As Lagos strains under the weight of ambition, congestion and explosive growth, Obafemi Hamzat has emerged as the technocrat betting that competence and continuity can tame Africa’s most restless megacity, writes Adedayo Adejobi
L
agos has a particular way of testing human optimism. At dawn, the city stretches awake like an overworked machine, coughing danfo smoke into the humid air while traders arrange tomatoes beside luxury cars trapped in traffic that appears both temporary and eternal.
Somewhere between the glass towers of Victoria Island and the flood-prone alleys of Ajegunle lies the central contradiction of Nigeria’s commercial capital, a city forever advertising the future while wrestling stubbornly with the present.
It is into this theatre of ambition, exhaustion, improvisation and relentless motion that Kadri Obafemi Hamzat now steps out as the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the political party that has governed Lagos for more than a quarter of a century.
