I have read about the schools attended by Gbadebo, the Labour Candidate in Lagos. He attended Christland then went to Paris and others abroad.
If this is his education, no doubt he has a good academic qualification. Academic knowledge produces brilliance, but does not earn Wisdom, which is the greatest human vulture. A professor of Physics can be a foolish person. A Professor of Classics can be patently naive and not being to manage a farm camp.
I dont envy those who attend elite schools all their lives. Most of them have been bad leaders.
Those who designed the idea of public schools did so to create a waterprool of plural knowledge of the pains, pangs, hues and joyful cries of people of diverse background: Children of hunters, cobblers, lay readers,farmers, artisans who go to school in tatters, hungry mixing with children of the rich, learning about the complex economic and social layers of humanity and how different families cope with misery, poverty and wealth.
Today, the idea of public schools in Nigeria fades like evening shadows, creating a caste society where affluent children completely lacking in life experiences of humanity end up taking the flag of political leadership when they return from abroad.
From primary schools they attend private elite primary school, chaveur driven, to private secondary schools and then they go abroad, completely alienated from the fears and aspirations of their own people. That is probably why Gbadebo has not considered meetings with Mechanics, airdressers, students, fisherwomen and men, Okada Riders, even the ethnic groups in Lagos necessary.
When you talk of shanties, poverty, hunger, they don’t understand. They don’t even have friends in that category.
Lagos needs not degree holders from Paris, Israel or Germany as the most important credentials
The most profound is a graduate of the University of Life, someone who has lived the spirit, the pain, the language, the culture, the thick and thin of Lagos State.
The University of Life is the greatest University. It is the practical knowledge, the epistemology, the sociology and the praxis you earn from daily interaction with your peoples’ history, their civilisations and their heritage.
Gbadebo not being able to speak the indigenous language of the people he wants to lead is disastrous. It means he does not understand their culture, their civilisation and their spirituality.
The English, Russian, France will never allow someone strange to their civilisations to lead them.
It’s like picking someone who does not speak Hausa or Fulani to be the Sultan or someone who does not speak Yoruba to be the Ooni of Ife or Alaafin or someone who does not speak Igbo to be Obi of Onitsha.
That will be the height of cultural suicide for the entire Nation.
It is even more dangerous to submit a people’s sovereignty to someone whose position combines the defence of a Peoples culture with the peoples political economy.
If Gbadebo wins, he would surely pick his Paris team many of who are unknown and strange to the timeless and longstanding evolution of historic Lagos.
What has the past years brought unto the table is as important as the question of what replaces the little gains we have made if the table is turned upside down.
We may in fact never recover. We can’t deny that Lagos not given us the best, far from it, but we also cannot deny the gains which in comparative sense with all the 36 states is referenced as one of the best in Nigeria.
We all need to be strategic not for ourselves, but for generations unborn.
Actions fueled by instincts of the moment,or the impulse of anger, to win a trophy without care for its content, may lead to social genocide lasting for generations.
It is far more important than any other thing to look at the future not for ourselves but for humanity. We are not even aware of his Economic template for Lagos and his team. This is very sad.
Unless these issues are addressed his emergence may end up as a disaster for the residents of Lagos including Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Fulani, Ijaw, Tiv,Birom and others
Most important, what is his experience? Has he ever worked in an enterprise before now? He he ever managed people and material? Can he managed a huge economy like Lagos?
What level of experience has he?
Lagos has to be managed by someone who have a deep knowledge and wisdom about Lagos not a strange, hitherto apprentice. Lagos not only blood bound to the entire South West of Nigeria, it is also organically linked to West African Regional security