At the time he died last Thursday, Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande, LKJ was undoubtedly the role model for good governance with legacies spread around Lagos.
So impactful was his touch on society that ahead of the 1983 election that those plotting to rig the election in some Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN controlled states knew better not to touch Lagos. That was essentially given the phenomenal imprints he had put on the ground in his first term.
The memory of LKJ and some of his colleagues within the Second Republic refreshes the ideological orientation of the political magnificence of that technology.
Jakande’s UPN had its 4 cardinal programmes of rural incorporated development, free obligatory education at all stages, complete employment and loose fitness for all.
Jakande by using and large pursued those programmes or even more. It is remarkable that one of the legacies he's great remembered for is housing which substantially changed into not many of the UPN’s cardinal programmes. But thru the Jakande Estates dotted around the then rural regions of Lekki, Ajah, Mile Two and so, the programme of rural-urban integration became driven.
While the UPN governors pursued their structures with gusto, the National Party of Nigeria, NPN, become also recognized to have pursued its programme of housing for all with comparable gusto. The federal management constructed and commissioned housing estates across the country known as Shagari homes.
The opposition by using the UPN and the NPN to deliver on their structures became a healthy opposition that helped to further development.
None of the five civilian governors who followed matched him inside the delivery of democracy dividends to the voters.
But for a man with such veritable legacies on floor, it is incredible that he died a diminished political entity. It is doubtful if he may want to have weighed influence within the election of his councilor in Ilupeju after 1999.
Though he was a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, the birthday celebration seemingly did no longer bother to accomplice with him.
Jakande did not come into the political terrain as many others. He came well prepared after a a hit stint as a journalist and newspaper manager.
Having related to Chief Obafemi Awolowo from the fifties, he was a part of the inner caucus who organized the coverage framework for the UPN during the pre-registration conferences that regularly happened at Awolowo’s residence at Apapa.
By the time the birthday celebration changed into registered and he changed into ultimately elected as governor, Jakande went on to enunciate programmes and initiatives that defined his legacy. Perhaps one mission to be able to maintain to hang-out many within the APC is the abandonment of the metro line.
At the flag-off of the assignment in July 1983, Jakande who became not given to self-adulation was pronounced to have said that the metro line project turned into one which generations in 100 years’ time might thank his management for.
However, six months later, he turned into out of office after the Muhammadu Buhari coup and the project turned into scuttled albeit with top notch monetary fee on Lagos State. The military government ‘diagnosed’ it as a white elephant mission.
Had that metro line venture been allowed to continue, not simplest wouldn't it have addressed these days’s transportation chaos in Lagos, it'd additionally have shone as an example worthy of emulation through other components of the u . S . A ..
Indeed, given his achievement as governor even at the same time as nonetheless in workplace, the idea of Jakande succeeding Awolowo started to crystalise and he started out to be referred to as Baba Kekere.
After Awolowo’s demise in 1987, and because the united states of america edged towards the Third Republic, Jakande had become about the maximum distinguished political character in Lagos State.
His choice of his trustworthy adherent, Femi Agbalajobi over Dapo Sarunmi to be candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP for the Lagos State Governorship Election of 1990 tore the innovative camp asunder.
Sarumi with the heavy cash and subsidized through the Gen. Musa Shehu Yar‘Adua tendency fought Jakande/Agbalajobi to standstill in the SDP. It become a warfare of wits that resulted in a battle of mutual destruction.
One of the operatives of the Sarumi camp become one Mr Bola Ahmed Tinubu who at that point inside the past due eighties had not too lengthy in the past just retired as an govt with Mobil Oil.
In the stop, the army regime intervened and each Agbalajobi and Sarumi have been removed from the contest. In the repeat number one, Yomi Edu who became appeared as a fabricated from the Sarumi tendency emerged as a candidate.
His preference of Awolowo’s daughter, Mrs Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu became visible as a sop to Jakande and the Agbalajobi tendency. However, it turned into flatly rejected.
Jakande then decided to show his manipulate of the Lagos political subject inside the major election among the SDP’s Edu and the National Republican Convention’s candidate of Otunba Michael Otedola.
Despite having complete manipulate of the State House of Assembly, the SDP within the most important election vastly lost the governorship office to the NRC’s candidate.
That became due to the fact on election eve, the Jakande tendency unfold out the word to vote Otedola in place of Edu.
By showing his political strength and savvy he confirmed that he become the supremo in the progressives’ camp. But many apparently never forgave him. One of folks who seemingly never forgave him became that younger operative, Mr Tinubu who turned into at that time at the beck and call of Sarumi.
Later as governor, Tinubu kept his distance from Jakande regardless of the phenomenal programmes and initiatives of the LKJ years.
Another spot on Jakande’s wonderful political sojourn changed into his journey into the Sani Abacha authorities. Though he entered the authorities as was agreed by Yoruba elders and achieved creditably as secretary of housing improvement, he alongside other Yoruba elders while asked to depart rejected the decision.
That changed into what drew the curtain to an eventful political swagger throughout Lagos. He lived on, but, till final Thursday. But his legacies dotted around Lagos and the ladies and men he raised thru establishments he created will also undergo greater.
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