The story is told of an unintentionally adventurous chap – usually to the bewilderment of an innocent audience. In the narrative, an underprivileged character is cleaned up in his sleep and taken into the bedchamber of the king of his land. There, he is given the king’s robe, primed as much as practicable, and left alone.
He wakes up to find himself exalted, disbelieves it for a few hours, is convinced after more slurps and gulps, and finally returns to sleep.
Seeing him deeply asleep, the facilitators again get on their trade, strip him of rank and royalty, dump him at his old outpost, and go on their merry way. The poor man – literally and figuratively – wakes up and is left to wonder which position is permanent and if he will ever have such powers at his fingertips.
Akinwunmi Ambode is one of the countless folks who have drunk from the chalice of power and retired to a different, quieter and humbler life. Forever chronicled in the annals of Nigerian political history as the 14th governor of Lagos State, there is little else that a man from the Epe soil could ask for.
Starting his education in Epe where he was born, no intrepid prophet could have foreseen his future, or the natural charisma with which he charmed the hearts of Lagosians – the sharpest folks on the Nigerian block, one might say.
Since then, he grew into his own as a bright and quick mind, something that guided his career in the civil service.
It was from that civil service that he retired to the political scene, from acting auditor general for local governments in Lagos to the permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, and after some twists and turns, became Lagos State governor – a position that he rocked in style, and will remain in the memory of Lagosians for long as the governor who personally ran with his people, and breathed in the same dust as they did.
Having left that position, countless eyes have gone to and fro the earth – searching where he is and what he is doing. The latest of these have found him in Ghana where he is residing in the hush of new life. Ambode is a man born again, in a new land and with renewed peace.
THE GUARDIAN