Seyi Makinde deserves a hug

Sometimes, governance is not about making the loudest noise. It is about seeing a problem, thinking around it and solving it.

Take what Seyi Makinde has done with the new Ibadan bypass.

You are coming from Lagos on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Instead of entering the belly of Ibadan to wrestle with traffic, heat, impatient ‘Micra’ drivers and the familiar Nigerian symphony of horns, you simply veer off.

Then—breeze, awesome breeze caressing your face.

You are moving, not spending what feels like half a lifetime trying to cross Ibadan. Just a smooth stretch of road, the kind that makes you lean back in your seat and say, “Ah! So government can actually think?”

And before you have finished enjoying the ride, you are on the Osun stretch.

Eighteen minutes, yes, just 18 minutes drive

That is not merely a road. That is time returned to the people.

That is a businessman reaching his destination earlier, a truck driver spending fewer hours in traffic, a family travelling with less stress, groomsmen arriving at the wedding before the couple enters panic mode. That is saving expensive fuel.

And this is where we must give Governor Makinde his flowers.

Some governors think. Some governors complain. Some governors think about why they cannot do something. Others think about how they can do it.

There is a particularly lazy Nigerian governmental logic that says: “It is a federal road, therefore we cannot touch it.”

Wonderful.

So everybody should suffer because a signboard says “Federal”?

Please.

There are governors who have discovered that leadership sometimes means thinking beyond the legal boundary of your desk. You engage the Federal Government. You collaborate. You negotiate. You find funding. You solve the problem within the law.

Because the ordinary traveller does not care whether the pothole belongs to Abuja, Ibadan, Osun or Mars.

He just wants to get home alive and on time.

That is why infrastructure such as this bypass is bigger than Oyo State.

Look at the geography.

Lagos connects to Ogun. Ogun connects to Oyo. Oyo opens the route towards Osun, Kwara and the rest of the country.

When Ibadan traffic is eased, many states breathe.

A Lagos trader heading to Osogbo benefits.

An Osun farmer taking produce towards Lagos benefits.

A transporter moving goods northward benefits.

A family travelling from Lagos through Osun benefits.

Businesses benefit.

Tourism benefits.

Logistics benefits.

And most importantly, ordinary Nigerians get back something governments have stolen from them for decades: time.

Soon, with the right road connections and continued improvements, the journey from Lagos to Osogbo could become less than three hours rather than the unpredictable ordeal Nigerians have become accustomed to.

That is legacy.

Not the number of billboards carrying your face.

Not the number of times your commissioners praise you on television.

Not the number of committees you inaugurated.

A road that continues to save people’s time and money long after you have left office? Now, that is legacy.

And perhaps that is the difference between a governor who is merely occupying a Government House and one who is actually thinking about the people outside it.

Because governance should not be a permanent exercise in wringing one’s hands and explaining why something cannot be done.

“It is a federal road.”

“There is no money.”

“The previous administration…”

“We are waiting for approval…”

“It is not our responsibility…”

At some point, Nigerians simply want to ask:

“Oga, are you governing or writing an excuse letter?”

Governor Makinde has shown something refreshing: sometimes, the problem is not that the government cannot solve a problem. The problem is that nobody has bothered to think creatively enough about solving it.

So, yes, Governor Seyi Makinde deserves the applause here.

Not because everything in Oyo is perfect. It isn’t.

Not because governors should be worshipped. They shouldn’t.

But because when somebody does something that makes life demonstrably easier for thousands—perhaps millions—of people, we should be grown enough to say so.

Nigeria has enough complainers and finger-pointers.