BY HAKEEM BELLO
With yearly tributes over the past decade focusing on various attributes of Babatunde Raji Fashola, it is almost tempting to ask: what is left to be said?
But, for a devoted public servant who, in over two decades, has left his imprimatur of dedication and single-minded pursuit of excellence as Chief of Staff and Commissioner in the administration of the current president as governor of Lagos sufficiently to earn his support as aspirant, candidate and two-term governor of the state and then capturing national attention as a Minister of the Federal Republic for two terms, the ink can never go dry on his essence.
But BRF, as he is commonly known, at the outset, did not find public service attractive.
Indeed, before being literally conscripted to serve as Chief of Staff to now-President Bola Tinubu, he had put in 14 years of private legal practice.
If BRF left indelible marks in his eight-year tenure as governor of Lagos State and offered leadership, in the truest sense of the word in his two-term tenure as Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he was no less a “torrent of activity.”
Taken from a tribute by Douglas Martin to the person after whom the ICG Award was named, Stephen J. Solarz, a former nine-term New York congressman, whose “torrent of activity” was then appropriately listed, Fashola’s activities and accomplishments as federal minister would fill pages.
Unpacked in numbers, it would include the completion of the construction and rehabilitation of 13,117km out of the over 19,000km of roads and bridge infrastructure as well as other Housing Sector activities being worked on in 1,712 contracts and 1,649 projects being supervised as at May 2023; presenting and receiving approval for 336 Federal Executive Council memos; touring the country fully by road to conduct inspection on 206 projects; visiting the National Assembly for legislative accountability over 90 times; and the activation of the economy of quantities supplied by sub-contractors in bitumen, laterite, sand, diesel and other inputs for road construction and other building materials at an unprecedented level.
However, while this is commendable, Fashola believes that infrastructure is a means to a bigger end in terms of its multiplier effect and impact in creating prosperity among the citizenry. “… During this period, the people I interacted with, the workers, the artisans, the people asphalting our roads, the food vendors, the suppliers, painters, people who roof houses, those are the people for whom those things are initiated. But people don’t see them, I saw them. I have data on many of them in terms of the numbers we impacted, how many small businesses got to supply sands, roofing sheets, paints, cables, asphalt, and all of that, because that is really what infrastructure is all about; driving the economy, creating jobs, creating livelihoods for families. So, for me that was the big thrill.”
As the administration of former President Buhari wound down, BRF intensified his focused activities towards fulfilling his ministerial mandates and also making important clarifications.
On the last but one working day of the Administration, BRF was at work in Akure to carry out his duty and push forward the frontiers of public discourse while flagging of the Akure–Ado Ekiti road’s expansion and reconstruction having finally overcome the “procurement” hurdles of source of funding and redesigning of the vital road to the people of Ondo and Ekiti States.
As a ringside observer and participant since our first meeting sometime in 2006, I have often wondered about the driving force(s) behind this unrelenting hard worker. Some of these I have discovered are the products of parental upbringing, training as a lawyer and, most importantly, an unsparing self-discipline and self-development.
Of course, from loathing public service as a young adult and passing through the tutelage of the one who eventually drafted him into it – Governor Bola Tinubu – he has come to appreciate the importance of public service.
Back to the matter of driving force, I found my nearest answer recently in yet another end-of-tenure interview for the programme, “Conversations with History” on NTA.
The probing anchor of the personality programme, Thecla Wilkie, had towards the end, and seemingly out of the blue, opted to revisit his 2015 screening by the National Assembly and the famous statement, “May your loyalty not be tested…”
He declared: “I don’t pledge loyalty, because you don’t know how that loyalty will actually be tested. So, I am loyal to you as my sister or my brother, will I take a bullet for you? So don’t even pledge it, do it when it comes because you don’t know how it will come. And that was the context in which I said what I was quoted to have said.
“I have seen, and this is a very humbling story of life for me. There was a family who had a parent who needed medical help. First, they struggled to get the financial means. Having now got the financial means, it was now who among the children would donate a kidney to save their mother’s life. And they fought to the bitterest end. ‘She’s your mother, No she’s your mother too.’ That was their test of loyalty to their mother, but they loved their mother. I saw that first-hand as Governor. I went back and asked myself what’s happening here. That was their loyalty call, they failed the mother that gave them life. It was something I reflected on and I look back again at all of the stories of loyalty and all I see really is that life is a story of betrayals. But it’s a story for another day.”
Having done so much in your 60 years, another decade, indeed decades of wonderful memories and accomplishments beckon from today to a man who is Almighty God’s gift to humanity, nation, family and friends. Sixty hearty cheers to a man who is tested and trusted, not by mouthing loyalty but by living loyally to his chosen noble causes.
For me and the b.diRect Team, we say thank you for being an impactful part of our lives, and happy birthday sir!
.Bello, FNGE, is Special Adviser, Communications to the immediate past Minister of Works and Housing
