Some political decisions acquire their full meaning only years after they are made. Others return at unexpected moments to illuminate the relationships, calculations and compromises that shaped an earlier generation of leadership.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu reached back eight years at the unveiling of Dr. Obafemi Hamzat’s governorship manifesto on Friday, October 30, and retrieved one such decision from the political history of Lagos State.
It concerned September 2018, when the APC governorship contest had thrown up several aspirants, including the then incumbent, Akinwunmi Ambode, Sanwo-Olu and Hamzat.
Hamzat was not an accidental entrant. He had served in the administrations of Bola Tinubu and Babatunde Fashola, acquired experience across significant government ministries and built his own political relationships.
He had prepared to contest the governorship primary. Then, on September 29, 2018, he announced his withdrawal and endorsed Sanwo-Olu. The decision changed the configuration of the contest ahead of the primary in which Sanwo-Olu would confront Ambode.
What remained less clearly articulated in the public record was the full extent of the political conversations behind Hamzat’s decision.
Sanwo-Olu supplied his own account on Friday. ‘Then the leaders of our party asked him to step aside for me.’ The brevity of that statement gave it unusual weight.
For the governor, the central issue was not merely the withdrawal itself, which had been publicly reported at the time, but the personal cost of abandoning an ambition after years of preparation.
He recalled how Hamzat accepted the decision, supported his candidature and subsequently agreed to serve as his running mate.
That second decision was formalised on November 4, 2018, when the Lagos APC presented Hamzat as Sanwo-Olu’s deputy governorship candidate.
There is an important historical distinction here. Hamzat’s withdrawal was not simply a private favour whose meaning can be established by the beneficiary alone.
At the time, Hamzat publicly justified his action by reference to consultations, political counsel and his confidence in Sanwo-Olu. Friday’s speech added the governor’s perspective to that existing record.
It was nevertheless an instructive disclosure because of what followed.
The 2018 political arrangement became a governing partnership in May 2019. Seven years later, Sanwo-Olu was standing before party leaders and Lagos residents to explain why his former rival and longstanding deputy had become the candidate seeking to succeed him.
There was a circular quality to the moment: the man who stepped aside in 2018 had returned as the governorship candidate in 2026, with the man who benefited from that decision now offering a public account of their shared history.
But it would be too convenient to reduce the development to a story of sacrifice eventually rewarded.
Political ambition cannot be suspended indefinitely on the assumption of future compensation. Neither does an earlier concession confer an automatic right to public office.
The governorship of Lagos belongs to its electorate, not to a private understanding between two politicians. The more significant aspect of Sanwo-Olu’s recollection was therefore his description of what happened between the concession and the new candidature.
According to him, Hamzat did not allow the disappointment of 2018 to define their working relationship. He neither became a troublesome deputy nor pursued a competing political agenda within the administration.
Sanwo-Olu’s observation that they had maintained one government and one direction was intended to present the relationship as an example of political accommodation surviving the pressures of office.
That is relevant in a country where disagreements between governors and their deputies have periodically produced impeachment proceedings, factional conflicts and institutional instability.
For Lagos, the recollection also raises questions about the relationship between loyalty and leadership. Loyalty can preserve stability, but it cannot substitute for independent judgement.
A successful governorship requires more than the capacity to work harmoniously with a predecessor. It demands responsibility for decisions that may differ from the preferences of those who assisted a candidate’s rise.
That distinction will become increasingly relevant as Hamzat explains his own proposals. What Sanwo-Olu achieved through the recollection was to give the 2027 campaign a historical starting point that predates the manifesto and even the present administration.
He demonstrated that the relationship being presented to Lagosians was not suddenly assembled for electoral convenience. It had passed through competition, concession, political collaboration and the practical experience of government.
There is also a lesson for posterity in the governor’s decision to speak publicly about the episode. Political transitions are often documented through official announcements, with little acknowledgement of the human decisions that made them possible.
By recalling September 2018, Sanwo-Olu placed one such decision into the public conversation. Whether that history ultimately influences the electorate is a separate question.
What is established is that the narrative of Hamzat’s candidature now includes an important earlier chapter, told by a principal actor and open to examination alongside the contemporary record.