Babatunde Fashola: How Lagos Governor Abandoned Hajj To Tackle Ebola

The UK Telegraph has described the governor as “the man who tamed Nigeria's most lawless city” and “helped halt the spread of Ebola in Nigeria”. Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State has received high praise from UK newspaper, “The Telegraph” for his unique brand of governance in a country plagued by corruption and bad leadership. The publication, in a post yesterday on its website » , described the governor as “the man who tamed Nigeria's most lawless city” and “helped halt the spread of Ebola in Nigeria.” The article explains in detail how Fashola spearheaded efforts against the disease even abandoning a pilgrimage in Mecca to return home and tackle the scourge head on. The article reads: “He famously claims to be "just doing his job". But in a land where politicians are known for doing anything but, that alone has been enough to make Babatunde Fashola, boss of the vast Nigerian city of Lagos, a very popular man.” “Confounding the image of Nigerian leaders as corrupt and incompetent, the 51-year-old governor has won near-celebrity status for transforming west Africa's biggest city, cleaning up its crime-ridden slums and declaring war on corrupt police and civil servants.” “Yet arguably his biggest achievement in office took place just last week, and was done without a bulldozer in sight… Mr Fashola turned a looming disaster into a public health and PR triumph. Breaking off from a trip overseas, he took personal charge of the operation to track down and quarantine nearly 1,000 people feared to have been infected since Mr Sawyer's arrival.” “…He broke off from a pilgrimage to Mecca, flew home and then helped set up an Ebola Emergency Operations Centre, which spearheaded the mammoth task of monitoring all those potentially infected. A team of 2,000 officials were trained for the task, who ended up knocking on 26,000 doors.” “At one point the governor was being briefed up to ten times a day by disease control experts. He made a point of visiting the country's Ebola treatment centre, a way of communicating to the Nigerian public that they should not panic needlessly.” “For Mr Fashola's many supporters, it is also yet more proof that the 51-year-old ex-lawyer is a future president in the making, a much-needed technocrat in a country dominated far too long by ageing "Big Men" and ex-generals.” “However, despite being reelected with 80 per cent of the vote in 2011, the main hailed as Nigeria's brightest political hope in years is far from guaranteed a life in office. Having served two terms in office already, he is not allowed to run as Lagos governor again.” “And as a member of a minority tribe and the country's opposition All Progressives Congress, he currently lacks the political backing to go head to head against Goodluck Jonathan in next year's elections.” Governor Fashola recently criticized Jonathan after the president listed the containment of Ebola in Nigeria as one of his government’s achievements during a political rally.