Update&Trending The track record of the Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Adeyemi Ikuforiji has put him in good stead in the governorship campaign, writes Shola Oyeyipo The quest for the Lagos State governorship seat after Governor Babatunde Fashola has continued to rage among some eminently qualified individuals across parties, but particularly the All Progressives Congress (APC). They include Senator Ganiyu Olanrewaju Solomon, former Commissioner for Rural Development, Mr. Tola Kasali; former Accountant-general in the state, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode; Commissioner for Works, Obafemi Hamzat; former Health Commissioner, Leke Pitan; a member of the state’s House of Assembly, Lanre Ope and the Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Adeyemi Ikuforiji. However, one issue that has continued to dominate discussion in the ruling party is that a thorough bred politician must replace the outgoing governor. This argument by its proponents is hinged on the fact that politicians who are actively engaged in the electoral successes of the APC are being left out of governance, thereby denied the opportunity of benefitting from their efforts. Though every one of the aspirants possesses requisite political pedigree that could qualify them for the job, Hon. Ikuforiji, a man who rose from a very humble beginning into political prominence in Lagos State, is definitely a factor in the election. First, he would easily benefit from the zoning arrangement of the APC which zones the governorship to Lagos East even though he currently represents Lagos West as a result of the flexible system in his party. Born some 56 years ago to late Chief Murtala Atanda Ikuforiji and late Alhaja Ibironke Ikuforiji (Nee Shabi) at Epe, he attended Local Authority Central School Epe, and graduated in 1969 and later proceeded to Epe Grammar School, Epe, where took the West African Secondary School Certificate Examination in June 1975. He put up an outstanding performance by setting new record in the old Epe Division. He also broke a four-year-long jinx by being the only candidate that obtained Division 1 out of the One Hundred and Five (105) students that sat for the examination that year. His performance earned him the Lagos State Government overseas scholarship to study in Romania and there, he studied at the Babes-Bolyai University and at the Academy of Economic studies, Bucharest, Romania, and later obtained Masters of Science degree in Economic Planning and Cybernetics in September 1981. In Romania, due to his brilliant academic performance, he won the Rector’s award for academic excellence in December 1980 and when he returned to Nigeria, he enrolled at the University of Lagos and was awarded Master of Business Administration (MBA) in 1986. He worked at the defunct International Bank for West Africa, which later became Afribank, now Keystone Bank. He left Afribank in 1992 to set up his own business outfit - Springfield Ventures Ltd which specialised on import/export, procurement and general contracting. He was also the Managing Partner of Next Century Systems Ltd, a computer consulting firm that developed the first indigenous comprehensive banking software package used in a number of banks in the country back then. Ikuforiji left Nigeria for the United States of America in 1998 and while there, he lectured Network Technology at Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, North Carolina. He also passed the qualifying examinations for the North Carolina Real Estate License, which enabled him to enter the money-spinning Real Estate business and instantly became a dealer in North Carolina. It will however not be out of place to infer that what laid the template for Ikuforijis sojourn into the political arena started in 1978 when he was elected the Secretary General of the National Union of Nigerian Students in Romania. At that time, he was also a delegate to the Conference of All Nigerians Overseas, which took place in London in 1979. He was later elected as the president, National Union of Nigerian Students in Romania between 1980 and 1981. And between 1982 and 1983, he served as the General Secretary, Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in Ward A4 Epe, and was an active member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) of the same ward in 1990. When he returned to Nigeria from the US to take part in the 2003 general election, he contested and won election to represent Epe Constituency I in the Lagos Fourth Assembly of the Lagos State House of Assembly on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). He claimed to have been motivated to join the race because of his love for good governance and passion to give his people quality representation. Ikuforiji emerged Speaker of the state assembly in December 2005 and has to his credit, the fact that he was elected to the exalted position without any rancor, in what observers consider a very rare achievement. The feat was made possible by the lawmaker’s level-headedness, ability to engage robust interpersonal relationship with people and excellent legislative and sound political leadership styles, which are characteristics that have helped him with other lawmakers in the assembly. When he was re-elected with a unanimous vote as Speaker at the inception of the sixth Assembly on June 4, 2007, it was the first time in the history of Lagos State that a person is made Speaker of the assembly for a second. He set yet another record in 2011 to make history as the first person in the history of the assembly to be elected Speaker for the third time. Watchers attribute his acceptance for a third term to his ability to effectively mobilise his 39 other colleague legislators for the transformation of that arm of government. To his credit today is a world class e-compliant state-of-the-art chamber which replaced the old one built 33 years ago. Then the first wing of a two-part multi storey complex to house all the elected legislators, their aides, and members of the assembly staff has since been completed, while work is 90 per cent completed on the second. Ikuforijis vision of transforming the Lagos House of Assembly into a model in the African continent could be said to have been largely accomplished. And that has placed Lagos State and Nigeria as a whole on the world radar of countries with state-of-the-art legislative chambers at the state level. When he was alive, late elder statesman, Chief Anthony Enahoro visited Ikuforiji on a courtesy call to commend the Speaker’s resolve to conduct legislative business in the state House of Assembly in Yoruba language, thus making the assembly the first to do so in the entire South-west of Nigeria. As the APC prepares for its primaries in Lagos, Ikuforiji is an aspirant that cannot be underestimated, especially being a politician that has occupied the strategic position of Speaker for three terms in the state’s body polity and who is also networking strongly with his politician colleagues in various other strata to create an upset. When he presented his 10-point agenda on how he would govern Lagos if elected governor recently, Ikuforiji vowed to complement the achievements of former governor, Bola Tinubu and Governor Fashola, to make Lagos a truly global city. He also promised to play clean politics. “As a technocrat and a widely-travelled politician, I will contribute my quota to the charting of a new trajectory for Lagos by ensuring that our politics is devoid of rancour. I will ensure that even to the most politically aloof Lagos resident, politics will be attractive and would no longer be perceived as a dirty game characterised by nepotism,” he promised. He promised that his administration would “combine the populist approach of Alhaji Lateef Jakande, the financial ingenuity of Asiwaju Tinubu and the vigour of Fashola,” to taking the state to the next level from 2015.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 06:10:26 +0000
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