By Tobi Adetola

A quintessential public servant, those who know him quite intimately, see him as an exemplar in accountable governance, selflessness and unalloyed uprightness whose only “weakness” is his implacable commitment to public good, no matter whose ox is gored!

Ambode; Will he succeed Fashola?

Oh, your surmise is damn right! The man I’m discussing here is the one who, today, many in the Lagos State public service environment fondly address as Mr. Public Service – Mr Akinwunmi Ambode. His name is synonymous with the pivotal aspect of a promising public administration.

He pointedly hugged the limelight when he became the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance of Lagos State in January 2005; a year after, he rose to the position of Accountant-General of the state.

The magic wand he brought into the service in good measure readily became an integral ingredient of the evergreen accomplishments of the then state government led by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (now national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who has since earned himself the sobriquet: Architect of a modern Lagos State!

Even Tinubu’s most virulent foes and Ambode’s (if there is any), would testify to the incontrovertible fact that the symbiosis between Tinubu’s administrative genius and the sublime professional expertise of Ambode and his ilk, oiled by the shared passion for public good, ensured the historic feat of the Tinubu-led bail-out of the state from the hands of interlopers.

Ambode’s Midas Touch in the state’s public service under Tinubu, coupled with his achievements as Managing Consultant/CEO of Brandsmiths Consulting Limited, a public finance and management-consulting firm with vast knowledge of public sector administration, readily threw him up as a primary subject of public discourse since his interest in the 2015 governorship tussle in the state sneaked into public domain.

“From recording the second best result in the entire West Africa in the Higher School Certificate (HSC) in 1981 to graduating with honours in Accounting from the University of Lagos at 21 and a Masters’ degree in Accounting combined with being a Chartered Accountant all at 24 the stage was set for a brilliant career in Accounting. One could therefore re-write his biography with the title: Ambode and the Power of Focus.”

These lines were contained in a writer’s recent thoughts about Ambode, who was born at Epe in Lagos on June 14,1964, with an impressive educational voyage through St. Jude’s Primary School, Ebute Metta on Lagos Mainland, Federal Government College, Warri and the prestigious University of Lagos.

Even the cynics of the deepest dye would find it hard to disagree with Tinubu when he described him at a forum as “an uncommon civil servant” in whom he discovered an embodiment of the sterling attributes of a great accountant.

His workaholic successor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), in a letter of commendation to the accounting icon, appreciated “the high sense of dedication, selflessness, loyalty and integrity” which he brought to bear during his glorious public servant days.

Tobi Adetola, a social critic, wrote from Lagos