Obafemi Hamzat’s time
Obafemi Hamzat’s tale is, in many ways, that of a Lagos political tradition that prefers the patient man to the noisy one, the understudy to the showman, the one who
Obafemi Hamzat’s tale is, in many ways, that of a Lagos political tradition that prefers the patient man to the noisy one, the understudy to the showman, the one who waits his turn and, crucially, knows when to step back.
When, in 2018, he stepped down for Babajide Sanwo-Olu at the decisive hour, it was read in some quarters as weakness.
In another political culture, that might have been the end of the story. In Lagos, it was the beginning because in Lagos, what looks like retreat can often become a kind of positioning. What appears like loss can be initiation. The system watches not just what you do, but what you are willing not to do.
Now, with endorsements gathering around him (most notably from power brokers within the All Progressives Congress) and with the quiet machinery of consensus whirring again, the same man once asked to wait is stepping forward.
Lagos politics has never been about endorsements alone. It is about apprenticeship.
To understand Hamzat’s situation, you must first see his deputy governorship as a test of temperament.
Since 2019, he has occupied the office constitutionally designed to assist and, if necessary, replace the governor, a role often reduced in Nigeria to polite invisibility. But Hamzat did not so much disappear as he dissolved into policy, into process, into the bureaucratic sinews of governance.
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His office is a delicate balancing act between visibility and restraint, ambition and loyalty, presence and absence. If you are too visible, you can be seen as a rival. And if you are too absent, you are dismissed as irrelevant. Hamzat chose a third path: immersion.
He is, by training, an engineer. And like many engineers in politics, he has preferred systems to speeches.
Under Sanwo-Olu, Lagos has leaned heavily on technocratic governance—transport reforms, digital systems, fiscal restructuring—and Hamzat has functioned less like a spare tyre and more like a co-pilot who understands the dashboard. The partnership has been notably devoid of the familiar friction that defines many governor-deputy relationships in Nigeria. No public quarrels. No whispered rebellions. No parallel structures.
In Lagos, that is not accidental. It is design. There is a kind of deputy governor Lagos likes: not the ambitious disruptor, but the reliable understudy. From the days of Bola Ahmed Tinubu to now, loyalty has often been the first qualification, competence the second, and timing the third.
Hamzat appears to have mastered all three. He brought pedigree; his father, Mufutau Hamzat, was himself a political figure in Lagos. He brought experience, having served in previous administrations. And, perhaps most importantly, he brought restraint.
In a political culture where deputies sometimes spend four years plotting against their principals, Hamzat seems to have spent his years perfecting alignment.
This is why his endorsement, even if still contested in some quarters, carries a certain inevitability. In Lagos, the man who does not rock the boat is often the one eventually handed the oar.
Yet, to say his path is smooth would be to misunderstand Lagos.
Even as endorsements emerge, there are murmurs. About origin, about political blocs, about the delicate balance of indigene and settler that Lagos never fully resolves. There are other aspirants, other ambitions, other calculations in the ever-watchful circle of party elders and the Governor’s Advisory Council.
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And above all, there is the unwritten rule: no candidacy is real until it is.
Lagos has a history of producing last-minute surprises, of elevating the unexpected, of reminding everyone that power, here, is both structured and fluid.
Still, if politics is a game of signals, Hamzat’s are clear.
Endorsements from influential figures within the party point to a consolidation effort, a desire for continuity, a preference for the known over the experimental. Continuity, after all, is the unspoken creed of Lagos.
But beyond party arithmetic lies something deeper: the question of what kind of governor Lagos wants after Sanwo-Olu.
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A disruptor? Or a continuer?
Hamzat, by record and reputation, is not the man to upend a system. He is the man to run it quietly, efficiently, almost invisibly.
And perhaps that is the point.
In the end, this moment is less about a man being endorsed and more about a system reaffirming itself.
My final take: Lagos does not always reward the loudest voice. It often rewards the most patient listener. For years, Hamzat has listened—within corridors, within a structure that values loyalty as currency. Now, the system is ready to speak back. It looks like it will speak his name at the final hour.
Timing, in Lagos politics, is everything. And when his time comes, he will be making history as the first deputy governor in Lagos to be taking over from his principal. Femi Pedro could have been, but he wasn’t patient enough. Remi Bucknor’s temperament wasn’t in alignment. And Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire and others didn’t have the stamina.
