By Charles Okogene
Many in Nigeria mismanage opportunities to write their names in gold in public, but not Chief (Mrs.) Lucy Omosefe-Ajayi. To this resourceful woman, public office is a call to duty; to add value in service to both the people and the nation.
And this she has done with integrity and positive results, wherever she has found herself.
First, against all odds, she became the chairman of the then Kosofe chapter of the Congress of Progressives Change (CPC); even when most Nigerians never gave President Muhammadu Buhari a chance. With uncommon exhibition of loyalty and faith, She remained in the party through its challenges especially in the South West, where it was a minority party. Little wonder she was one of the first persons to be considered for appointment by President Buhari soon after he came to power in 2015.
She was asked to go to the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex (LITFC), which the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led government appointed concessionaire had almost ran down, to bring it back to life.
While some of her CPC members laughed at her that she was appointed to organise market women and men instead of a more juicy agency of government, Mrs Omosefe-Ajayi, turned a deaf ear, accepted the appointment with open arms. She went there, saw and succeeded to the extent that today, even after the expiraton of her first term of office, both staff of the complex and other stakeholders, are calling for her to continue. They are not tired of seeing her face! Well, that is another story for another day.
Within the four years she spent there as an executive director cum chief executive officer, the amount of money she remitted to the government coffers proved to the whole world that LITFC is a money spining complex as against zero remittance by the previous management.
It was then not surprising to all and when in a seeming appreciation of her wonderful feats at LITFC, she was made a member of the very important Presidential Advisory Committee on Prerogative of Mercy (PACPM), the body that is in charge of suggesting names of prisoners Mr. President could pardon under his clemency powers. While Mrs. Omosefe-Ajayi has continued to exhibit the stuff she is made of,
at the LITFC, her legacy has continued to speak for her. From the internal roads network in the complex to the refurbished offices, her signature is all over. It is also on record that she brought back electricity to the complex with the purchase of a giant generator that now powers the complex whenever there is power outage from the public electricity supply system.
This writer can go on and on enumerating her achievements in the last four years in the complex, which has also earned her a chieftaincy title from the monarch of the host community of LIFTC; she has been one of the dependable arrow heads of the PACPM in its function of reforming our prisons and inmates.
As we wait and look forward to another responsibility that will come her way to continue to contribute her quota towards nation building, we say kudos to her.
• Okogene, a senior editor, wrote from Lagos.