LAGOS COMMISSIONER FOR WORKS, FEMI HAMZAT RESIGNS, JOINS GUBER RACE

-Sets Up Campaign Office In Aromire Avenue, Ikeja

Barely six months to the governorship election in Lagos State, the Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr. Obafemi Kadri Hamzat has resigned his appointment to pursue his governorship ambition of the state next year. The ELITES reliably gathered that Hamzat submitted his resignation letter to Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola last week. The resignation is expected to take effect from 1 August, 2014.

Engineer Ganiyu Johnson, a Special Adviser in Lagos State Ministry of Works and Infrastructure would act on his behalf before a substantive new Commissioner is appointed. 

Sources disclosed to The ELITES that Hamzat has already set up

his campaign office in Aromire Avenue, off Adeniyi Jones, Ikeja. The office is closely situated to the building which was used as Governor Fashola's campaign office in 2011. 

With his decision to resign, Hamzat has joined the growing lists of contenders for Gov. Fashola’s position. Other aspiring for the position are Speaker, Lagos House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji; former Commissioner for Education and Health, Dr. Leke Pitan; Senator Ganiyu Olanrewaju Solomon, GOS, Senator Gbenga Ashafa, Member, House of Representatives, Abike Dabiri-Erewa

and former Accountant General of Lagos State, Akin Ambode. 

Hamzat, a close pal of the state governor, Babatunde Fashola, was born September 19, 1964 in Lagos - Nigeria. His father, Olatunji Hamzat is an influential politician in Lagos State who served as a former member of the Lagos State House of Assembly and also as a former Commissioner for Transportation in the state (1979 – 1983) before becoming the one time Vice-Chairman SW of then Alliance for Democracy (AD). Olatunji Hamzat would later go on to become the Lagos West Senatorial District leader of the Action Congress, an elder statesman in the Action Congress and a coronated king through his maternal royal lineage.
 Hamzat graduated from the University of Ibadan in 1986 with a degree in Agricultural Engineering and subsequently furthered his studies at home and abroad, resulting in both an MSc. in Crop Processing Engineering (1988) and a Ph.D. in System Process Engineering (1992). Sequel to this, he garnered about two decades of work experience in several organisations including the City of New York, RTP Consulting Services, Columbia University, Merrill Lynch Inc, Morgan Stanley and Oando Plc.

In August 2005, Hamzat was appointed Commissioner for Science and Technology during the tenure of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He retained his position when Governor Babatunde Fashola assumed office in 2007. It was during his tenure as Commissioner for Science and Technology that Hamzat enforced the application of modern technology in the state's ministries, thus changing the face of data and record keeping in Lagos and at the same time eliminating the trend of state ghost workers. It is reported in some quarters that this single act was largely responsible for his elevation as Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure at the commencement of the second term in office of the Governor Fashola's administration. 

With the purported zoning of the Lagos governorship ticket to Lagos East Senatorial District, political pundits do not see Hamzat standing a chance to clinch the governorship ticket under the flagship of the APC. But the highly accomplished technocrat is determined to give his pursuit the best shot.