By Dennis Okechukwu
Nigeria’s best management drawback just isn’t a scarcity of expertise however a surplus of compromised ambition. Election after election, the nation recycles acquainted faces—males formed by energy, sustained by patronage, and stained by corruption. Because the nation approaches 2027, the query Nigerians should confront is easy however pressing: who amongst these searching for energy has really lived above it?
One title solutions that query with unusual readability: Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim.
Olawepo-Hashim’s political life didn’t start in boardrooms or backroom offers. It started in resistance. Born on June 28, 1965, in Yelwa, present-day Kebbi State, his management instincts have been solid early and examined severely throughout Nigeria’s darkest army years.
As a scholar chief on the College of Lagos within the late Eighties, he stood on the forefront of the anti-apartheid and pro-democracy struggles. In 1989, throughout nationwide protests in opposition to the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and army authoritarianism, he was arrested and detained with out trial beneath the dreaded Detention of Individuals Decree No. 2. He spent months in solitary confinement. Amnesty Worldwide declared him a Prisoner of Conscience.
This was not performative activism. Over 200 Nigerians reportedly misplaced their lives throughout these protests. Olawepo paid his personal worth with incarceration, intimidation, and a calculated try to destroy his future—the deliberate seizure of his college certificates for years after commencement.
Nigeria’s democracy has produced elections—but in addition plunder. Over 500 high politicians have confronted corruption fees, their wealth traced to public theft and political fraud. Governors previous and current. Senators. Home of Representatives members. Occasion chieftains.
One title is lacking from that record: Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim. No indictment. No investigation. No secret accounts.
He has walked by energy with out being stained by it—humane in spirit, agency in precept, accessible to the individuals.
His phrase is his bond. And in a nation uninterested in betrayal, that alone is revolutionary.
When army authorities ensured he couldn’t observe a standard profession path, Olawepo refused to beg or compromise. As an alternative, he reinvented himself. By means of self-study and international publicity, he pioneered a distinct segment in political communications, founding Setandsell Ltd., an outfit that handled politics as concepts—not commodities.
His enterprise success, together with investments within the worldwide vitality sector, was constructed with out authorities patronage. In a rustic the place political workplace typically precedes wealth, Olawepo represents the reverse: a person who constructed capability earlier than searching for energy.
Olawepo-Hashim was not simply current on the beginning of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic—he helped midwife it. As a part of the G-34 motion and the founding technique of the Folks’s Democratic Occasion (PDP), he labored intently with different pro-democracy figures to dismantle army rule.
But what really distinguishes him is what got here after. As Deputy Nationwide Publicity Secretary of the PDP, he challenged tenure elongation plots, inner impunity, and constitutional abuse—even when silence would have benefited him. That principled stand value him affect and ultimately his place within the social gathering he helped construct.
In Nigerian politics, compromise is usually praised as pragmatism. Olawepo proved that precept nonetheless has a spot in energy.
In 1998, following the sudden demise of Normal Sani Abacha, when Nigeria stood on the fringe of chaos, Olawepo was among the many civilians who risked getting into a army barracks to current a democratic transition roadmap to the armed forces. It was carried out when the stability of energy was unsure and the results unpredictable.
Earlier, when provided exile in Europe throughout army repression, he refused. “We’ve work to do in Nigeria,” he mentioned—and returned residence.
That intuition—to run towards duty somewhat than away from hazard—is the distinction between ambition and management.
Olawepo-Hashim has subjected himself to electoral judgment. He contested the 2007 Kwara State governorship election—extensively condemned by worldwide observers as deeply flawed—rising runner-up in a contest many believed he gained. In 2019, he ran for president beneath the Folks’s Belief, difficult entrenched energy constructions with concepts somewhat than equipment.
Defeat didn’t embitter him. As an alternative, he returned to academia, incomes postgraduate {qualifications} on the College of Buckingham—an unusual humility in Nigerian politics.
Born in Northern Nigeria, politically rooted within the North-Central, and nationally networked throughout areas and generations, Olawepo embodies the Nigeria that works past slogans. He isn’t boxed by ethnicity, faith, or inherited privilege. He’s extensively traveled, globally related, and domestically grounded.
Nigeria doesn’t want one other intelligent supervisor of decay. It wants management formed by sacrifice, restrained by conscience, and pushed by concepts.
Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim affords one thing more and more uncommon in public life: a constant ethical arc—from jail cell to social gathering founding room, from enterprise success to political service, from resistance to reform.
The query earlier than Nigerians in 2027 just isn’t whether or not he’s excellent. It’s whether or not the nation is lastly able to reward integrity over noise, braveness over comfort, and character over connections.
For a rustic determined for renewal, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim deserves greater than consideration. He deserves an opportunity.
Nonetheless, the disaster within the PDP is each a problem and a chance for Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim. Whereas inner divisions weaken the social gathering’s electoral equipment, they strengthen his credibility, having lengthy warned in opposition to impunity and lack of inner democracy. The neatest path ahead is to not be trapped by the social gathering’s troubles however to rise above them—constructing a broad nationwide coalition that cuts throughout social gathering strains, civil society, and reform-minded blocs. Could Gbenga Hashim succeed!