By Kunle Fadahunsi

“Everyone is born with an instinct of success, and ability to make it, but only the ones who think out of the box succeed.” 

   Unarine Ramaru

The innovative voyage embarked upon by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode at the Oworonsoki bus stop has no doubt mitigated the traffic snarl and incidental crime of yore that transcends Lagos Island to the mainland. Curiously too, it has raised the question regarding whether a single innovation can give satisfactory answers to a myriad of multi-faceted traffic and incidental problems confronting Lagosians?

With Ambode, an innovative administrator and manager whose career has been defined by the acclaimed ability to think outside the proverbial box at the helm of affairs, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.

To start wit; when Ambode assumed office in 2015, quite a few impatient political watchers and inhabitants of Lagos State underestimated him. But with time, the amiable and self-effacing governor of Lagos State steadily showed that despite his slow and steady start, he might readily surpass the limit set by the state’s superlative governors since 1999. To the joy of many, he has, so far, exceeded expectations. Without doubt, he has proved his detractors wrong and has validated the confidence reposed in him by the citizens of Lagos State and the Lagos State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The exploit of the current henchman of the centre of excellence is legendary: From the repositioning of the state government’s policy to meet up with the pursuit of result-oriented governance; to eventual reordering of the huge debts he met on resumption and having purposeful grip on state finances; down to transformation of the emergency services that has now become efficiently responsive, akin only to others like it in developed climes. The current Lagos governor of compassion has times without number exhibited his milk of kindness to pensioners and staff in the employ of the state government.

Apart from ensuring that the staff of the state government get salary by the 21st  of every month at this excruciating period when most of the states across the federation are owed arrears of salary; he has gone further by not only assuring pensioners in the state of their pensions but making sure that a large chunk is provided to pay them at a time their counterparts in other states are not being paid at all.

Indeed, the welfare of people around him in the state is of paramount significance to this amiable governor. Pensions are given undiluted prioritization in Lagos state to the admiration of all. Thanks to this humane governor that is doing everything to increase the revenue base of Lagos State.

Another passion that makes Ambode distinct is his unrelenting and unprecedented passion to bring in foreign investors into the state. And his realisation of the need to create a safe environment was responsible for his result-yielding repositioning and massive funding of operations of the security outfits in the state.

This is meant to guarantee the safety of lives and property. Surprisingly too, his interventions in especially the area of roads construction and maintenance in record time have gone a long way in tackling obnoxious traffic gridlock in all parts of the state. This is commendable in view of the limited resources at his disposal. Ambode has gone far flung in reviving amongst others public primary education, public health services not to talk of his unwavering crusading for social justice issues most especially on