The Many Things I Learnt From My Late Father, Lateef Jakande - Son, Hon. Seyi Jakande

 

Not too many young people these days will know late Alhaji Lateef Jakande. He was the Executive Governor of Lagos state from 1979 to 1983. He remains one of the most outstanding administrators to ever take charge of Lagos state. He introduced the free education system that changed the face of education in Lagos state. Most parents in Lagos at the time will remember him as the man whose educational policies enabled them to send their wards to school for free. Today, a lot of distinguished men and women in the society stand tall and proudly to speak of how Jakande’s free education gave them the privilege to go to school and become the accomplished personalities they have become today.

But the big news here is that one of late Alhaji Lateef Jakande’s sons, who’s also a politician like his father, is making a modest impact at the grassroots level. His name is Honourable Seyi Jakande and he’s the current vice chairman of Odi-Olowo/Ojuwoye LCDA. In a couple of months from now, the local government elections would be held and Hon. Seyi Jakande is vying for the position of chairmanship of the Odi-Olowo/Ojuwoye LCDA. His principal, the current chairman of the LCDA, Hon. Rasaq Olusola Ajala would be rounding off on his tenure by the time the elections would take place.

The excitement at the secretariat and indeed in the whole of Odi-Olowo Ojuwoye right now, in anticipation of Hon. Seyi’s emergence as the next duly elected Executive Chairman of the LCDA, is palpable. You could feel it the moment you step inside the secretariat. This is because everyone agrees that Hon. Seyi is the appropriate and deserving successor to the curent chairman. He is brilliant. He is very proactive. Hehas also garnered a lot of experience as vice chairman to Hon. Ajala. Many also are impressed with the fact that he served his principal, Hon. Ajala diligently and showed him total loyalty, which is why they both share a very close relationship till date. Hon. Ajala is also throwing his full weight behind his vice and is helping to ensure he succeeds him as the next Executive Chairman of Odi-Olowo/Ojuwoye.

Everyone loves Hon. Seyi mostly on account of his humility, something he obviously got from his father who was considered an extremely humble personality who never carried himself like he was any better than he next person.

Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290), spent well over an hour engaging this young and promising politician who is brimming with ideas on how to take Odi-Oowo/Ojuwoye LCDA to the next level if elected the next Executive chairman. He also shared with us some of the things he has been able to pick from his late dad and apply in his political journey so far. Enjoy excerpts.                  

Let me begin by saying that I am one of those who benefitted largely from late Lateef Jakande’s free education programme. He did very well. Now, I know you're well aware of the pressure the legacies of your father puts on you because once anyone hears the name Jakande, what immediately comes to mind is integrity, hard work, outstanding performance, selfless service. So, tell us, how much pressure do your father's legacies put on you?

Well, first let me start by thanking you as well, welcoming you, and also to let you know it's also a privilege to have you here. It's also a thing of joy that I'm talking to a product from Baba, people always say that Baba's products are not only his biological children. Baba had a lot of children, because if you have through public service, established institutions, systems that have to bring up people who are in various fields and putting all these things together, I think it's actually a good feat. So, I'm glad, and I'm happy to see, to witness some of his good deeds while he was here. I will say that you also were sending me more like a message to show appreciation to him. I will say that in showing appreciation to Baba, I think the greatest way we can actually appreciate what he has done is for us as a people to collectively come together and start to give back to society what we have gotten from him in all areas of life.

If somebody in his own wisdom has decided that his chosen path to follow is that of service to the people and being selfless, he then puts all his attributes together, but he left one that was very key and fundamental, which is contentment, right? Because, you see, you can’t give if you are greedy. You know, Baba was very content and I think that was a guiding principle behind his success because, you see, when you want to deliver service to people, you can't think about yourself. The people must come first. It's a responsibility that you have taken upon yourself to deliver. If you want to think about yourself, you stay in your private capacity, then nobody measures you apart from your family and your stomach. But when you're going out to the public, you must put that aside and see that your scale of measure is within what you are doing to the public. You have increased the size of what you need to give.

