BEHIND THE SCENE NOTE FROM EDITOR'S DESK
What does it take to be a ‘Man of the Year’? It is a mix of status conferring and honour of heroic garb apiece. In broad definition, it is described as a title used to recognise a person who has influenced events in the previous year. To confirm it as a media affair, all source of its definition says it can refer to an “award given by a news organisation or to special issue” of the news organisation. Wikipedia on its part says it is an award given by any organisation, (and) “most often, it is given by a newspaper or other news outlet to annually recognise a public figure”.
To establish that it is beyond the conventional honourary awards, this definer says further that “the Award can be facetious or serious. The chosen is usually someone who has been notably influential or prominent during the year and could also be a hero or villain”. Suffice to say that it could not be out of place for a bloke to be a ‘Man of the Year’ for reasons antithetical to societal values. In such a case, it does not come as honour, but an acknowledgement of the event or the issue involved as worthy of historical episode.
And to establish its core value, the global encyclopaedia says for worthy of note: “It is extremely oriented, unlike most awards. It’s given to someone who has no affiliation with the awarding organisation”. This last sentence should make the defining factor to assert the credibility of this recognition because the awardee, Hon Kunle Sanyaolu Olowoopejo (KSO) could as well never expect this to come from the corridor of Civics Weekly Magazine.
In the evaluation of Panel of Judges that sat over this edition’s Civics Council Chairman of the Year, the two others shortlisted in close run-up included the Executive Chairman of Alimosho Local Government, Hon Suleimon Jelili, and the Executive Chairman of Ayobo/Ipaja LCDA, Hon (Chief) Bolatito Shobowale. In the case of Hon Jelili, his shindig of face-off with the Lagos State House of Assembly made a significant issue. His consequential suspension from office and the attendant matters arising truly brought him to prominence and it raised constitutional issues that resonated across the country. But in the consensus of opinions of the five-man panellist, the undertow of the issue did not appear to conform to this year’s requirement. In other words, whether his connecting issue could be villainous or heroic, he could have qualified to be one, but the requirement for this year’s variation – ‘Council Chairman of the Year’ – dropped him to the first runner-up position.
In the case of Hon Bolatito Shobowale, the female among all, the controversy over her absence from office made a significant issue that influenced local government matters in the state for the year 2024. In part, it was also found to raise a constitutional issue on removal of a council chairman from office under the circumstance of ‘incapacitation’ occasioning a long time absence from duty. The panellist also found “a nexus of privacy” to the undertow issue. Thus again, it was dropped outright without further considerations.
In the stumps of 2023 elections, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came to Alimosho to rouse the people of Idimu enclave into political activism against the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State. Its Deputy Governorship Candidate, Funke Akindele-Bello, stood at the heart of a dilapidated Pipeline Road to condemn the ruling party for the neglect of a vital road artery for years spanning the return of this democracy over 24years back. Hyped by the vicious amplification by the social media, the issue resonated across Nigeria to the extent that then Presidential Candidate of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who had temporary settled in the North for his campaign, was reached with the consequential shindig. The manner of response to the wave of the noise by the jurisdictional Council Chairman also became stunning controversially, vibrating across the state. Coincidentally, it became another state-wide influential issue to emanate from Alimosho. In content, therefore, the underpinning requirement of “heroic performance influenced by a mix of local and national politics” was readily established by the Panellists. At end of the day, Hon Olowoopejo of Egbe-Idimu LCDA scaled all odds to emerge with the ennobling honour of Civics Council Chairman of the Year 2024. And to establish the veracity of the inherent credibility of the award, this edition brings forth the spotlight story on the awardee’s over 7years in office so far. The intro of the whole narration is here published online because sweetness of the pod, as they say, is in the taste. We enjoin you as readers to go out Grab Your Hard Copy afterwards to read details about the man “KSO” – widely acknowledged as the “Aibu” (most generous) of a governance era – in an enthralling glossy pages with attractive and stunning pictures of his ‘On-duty’ profiles.
THE PUBLICATION STORY BY RAZAQ A. JIMOH & MARIAM BALOGUN
It must be a great feat of creative ingenuity for any Council Chairman in Lagos State to perform wonders of developmental strides amidst the Council’s civil servant administrators they have to operate with. The Pipeline Road project recently commissioned and delivered to the public by the Executive Chairman of Egbe-Idimu Local Council Development Area, Hon Kunle Sanyaolu Olowoopejo (“KSO”), would have to be seen in the light of such creative ingenuity. It is a perfect case as much as it is a show of his effective nuances required to work through the audacious powers of his civil servant administrators’ counterpart in running the Council.
Surely, the benign KSO must be in a class of his own to have embarked upon and surprisingly completed this benighted and grossly dilapidated lengthy road of significant commercial value, which had hitherto defied all attempts by previous administrations of the state and those of his local government before him. In truth, the Pipeline Road could not have been the worst of Lagos arterial roads to suffer governance neglect. There are a thousand and one with far worse conditions of eyesore ecological erosions, which could only put the residents in mere exasperation and forlorn. It is nevertheless informing that politics would have to define the case of this Pipeline Road as previously neglected and as currently uplifted.
It may not be known to many that part of the impediments to getting it fixed was the politics of anti-Tinubu cause malignantly pursued in the locust years of PDP by its Southwest National Vice Chairman of the yester years PDP, Chief Olabode George. Curiously, as so divined, it would yet meet its fate of attention and completion out of a politics of PDP/APC electioneering stumps of 2023. To the extent that KSO seized the opportunity of time to make an elixir of immortality for himself with construction of the road, it is a feat to be seen in the realm of creativity at governance. It is also to be seen as his ginger treading through the thorny path of powers in politics and in his council administration. The clarity of his nuances through these two shall become clearer in due course.
With the great transformation Olowoopejo did at the Pipeline Road, deservedly now Kunle Sanyaolu Avenue, it should be well reassuring that there are greater feats to be achieved at the local government administration level if the right metrics of its leadership enthronement is adequately reformed. The reformation in reference here goes far beyond the rhetoric of local government autonomy mantra in vogue – whether by the Supreme Court financial autonomy or the anticipated National Assembly’s fiscal autonomy… CONTINUES IN THE PUBLISHED HARD COPY EDITION OF 24/02/2025
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