EXPRESSO By STEVE OSUJI

Nothing really. Yes, for one who has watched Lagos evolve from Baba Lateef Kayode Jakande, the inimitable LKJ, to the current charade in the Round House, we can confidently say nothing.

Kadiri Obafemi Hamzat, KOH, who will be the next governor of Lagos State in 2027 if our Lord tarries, may never be able to impact the mega state appropriately no matter how hard he tries.

THE MONSTER THAT VANQUISHED LAGOS…

Let’s start from the beginning. As we say in my place when a problem becomes intractable and defies all solutions, it is said that the monster that vanquished him is still holding him. In street parlance, we say: the thing wey kill am, still hol’ am. More appropriately, the thing wey kill Lagos no gree release am!

Femi Hamzat as we knew him is the current deputy governor of Lagos State. He’s a hard-core Lagos establishment fella having been in the system since 2005. He is a dyed-in-the-wool Tinubu acolyte though more educated and technocratic than the ‘apes obey’ kind. Though a naturalised Lagosian, he’s of Ogun roots and indeed, he’s royalty.

Well read, studied up to doctoral level in IT and Computing in England, he is steeped in the Lagos state bureaucracy. Femi is arguably the best man for the Lagos top job come 2027.

But as the whole world knows, the big job in Lagos has long ceased to be owned by the man on the seat. Since 1999, this most important subnational assignment in Nigeria has been hijacked by a godfather, a leviathan who determines whom to hand it to each election circuit.

Right now, Femi has been graciously given the nod. He’s the anointed one and it’s a fait accompli. By hook or by crook, Femi will be the next governor of Lagos State.

So long as there’s a semblance of an election, whether the people want him or not. If you don’t vote, they will vote on your behalf. This has been the pattern since 1999. The owner of Lagos has seized the entire space. He commands all the strongholds in the state so much so that no opposing party can win election in Lagos state today. It’s doubly difficult now that Baba is the lord of Asia Rock, Abuja.

It’s not enough to be in his party, you will do well to be in his corner, then in his good books and finally, work your pants off to earn his approval for the guber diadem.

This is what Femi has achieved. He has Baba’s nod, he has the party ticket in his suit pocket.

Odds are that he will win the election.

Then what?

TICKET TO NOWHERE:

Nigerians know too well what happens when a godfather avails you an election ticket and goes on to help you grab the chair. The Lagos example is in full view of all.

Babatunde Fashola and Akinwunmi Ambode lived in the days of innocence. They managed to get away with some exploits – developmental exploits for the state and people.

But Governor Ambode was almost going to overreach himself. He got on the overdrive in his first term. He sidelined the bogus Governor’s Advisory Council, GAC.

Where in the world does an elected governor of a state surrounded by a GAC telling him what to do. That sounds like a GAG! That’s no longer democracy.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the first governor at the dawn of the 4th Republic in 1999 didn’t have a GAC. He would never have accepted one. You wouldn’t dare. He was like an emperor. But today, he is the god_father of the state. He has hamstrung all the governors after him with GAC, a bunch of party stalwarts who have little vision for the state and very narrow ideas about development. They think politics, they eat politics. But policy is almost anathema to them.

Yet an elected governor is supposed to take direction and indeed, directives from this crowd that in turn, derives its powers from one man. What manner of democracy is this?

POOR, POOR LAGOS

Lagos has suffered immensely from this twisted arrangement. Most of her contemporaries have left her far behind in the last three decades.

For instance, Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, China was a fishing village in 1979. Lagos was already a major city basking in petrodollars.

Today, Shenzhen is described as a ‘hypermodern metropolis’ with its population jumping from a mere thirty thousand to about 17 million.

It leads innovation and technology with futuristic facilities and amenities. Lagos is a slum in comparison

On the contrary, Lagos has deteriorated so much in the last 30 years of Tinubu’s iron clasp hegemony.

Today, Lagos still contends with mundane things like managing of human wastes, unpaved dirt roads and primitive environmental stench.

The last seven years have been a curse in the annals of Lagos State. These are years better to be forgotten. With the ousting of Ambode after the first term and the installation of Jide Sanwoolu, it was as if the state shut down. One wonders if the incumbent is allowed to dream dreams or actualise a project of his own vision. It’s obvious that he’s devoid of a mind of his own and probably can’t sign off on a couple of millions without clearance from above. A state governor who has little influence on the state legislator and who has no say on the running of the LGAs is obviously, not fit to be.

But this is the state of Lagos today.

Yet Lagos generates enough resources to track benchmark cities like Dubai even if it doesn’t match them.

Naira has rained in trillions in the last three years. Local councils can be mandated to pave a hundred streets each per year. But they hardly do anything.

For many years, our communities are bereft of any form of government presence in Lagos. And nobody cares. Yet LGA receive hundreds of billions monthly. Where’s all the money gone?

WHAT CAN HAMZAT DO?

It’s too early and even presumptuous to talk about KOH as governor now but the earlier these questions are asked, the better for all. What really is the seat in Alausa worth today?

Before Tinubu became president, a governor in Lagos could bluff a little, hiding under Abuja. But when your godfather has become a god, you might as well worship him on all fours.

So long as Tinubu remains president of Nigeria, any governor in Lagos is a robot with its console in Aso Rock, Abuja.

Just as Sanwoolu has been a puppet, so will Femi Hamzat be for four years if he wins. And one wagers that all things being equal, he may serve for just four years as a placeholder (fidihe) for a certain Mr. SEYI YOUKNOWWHO.

The hegemony has to be sustained onto generations doesn’t it!

KOH, EKO E RE!

Kadiri Obafemi Hamzat, this is your Lagos today, as we say in Lagos. Your hands would be tied to your back as governor. Even Fashola with his high-octane work ethic was able to snatch some legacy from the jaws of the godfather.

Ambode too moved earth massively in just a few years, laying some markers before he was short-circuited.

You’re never gonna get a moment in the sun. You will bear the title governor but you would be voided of the power and authority to governnir execute.

You have a good education; great hands-on experience, technical capacity (though not Fashola’s charisma, you’re accused of a touch of haughtiness) but these qualities will amount to nought without executive powers. E KOH E RE!

LASTLINE:

HOW MANY NIGERIANS ARE HELD IN THE FOREST?

In some thick, dark forests in Zamfara, Borno, Kwara and Oyo, to name the ones we know, hapless Nigerians are held in captivity without any hope of coming out alive.

Oyo is particularly pathetic. Little children who are still under the shadows of their mothers, taken away 40 days on. Trauma what is thy colour?

In Zamfara, frustrated elders who couldn’t go to their farms anymore chose to dialogue with the bandits to strike a truce.

At the venue, on the appointed day, the elders were marched into the bush by the bandits. All fifty of them. Their governor, Mohammed Lawal has disowned them. “You’re on your own,” he told them in a public statement. They are still there. But if the elders know the bandits, how come Mr Governor doesn’t know them?

In Kwara, there are at least three different cases in three different communities of Omugo, Woro Adanla with varying numbers of compatriots still stranded in the bush with their captors. For many, ongoing since last year, the state may have given up on them, or forgotten them even. Who will deliver the people?

Whence a country?###