By Omeiza Ajayi

Born in 1957, the new Minister of Interior is not new to governance having served as a commissioner in Lagos state from where he contested for the governorship seat of Osun state in 2007.

Governor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola of Osun state

While his main rival, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinyola was returned elected, Aregbesola went on to reclaim his mandate in November 2010 and again stood for reelection and remained in office till 2018.

Hence, as a two-term governor, Aregbesola sat not only as of the Chief Executive Officer of the state but also as its Chief Security Officer.

By implication, every issue regarding the governance of the state stopped at his table. He chaired the state security council.

As Minister of Interior, a ministry in charge of “home affairs”, the job of Ogbeni Aregbesola is well-cut out.

Also read: Aregbesola gave me his monthly salary to contest for chairmanship – Sen Elisha Abbo

He will superintend over some of the nation’s paramilitary services namely; the Federal Fire Service, Nigerian Prisons Service, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and the Nigeria Immigration Service. Unlike in the recent past where his immediate predecessor Abdulrahman Dambazau also partially supervised the Nigerian Police Force, there is now a Ministry of Police Affairs as it was in the past.

The new Interior minister had his early education in Ondo State, and later attended The Polytechnic, Ibadan, where he studied Mechanical Engineering and graduated in 1980.

While in school, he was Speaker of the Students’ Parliament between 1977 and 1978, The Polytechnic, Ibadan, and the President of the Black Nationalist Movement between 1978 and1980.

In June 1990, he became an elected delegate to the SDP Inaugural Local Government Area Congress and the following month, he was also a delegate to its first national convention in Abuja.

As Director of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Campaign Organisation, he was largely instrumental to the electoral victory of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the Governor of Lagos State in 1999 and was appointed a commissioner from that period till 2007.

He is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Management ( FNIM), Fellow of Nigerian Society of Engineers ( FNSE), Fellow of the Nigerian Association of Technological Engineers ( FNATE) and Fellow of the Certified Marketing Communications Institute of Nigeria ( FCMCIN ).

Vanguard