You must also be very conscious that you are not giving people from your personal pockets. You have been entrusted with funds to help to make decisions to create value for the real genuine owners of this fund, which is the public. It's just like putting money in a trust fund where you expect some form of quality of life, some form of quality of interest to get to you. So you must look at things from that perspective, and I think that is exactly what Baba has done.

So, going back to your question about the pressure Baba's legacies put on my shoulders, I've tried to give you a preamble so that you can understand. From what I've said, you can now answer the question. I think that from trying to emulate Baba's legacy, from you using your vantage position of who you are, being somebody that has benefited from Baba's system of governance, and somebody is now mandating you that you must also do the same, so you look at that pressure, how it's facing you physically, and you ask yourself, what are the immediate steps you must take? I can understand that the first reaction might be for the person to be sweating in an air-conditioned room because when you look at it, for me to be like Baba Jakande, that’s a very big shoe to wear. But we as his children and as his family, I believe that Baba made it quite easy for us. And I would say that with all sense of responsibility, that he made it quite easy for us to be able to emulate Him, for us to be able to follow his path.

You know, it's easy because of his ways and mode of leadership. He was always leading by example. Transparent leadership. I see us as taking the theoretical knowledge from Baba following the footsteps of Baba and then we see the practical, what he's doing outside. So, everything he has demonstrated in the public space is what he has taught us in his private space. So, it's easy. He was an open book.

He didn't have to come back home and explain himself and say, so, what you saw yesterday at the state house, you know, was a political statement. It's different from what I've been telling you. He never said such to us. So, it was quite easy for us. But then, we can't take away the pressure that comes with his legacies. What we have learned from it is to understand the main quality of recognizing your person, which is not literally attached to only being a Jakande. I think that relates to every human being, to have a self-assessment of your person. To know who you are.

At what point did you realize that you were going to toe Baba’s line? I ask this question because, with the little I know of him, I can't picture him sitting his kids down to say, you must follow my footsteps and become a politician, it doesn't fit into the kind of personality we knew of him. So, at what point did you realize that this was the line you were going to follow?

So, again, yes, you're right. Baba was very liberal. He never dictated to us. We had the liberty to choose our various chosen fields of career. Of course, he would give you a guide, give you advice, but, you know, you have the absolute choice at the end of the day. He was liberal when it comes to religion. It should interest you that half of his children are Christians, half are Muslims. Yes, he was an Alhaji, his wife was an Alhaja. All of us went through the Quranic schools growing up, but it gets to a point you have the liberty to take the decision of what religion you want to go with. You know, so in terms of choice of decisions and all of that, he's very, very liberal. And you asked at what point? Personally, in my opinion, from experience with Baba, I don't see politics the way it's being done now. I don't think politics should be a career.

Just like when people try to abstain from politics and say, no, no, no, these are politicians, don’t mix with them, all politicians are liars. They play dirty politics and all of that. There's nothing like dirty politics. What we have is dirty people playing politics in their own dirty ways. So, there are classifications. But you see, we are all just all surrounded with all of those words that only exist within our own space and people now are used to it, and that gives credit to where we now have this voters apathy because some people believe politics is for crooks and hooligans. And then a few people are left with the responsibilities to decide what happens to the vast majority of Nigerians, it shouldn’t be like that. We all have a responsibility to collectively participate in the process of moving the country forward.

What is your assessment of politics generally in Nigeria, and Lagos in particular? What are your general impressions of how politics is being played right now?

I think I mentioned that the politics that is being played now is not efficient and it cannot be effective, right? Because the essence of politics itself is governance. You can't take governance away from politics. For governance, politics is all about democracy, the greatest good for the greatest number of people. So you must have people that have the genuine empathy and not just a kind of personal passion. Because people try to show that they are passionate about people only for them to get their votes. So you must look at the background. Where are you coming from? Where have you discovered this passion from? A lot of people wake up from their sleep and say, I want to lift my people up. So, people must create that time to understand the movement. And most importantly, you must participate. People must come to that space so that they are able to actively get involved and not just sit around and criticise. We have too many people sitting on the fence. And I will tell you, clearly, when you flash back at all levels of governance, I mean all the governments that we have had in the history of this country, perhaps even way back from the Second Republic, you realize that it is easy, very easy for people to gather numbers together for protests. It is easy for us to go on strike. And these are demonstrations against policies of governments.

