BABATUNDE FASHOLA (SAN) - GOVERNOR OF LAGOS STATE
Governor Babatunde Fashola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), was born in Lagos on June 8, 1963. After his primary education at Sunny Fields Primary School, Adelabu, Surulere in Lagos, he attended Birch Freeman High School, Surulere and Igbobi College, Yaba all in Lagos for his secondary education. The Lagos Governor had his post-secondary education at the University of Benin in present-day Edo State where he graduated with an LL. B (Hon) degree in 1987. He was called to the Bar in November 1988 after the mandatory one-year programme at the Nigerian Law School in Lagos. After that, he was back in Benin to do his National Service in 1988/89, carrying out his primary assignment as counsel in the law firm of late Dr. G.I.S Omoruwa & Company.
His legal career of about two decades started in the law firm of Sofunde, Osakwe & Belgore where he cut his legal teeth as a litigator over such wide-ranging areas of specialization as, intellectual property registration of trade marks, commercial law covering general contract, company activities, mergers, acquisitions, rights issues, ownership of shares and equity of corporations, as well as land disputes, criminal law and chieftaincy matters, in all of which he has come to acquire appreciable expertise and vast experience. In 1993, he joined the law firm of K. O. Tinubu & Company as an Investing Partner. He was Managing Partner, Head Counsel, and highest fee earner of the firm from 1994 to August 2002.
From 2002, he virtually stepped into the political arena when he was appointed Chief of Staff to His Excellency, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Earlier on, he had served Lagos State in various capacities. He was at one time Secretary of the Lands Sub-Committee of the Transitional Work Groups established by the then Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu following his election for his first term in 1999. He later served on the State Government’s Panel of Enquiry into allocation of houses on the Mobolaji Johnson Housing Scheme at Lekki.
Governor Babatunde Fashola belongs to many professional and non-professional associations including Nigerian Bar Association, the International Bar Association (IBA), Association of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria and he is a notary public of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, variously honoured with Chieftaincy titles, awards and certificates of merit including the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the University of Benin Alumni Association. He also got the Lagos State Public Service Platinum Award. Above all, he is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
His governance focus includes rehabilitation of roads and development of three major waterways to reduce traffic on the roads. Others are construction of a bridge to link Okota Way to Itire in Surulere and provision of vacation jobs for teeming school leavers. Governor Fashola also contested again for the governorship in the just-concluded April polls and was re-elected on the platform of his party, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), for another four-year term.
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