Take me to your leader: Babatunde Fashola

Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State is considered something of an exception among Nigerian (and African) political leaders. For one, he reads. He is also “embarrassingly young.” More importantly, he governs a state that incorporates what is probably is Africa’s largest city, Lagos, with its 10 million people. (Lagos, defined as a megacity, is projected to have 15 million inhabitants by 2025). Fashola’s policy highlights includes: planned investment in infrastructure (bus transit and a commitment to high speed rail) and the public provision of AIDS drugs. He is not interested in making Lagos a European city “… because Europeans don’t live there.” But to make it a city where “life is sustainable.” Western elites are taking note.  If you haven’t heard of him, changes are your big town newspaper’s roving “African correspondent” will soon profile him. You can see Fashola in action at the LSE in front of London’s intellectual and policy elites here. I first heard of him because of his slick campaign to rebrand Lagos earlier this year. To see the campaign, see the videos on Youtube, especially the one above. Since I saw that video in April I wanted to learn more about him. I have asked contacts with knowledge of the city’s politics (I am being deliberately vague with their identities) what they thought of Fashola.

Below I print the responses of two of these. Here’s my first informant:

Fashola is a phenomenon … The media campaign is super slick I have to say. I hadn’t seen that first video [above] but that is a real image of Fashola that folks have of him.

Of course, there are a lot of politics here. Fashola was not [beholden to] the Yoruba elite when he first came into office. The story on the street was that he was told that if he didn’t start paying up he wouldn’t see a second term. His response was: “Only a dull child needs to repeat a class.” So when they tried to get him out of office, they underestimated the power of popular opinion and left him alone. People were like, keep your hands off him.

So, that particular representation [in the video above] really emphasizes and exaggerates the vernacular image and popularity – although he is certainly not an elite aristocrat. He drives his own car (no massive entourages) and plays football with his pals on Sundays … So he is seen as a man of the people–that image of him standing on the bus feels completely true to folks. In any case, he has to rely on this popular image and capitalize on it because as of now his former sponsor or godfather (the former governor) is no longer protecting his political power – well it’s more complicated than that but for the most part, popular power is key for him at the moment.

The reason why Action Congress probably took as many seats in the Southwest recently was most likely due to Fashola. The reason for the popularity is that he has been on a Lagos overhaul rampage. It’s been pretty incredible. Wherever you drive in Lagos, something is being repaired–roads, ditches, gutters. His biggest feat was clearing out the Osodi expressway which had pretty much turned into a market over the years. No one ever imagined that was possible. He offered the area boys jobs as city gardeners, etcetera. I get mixed responses as to where things stand with him now. Some say that the pace of his Lagos overall is waning, but others say it’s still good. There’s lots to say about the guy. Especially the impact he has had on other governors and questions of governance – he does not play and does not mince words.

He may be the only viable candidate for the presidency. But he is not a typical politician and never really aspired to be one. He kind of fell into the job. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he contested the presidency.

Here’s my second informant:

I’ve been thinking about what you wrote me about Fashola … I took an interest in him while I was there and saw him speak a couple of time … Most people really like him–”he gets things done”, etcetera–but don’t think he’ll be able to sustain a presidential bid without switching party. The only words of caution I heard were from a couple of well-informed veterans who alleged that he’s … not that corrupt in the scheme of things.

One thing that I remember is that at an event that was basically the civil society launch of the new FOIA [Freedom of Information Act], he offered a bizarre variation on the Blairite mantra of rights and responsibilities – according to Fashola, “rights end where responsibilities begin.”