You can think back and see the number of people that have come together to generate protests and go against government policies. However, less than 10% of these people are not eligible voters, but they do not participate in the process of voting. Whereas when it comes to the process of voting, if you ask most Nigerians, they will tell you there is a long queue for them to go and get registered, and even then when you go to the voting center, it is kind of very cumbersome, that's what they say all the time. But when you look at the process of protests, sometimes you have to walk long distance to carry out the demonstration. Whereas, it takes you a few minutes, maybe an hour, to exercise your civic responsibility, so if more people will show more responsibility and patriotism, so that we can all put our heads together, put these numbers together and achieve the unachievable .You see, we must start to have a process that will bring the best of us, because governance is about presenting the best of all of us to administer what is for all of us, and not to administer for yourself. So, at all times, we must strive to choose the best for all of us.

How can you describe how politics started for you?

How? I would say politics, like I said, is not a career. And I would say, if I want to satisfy your expectation, I was born into politics.

You were explaining that transition before we threw another question at you, which was the question about at what point you decided you were going into politics and follow Baba’s footsteps. Share with us whatever it was you were doing as a private person before venturing into politics?

So, I think, like I said, I've answered that question, right? But obviously, your question and expectation of my answer demands a bit of clarity. The thing is that, we all assume that you're not a politician until you aspire. So when people see you aspiring, they say, when did you start politics? When did you join politics? So there's been link of the two, that for you to be a politician, they will see your banner. Like my friend here, now, we say he's not a politician, but once they see his banner next to me, they will ask, when did you start politics? When did you join politics? So people try to draw a line there. But for me, I think showing aspiration towards certain positions of office takes a lot of responsibility, first of all. And then it takes a lot of re-evaluation of the task at hand, understanding it, and then believing that you have the capacity to actually deliver on it.

So, of course, because the process that we practice in this part of the world is democracy and you must have gone through those stages in order for you to be able to meet up, that does not literally mean that is when you started politics. So, having defined that method of politics, I'll take you back to how I started politics, which brings me back to the answer that I gave to you, that I was born into politics. And then we're all political animals. But when you now come from under the kind of environment that you came out from and people say, when did you start politics? Then you have to look at the date. Did you graduate from it? When did you give the date? How did you come about the date? What has validated that particular date? And the date you actually gave, who has certified it? So many questions around it.

Okay, before we move on to other questions, I would like to take this one last question that still revolves around Baba. If you look back, what are some of the things that you can say Baba taught you or that you learned from him and you apply to your everyday interaction and dealings with people?

Well, you see, its quite unfortunate that we, the immediate family I mean, we didn't have the luxury of what we can actually say that is special to us with Baba. Baba was father to all. He was fair to everybody. And he treated everybody as his children, you know. And I'll give an example, like, when Baba was building the public schools, you know, you just told me that you’re a product of that public school and without the public school, you would not be where you are today. In other words, you are also a product of the same system, right? And when he built those schools, he moved all of us, his children, from the private school to those public schools.

So that's why, and I explained moments ago, that the only difference between what Baba has done for you and me is the blood that we, his biological children share together with him. You know, he gave everything he has freely to everybody, and it was not just in the public space alone. For instance, if you go to Baba and say you need his assistance, you’re looking for employment or for any kind of assistance, Baba attends to everybody. He puts a pen on his paper, gives you a recommendation letter to the company of your choice. The only difference in the letter he would write to you and me is that he wl indicate that ‘he’s my son,’ but everything else is the same. He writes the letter and he signs it and he tells you, if you have any problem, my number is there, call me. He's never going to ask what tribe you are from, where you are from, or what religion you practice, all of that never mattered to him and his door was open to everybody. And he did that to his very last day.