Ojikutu calls for renaming of LASU after Lateef Jakande

Sinatu Ojikutu, a former deputy governor in Lagos, has called for the renaming of Lagos State University (LASU) after Lateef Jakande.

Jakande, a former Lagos state governor, ruled between 1979 and 1983.

He was later appointed as the minister of works under the Sani Abacha military regime.

Speaking at the annual memorial lecture of the ex-Lagos governor, Ojikutu said Jakande undoubtedly deserves to be honoured by renaming the institution after him.

She said Jakande has made “indelible impacts” in the lives of Lagos residents.

She said the ex-governor had an egalitarian approach to governance, where “everyone – rich or poor, would be on the queue for an audience, a style that often put him at odds with the elite”.

Bala Mohammed, the Bauchi state governor, who was represented by Aminu Hassan Gemawa, his  chief of staff, delivered the keynote address on the theme ‘Journalism and the Challenge of Nation-Building in a Multi-Ethnic Society”. 

Mohammed described Jakande as a man who governed Lagos with core journalistic principles, including simplicity, honesty, accessibility, and efficiency.

“Jakande governed with the pen still in his heart, even if not in his hand,” he said.

The governor said Jakande’s service under the Abacha government showed his deep belief in unity and nationhood of Nigerians. 

Muhammed compared the ex-Lagos governor’s time with his experience in 2010 when he raised the motion for the ‘Doctrine of Necessity’ that brought in the Goodluck Jonathan administration. 

He claimed he was labeled a betrayal which attracted recall petitions, but “the path of nation-building often involves misunderstanding”.

Mohammed urged the media to foster national consciousness, moving beyond identities defined by language, religion, and geography.

On his part, Lai Olorede, the chairman of the event, said Jakande was a leader who could have united Nigeria’s diverse ethnic groups and resolved identity politics.

“When Alhaji Jakande was the governor of Lagos State, he never asked anybody, ‘where are you from?’ All Alhaji was doing was to deal with the public and groups in society, regardless of religion, regardless of your ethnicity,” he said.

Olorede also paid a tribute to Jakande by reading a poem written by the former Lagos governor in 1949, titled ‘A Broken Heart Speaks’.