belonging to the administration he succeeded, neither did he abandon projects inherited from them.
To him, being appointed by his predecessor is not sufficient reason to have their careers or appointments truncated. He has a large heart that made room for such officers (and there are a few of such people in the system) to cohabit in his space with ease, believing in the Words of the Holy Book that, if one’s ways are pleasing in the sight of God, he will make such person live in peace with his enemies. Sanwo-Olu gave such people an opportunity to rethink their commitment or battle with their conscience till the day of godot.
God gave Sanwo-Olu the grace of heart to tolerate such people, some of who, as things turned out, cuddled their treachery to the point of being enemies within, who secretly schemed with the enemies without, to end his tenure abruptly. But, because Sanwo-Olu is of God, he survived the evil machinations of such internal ingrates.
His largeness and purity of heart made him think, in conformity with commonsense and realism, that government is a continuum and therefore “abandoned projects” should not have a place in his own political lexicon. That is why what could have become abandoned and unsightly projects in the state today are beaconing sites of beauty, the upcoming glittering high rise buildings on the foreshore, inward Ikoyi from the “Babangida Bridge”, otherwise known as Third Mainland Bridge, abandoned by a previous administration, being classic examples of reference.
Sanwoolu governed the state with empathy, such that no bereaved or traumatised home in the state was too unimportant to be touched with his compassion. Or, didn’t the Scripture talk of a gladdening heart and a compassionate soul?
God can never pay gratitude with ingratitude!
Governance is a serious business that does not permit infantile showmanship and comical ineptitude. It demands brilliance, knowledge, experience, hard work and a positive outlook. Sanwoolu has exhibited not a little imagination and dazzling brilliance that are confounding in all of his first term as governor.
Above all, the petite nimble man of inexhaustible energy proved himself uncommon the way he rose above the adversity placed in his way by corvid epidemic that ravaged homes in the city, as well as the ENDSARS protests that have now turned out to be the handiwork of enemies of the state who shamelessly now want to profit from the ruins brought on the state by the mindless destruction that attended the EndSars nonsense. As it is now revealed and unrepudiated, Chinedu Rhodes-Vivour is a pawn in the hands of the grandmasters and the real arcitects of ENDSARS in Lagos, who as the face of the infamous ENDSARS suddenly emerged to want to “conquer” Lagos State. Who does not think that the bones of the true indigenes/architects of the state like first administrator, Brigadier Mobolaji Johnson and first civilian governor Alhaji Lateef Jakande turned in their graves in fierce protest against the ENDSARS protesters who wished to inherit their Labour of love on Lagos State? Again, does God ever reward ingratitude with gratitude? Didnt all the Holy Books admonish us that what you sow, is what you will reap?
Let all the accolades pour in and let’s outdo the comical Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State in dancing heartily to the deserved victory of Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwoolu, and the eternal damnation of his unfair and heinous traducers.
