Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu has said that he cannot think of any suitable candidate to hand over the baton to than Dr Kadri Hamzat.

Sanwo-Olu stated this yesterday at the unveiling and presentation of the visual documentary book, Sanwo-Olu: Against all odds, a photo-story of resilience in the face of adversity, authored by his personal photographer, Ademola Olaniran.

The governor who praised Olaniran and his co-authors, said: “To my brother and partner, Deputy Governor Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, who has stood faithfully beside me through every season of this journey, and who now carries the confidence of our great party as its flag bearer for the 2027 governorship election in Lagos State — the relay I have spoken of tonight continues with you, and I can think of no surer hands for the baton.

“Tonight, I find myself in an unusual position for any serving Governor: I am the subject of a book. Books about leaders are usually written when the story has ended — when the man has left the stage and history has had time to render its verdict. This one is different, and deliberately so. It was written not in ink first, but in photographs.

“Across thousands of photographs, taken over the four defining years of our first term in office, it holds up a mirror to those years of this administration — and the camera, unlike the pen, does not flatter. It does not exaggerate, and it cannot be persuaded. It simply bears witness.

“And what it witnessed, ladies and gentlemen, was never really one man. Yes, you will find me in many of these frames. But look closer, and you will find the true subject of this book: Lagos herself. The market woman rebuilding her stall. The nurse in protective gear who has not seen her family in weeks.

“The young person holding up a placard, demanding to be heard. The engineer on a bridge at dawn. The schoolchild walking into a classroom that did not exist the year before. Twenty-two million people, striving, grieving, laughing, insisting, building. This is their book. I am simply the man the shutters kept finding at the center of the frame.”

“Permit me, then, to tell you the story these pages tell — because it is a story I have lived, and because on a night like this, a Governor owes his people an honest account.

“Eight years ago, I answered a call I did not seek. I had spent my working life in quiet service — in banking, in cabinets, in the engine rooms of government — content in the belief that the best work of a public servant is often done without fanfare. But Lagos called, and when leadership is thrust upon a man, he must find a way to wear it well.

“In 2019, the people of this State gave an overwhelming mandate to a man many of them barely knew, and I made them a simple covenant: that I would spend every day of my tenure building a Greater Lagos — a city that works for the trader in Mushin as surely as it works for the banker on the Marina.

“No leader, however, chooses the times in which he serves. Barely months into our tenure, fire tested us. Then came a pandemic that emptied the streets of the busiest city in Africa, and Lagos became at once the nation’s epicenter and the nation’s shield. In that same season, a devastating explosion took homes and lives.

“Then our young people rose in protest, and our city passed through the most painful night of my public life. And then a building fell, in full view of the world. Grief upon grief, trial upon trial — any one of which could define an entire tenure. We were given all of them, in a single term.

“I will not stand here and pretend those seasons did not bruise us. They did. But here is what I hope history will record, and what these photographs prove beyond argument: Lagos never broke, and Lagos never stopped building.

“When the virus came, we did not wait for it — we organised before it landed, becoming the first sub-national government in this country to mount a coordinated defence; we multiplied our testing capacity more than tenfold, raised isolation and oxygen centers across the State, took medicine into people’s homes through technology, and when the vaccines arrived, I rolled up my own sleeve first, publicly — because leadership is not only decision; it is example.”

Sanwo-Olu is however excited about of the photographs, the one which shows four governors of this state — the twelfth, the thirteenth, the fourteenth, and the fifteenth — jointly holding aloft a single model of a single train.

“Four administrations. One dream. Eight hands. That image is the deepest secret of the Lagos success story, and it is called continuity.

“In this state, we do not tear down what our predecessors built; we build upon it. I inherited dreams, and I have labored to hand over foundations. The rail lines, the port, the homes, the schools — these are proud achievements. But if you ask me what I most want my legacy to be, it is this: that the relay continued; that the baton was carried at full speed and passed on unbroken; and that the trust between the people of Lagos and their government left this administration stronger than it met it. Projects age. Trust and institutions compound.”

In his welcome address, Hamzat described the book as a compelling work, noting that after having a glimpse of the work, he can say it is more than a presentation, but power account of details of resilience in governance.

He added that the book tells a story many of in government has witnessed first hand to the serve of Lagos. He further said it is compendium of passion and compassion, a testimony to courage and focus despite the challenges COVID-19 and Endsars.

The book reviewer, Kunle Ajibade, who provided a detailed critique of the books highlighting salient elements in the work noted that photography gives history human face. He stated that this is what the book has done for Lagos as it has given a human face to the history of Lagos.