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| Obafemi Hamzat, Otedola, DANGOTE and Abdul Samad Rabiu |
In the tightly interwoven worlds of Nigerian business and politics, personal histories often matter as much as policy platforms. On Monday, billionaire investor Femi Otedola offered a vivid reminder of that reality. In a post on X, the Chairman of FirstHoldCo recalled hosting a private dinner the previous evening in honour of Lagos State Deputy Governor Obafemi Hamzat, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the 2027 governorship election.
Otedola did not merely offer polite support. He described Hamzat as “the incoming Governor of Lagos State,” a man of “the highest integrity” with whom he had shared a bunk bed at boarding school 49 years earlier.
“My experience of his character over the years has been defined by his honesty, sincerity, fairness and strong moral principles,” Otedola wrote. The dinner, held at Otedola’s residence, brought together two other towering figures of Nigerian industry: Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, and Abdul Samad Rabiu, chairman of the BUA Group. Rabiu himself publicly described the gathering as “a memorable evening… of warm friendship and meaningful conversations,” while extending best wishes to Hamzat in his ambition to lead Lagos.
The revelation of their shared school days instantly elevated a standard political-business dinner into something more layered: a story about continuity, elite socialisation, and the quiet power of old ties in a city-state that has been under the same broad political family for a generation.
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The Olivet Connection: Where Two Trajectories Intersected
Both men attended Olivet Baptist High School in Oyo, a boarding institution founded in 1945 by American Southern Baptist missionaries on a hillcrest known as Olivet Heights. The school, affiliated with the Nigerian Baptist Convention, has long cultivated a reputation for academic rigour, moral discipline, and the production of leaders. Its alumni include figures such as Professor Wande Abimbola, industrialist Oba Otudeko, former Ekiti governor Ayo Fayose, and others who have shaped academia, business, and public life.
Otedola, born in 1962, struggled academically. After primary school and a stretch at Methodist Boys’ High School in Lagos, his parents transferred him to Olivet around 1977 in the hope that the boarding environment would help. It did not transform his relationship with formal education—he later left without completing his A-Levels and never attended university—but it placed him in the same institutional setting as Hamzat. Hamzat, born in 1964 into a prominent Lagos family (his father, Oba Mufutau Olatunji Hamzat, served as a commissioner and later became a traditional ruler), completed his secondary education at Olivet before proceeding to the University of Ibadan for degrees in agricultural engineering and then to Cranfield University in England for a PhD in systems process engineering, completed in just three years. en.wikipedia.org
That they shared a bunk bed nearly five decades ago is more than a nostalgic detail. Nigerian boarding schools of that era functioned as intense social incubators. Boys from different backgrounds lived in close quarters, negotiated hierarchies, formed lifelong friendships, and absorbed a particular code of conduct.
In a country where trust networks remain central to both commerce and politics, such early proximity can create durable bonds of mutual knowledge and loyalty. Otedola’s public testimony—that he has observed Hamzat’s honesty and fairness “over the years”—carries the weight of someone who has known the man since adolescence.
Parallel Paths, Converging Influence
Their subsequent trajectories diverged yet ultimately converged in the upper echelons of Nigerian life. Otedola, son of Sir Michael Otedola (who briefly served as Lagos State governor in 1992–93 during the military transition era), built a fortune through commodities, petroleum marketing (Zenon), power (Geregu), and later banking and investment holdings. He has been open about his academic struggles and the practical education he received working in his father’s printing business.
Hamzat, by contrast, followed a classic technocratic path: academic excellence, private-sector roles in the United States (including stints connected to Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley), chief information officer at Oando, then senior positions in Lagos State government as commissioner for science and technology and later works and infrastructure under Bola Tinubu and Babatunde Fashola. Since 2019 he has served as deputy governor under Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
The dinner therefore represented more than personal nostalgia. It signalled the alignment of three of Nigeria’s most consequential private-sector actors with the APC’s preferred successor in the country’s economic capital. Lagos has been governed by the APC and its predecessor parties without interruption since 1999. Hamzat’s emergence as candidate followed a carefully managed process: endorsement by President Bola Tinubu and the Lagos Governance Advisory Council, Sanwo-Olu’s public support, and a primary in May 2026 in which he secured 657,917 votes against a single challenger who received one vote.
The Business-Politics Nexus and the 2027 Stakes
In Lagos, the boundary between the boardroom and the government house has always been porous. The state’s economy—ports, finance, real estate, manufacturing, and services—depends on predictable governance, infrastructure delivery, and a business-friendly environment. Gatherings such as Otedola’s dinner serve multiple functions: they offer candidates access to capital, advice, and networks; they allow business leaders to signal continuity and preference; and they reinforce the idea that the next administration will understand the language of industry.
Otedola’s decision to call Hamzat the “incoming Governor” is particularly striking. It is both a personal vote of confidence and a public framing of inevitability. In Nigerian political culture, such language from a figure of Otedola’s stature carries weight. It also invites scrutiny. Critics of the Lagos political machine often argue that succession is managed within a relatively closed circle, reducing genuine competition. Supporters counter that the system has delivered relative stability and continuous investment in infrastructure compared with many other states.
The presence of Dangote and Rabiu—competitors in some markets, fellow industrialists in others—underscores a shared interest in orderly continuity in Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre.
Hamzat’s own platform, often framed around “My Lagos Dream” or continuity of existing developmental agendas, emphasises infrastructure, service delivery, job creation, education, healthcare, and security. His engineering and systems background is frequently cited as an asset for managing a complex megacity. Whether personal integrity and long acquaintance translate into effective governance will ultimately be tested at the ballot box and in office. Yet the soft power of old school ties and elite endorsement remains a significant resource in Nigerian politics.
Beyond the Headline
What elevates this story beyond a routine endorsement is the human scale of the recollection. Two teenagers sharing a bunk bed in a Baptist boarding school in Oyo in the late 1970s could not have imagined that one would become one of Africa’s richest men and the other the near-certain next governor of Lagos. Their paths illustrate both the enduring influence of elite educational institutions and the particular chemistry of Lagos, where business success and political power continually reinforce each other.
As the 2027 election approaches, such personal testimonials will multiply. Opposition candidates, including Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the African Democratic Congress, will seek to present alternative visions. Voters will weigh continuity against change, technocratic competence against other priorities. In the meantime, Otedola’s post has done something rare in the often transactional world of political messaging: it has humanised the candidate through a half-century-old shared experience and reminded observers that, in Nigeria, the longest journeys in public life frequently begin in the most ordinary of places—a dormitory, a bunk bed, and the quiet formation of character over time.
The dinner at Otedola’s residence was private. The message it sent was not. In Lagos politics, the past is rarely past, and old friendships can still shape the future of Africa’s largest city.
Samuel O. Sulaimon is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Naijapiz. He covers News, Sports, Finance, Faiths, Education, Politics and Technology.
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