Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Friday gave a ringing endorsement of his Deputy, Dr. Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, for Governor of Lagos State, saying Lagos has never been offered a candidate who has run this close, this long, beside the governor he hopes to succeed.
Sanwo-Olu spoke at the Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and Creative Arts, National Theatre, Iganmu, as Special Guest of Honour at Hamzat’s presentation of his manifesto, “The Lagos PROMISE.”
Opening with a personal story from September 2018, Sanwo-Olu recalled that Hamzat wanted to be Governor and had the record and support to win, but party leaders asked him to step aside for him.
“Many men would have done it and nursed the wound. Some would have done it and plotted. Femi Hamzat did it, shook my hand, and five weeks later agreed to run beside me,” Sanwo-Olu said. “I have never forgotten that.”
The Governor said for 2,711 days as Deputy, Hamzat proved what he is like when cameras are gone.
“When the first case of COVID-19 in Nigeria arrived in this city, and we had to shut down the largest city in Africa with no manual and no warning, he was in the room. In October 2020, in the hardest week this administration has ever known, he was in the room. When the Blue Line ran its first train, when the Red Line opened, when the first ship came into the Lekki Deep Sea Port, he was in the room,” he said.
“In many states, a deputy is given an office, an official car and very little to do. He is kept in reserve. In his first days, Femi Hamzat told staff he intended to be the best deputy governor in the history of Lagos State. I am here to report that he kept his word.”
Sanwo-Olu said in seven years he never once wondered whose side his deputy was on, a rarity in Nigerian politics where governor-deputy feuds have torn states and parties apart.
“In Lagos, there has been one government, one direction and one voice. That did not happen by accident,” he said.
Framing Lagos governance as a relay race, Sanwo-Olu said the state has thrived for 27 years because the baton was never handed to a man standing still.
“Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu ran the first leg. He passed it to Babatunde Fashola, who had been running beside him as Chief of Staff. Fashola passed it to Akinwunmi Ambode, who had run beside three governors. When the baton came to me in 2019, I had been running since 2003,” he said.
“And Femi Hamzat? Commissioner under Asiwaju. Commissioner under Fashola. Deputy Governor beside me for seven years. No deputy governor in the history of this state has ever been handed the baton.”
He traced Hamzat’s record: in 2005 as Commissioner for Science and Technology, he put Lagos government on computers, cleaned ghost workers and laid groundwork for residents’ registration; as Commissioner for Works under Fashola, he built roads across five divisions and delivered the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge; as Works Minister’s aide in Abuja, he built roads for Nigeria.
“Lagos does not hand the baton to a man standing still. And look at what he did while he ran!”
On criticisms that Lagos recycles the same circle, Sanwo-Olu replied: “I say Lagos trains its people. A city of more than 23 million people is not a place for a first job.”
He listed current projects mid-delivery, second phases of Blue and Red Lines, Fourth Mainland Bridge, Lekki-Epe International Airport, Omu Creek project, food hubs and a plan to 2052, warning they survive only when the baton is not dropped.
“This is not the time to experiment with Lagos. This is the time to consolidate. Continuity does not mean repeating ourselves. It means finishing what was started, fixing what is not working, and starting what comes next.”
Sanwo-Olu said his proudest legacy is not concrete but a quarrel-free succession.
“Across this country, successions have ended in courtrooms. In Lagos, the governor and his deputy walked into this hall together. They will walk out together. And in May, one of them will hand the other a state that is whole.”
He urged Hamzat to keep listening, finish the work, and when his time comes, hand over to someone who understands Lagos’ journey.
He also praised Hamzat’s running mate, Princess Damilola Sonayon-James, for bringing Lagos West and Badagry, women and youth to the front row, and urged APC members, who voted 657,917 for Hamzat in the May 21, 2026 primary across all wards, to take the manifesto street by street.
“Read this manifesto. Test it against your own street, your own market, your own child’s school. Then ask: who is more likely to deliver it – the man who has run beside the governor for seven years, or someone touching the baton for the first time?”
