SENATOR SOLOMON OLAMILEKAN ADEOLA AND THE PASSPORT FOR HIGHER SERVICE

Public accountability always has its lens fixated on executive office holders in terms of value proposition and often than not, ignoring the pivotal role legislators play in our democratic evolution. Increasingly, these roles have become complementary to the executive when it comes to ramping up development and service delivery to the people. On June 13th 2025, the senator representing Ogun West senatorial district at the National Assembly dispensed with two years of the mandate given him to serve his constituents. Without equivocation and in a fashion that is bespoke and unprecedented, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola has fulfilled his covenant with Ogun Westerners and has undoubtedly set for himself a pathway for higher service.

Dr. David Oyedepo, a Nigerian clergy and renowned author often says, “Life is in phases and men are in sizes”. Every phase in the political life of Senator Adeola represents a surefooted and inexorable glide towards a higher calling. His story so far has not been uncanny neither has he been just fortuitous – as some will want to say. He does not belong to the class of those who have enjoyed the goodwill of the legendary benevolent spirits that helps men cracks their proverbial palm kernel. In the case of this exemplary politician, he has simply utilized every opportunity given to him by the people to fulfil the trust bequeathed on him.

Senator Adeola has an ultimate date with destiny and the last twenty-two years which has seen him climb the ladder of the Nigerian parliamentary system, connotes phases in that trajectory. Those who saw something in him over two decades ago and thrust him forward to represent the people of Alimosho state constituency at the Lagos State House of Assembly, may not have envisioned the political behemoth they were creating; perhaps, he was just to go there, do his bit for one or two terms and then resign into the doldrums of the local politics in that environment; lapping up the memories of such opportunistic stint ‘ad infinitum’. On the contrary, the legislator thought differently from his sponsors; and to him, he will be in it for the long haul and redefine what it means to be in public service.

For two consecutive terms between 2003 and 2011, Adeola delivered effective representation to his people. He was Chairman of Finance Committee and Joint-Chairman of Appropriation Committee. His outstanding contributions include laws that reformatted the state’s internal revenue culminating in geometric growth in excess of 500%. He was again influential to the Fiscal Responsibility Act and Public Procurement Act – two documents that enabled the suitability of Lagos State for developmental funds that set it up as a viable state today. Added to these are outstanding facilitation of projects and empowerments of his constituents in education, healthcare and other social services. On the strength of this stellar performance, he was elevated to represent Alimosho Federal Constituency at the House of Representatives. This was the first signpost of his merit-based political ascendancy.

During his one term (2011-2015) spell at the lower chamber of the National Assembly, he brought the experience from the state level to bear on his role at the Federal House. Beyond sponsoring of useful bills, it is instructive to note that he served as the Chairman of the the only constitutional committee of the House, the Public Accounts Committee, where he was assiduous, ensuring global reporting for all revenue generating agencies and ensuring better accountability in public procurement, due diligence and fiscal discipline. Senator Adeola (with the alias YAYI), was productive in the act of law-making, brilliant in the endeavour of oversight and industrious in the art of facilitation of federal interventions to his constituency. It is said that, every good deed of man is rewarded with more goodwill; therefore, YAYI, so loved by his constituents and adjoining ones, unanimously supported him to represent Lagos West at the Nigerian Senate. This was the second signpost of his merit-based political ascendancy.

The intervening years between 2015 and 2023, Senator Adeola created a fiefdom in the upper chamber of the National Assembly. His adroit contribution to national conversation and sponsorship of people-centric bills made him a parliamentarian of distinction. During the 8th and 9th senate, he held the offices of pioneer Chairman, Committee on Local Content, Vice Chairman Committee on Communications and subsequently Chairman Committee on Finance where he played vital roles in the revolutionary Finance Acts of 2019 and 2020; while also leading the effort that passed three MTEF/FSP reports – a significant move that returned Nigeria to a January-December budget cycle.

By the end of 2019, the lawmaker had become a poster-boy of the Senate due to untrammelled capacity and excellence. In the unfathomable width of the firmaments and among the constellation of stars, humans are able to spot exceptionally shinning ones in the sky because of their distinguishing features. Senator Adeola, a shining star was courted by his paternal root, the people of Ilaro, Yewaland in Ogun State – who beckoned on him to return home and serve his people. Understanding the weight of that call and what it meant to the people, he consented to that great request and won an overwhelming election into the Senate in 2023 for a third term; representing the good people of Ogun West Senatorial district. This was the third signpost of his merit-based political ascendancy.

Under the current renewed hope dispensation, Senator Solomon Adeola is a poster-boy of the 10th Senate. His track-record of performance, intellectual wittiness, passion, brilliance, integrity and remarkable interpersonal skills, earned him the trust of the Senate leadership to be the Chairman of Senate committee on Appropriation. Within the scope of this assignment, YAYI brought in the usual fervour to bear in ensuring that national budgets were ready in time to get presidential assent and preserve the cycle. Close watchers at the National Assembly attest to the painstaking effort and cutting-edge diligence with which that onerous responsibility was carried out for the 2024 and 2025 budgets. Adeola’s soaring profile as a legislative icon and model public officer has been amplified by how he has delivered, with style and swagger, the dividends of democracy to the people of Ogun West in the last two years.

Without being immodest, he remains arguably one of the best legislators with highest proposed bills, some of which have scaled through to either become legislative resolutions or acts of parliament. Recently, President Bola Tinubu gave accent to a bill sponsored by Adeola for the upgrading of the Federal Polytechnic Ilaro to Federal University of Technology (FUTI) Ilaro. That was a landmark piece of legislation that brought immense joy to the people of his senatorial district. In terms of facilitation of federal projects and empowerment of his people, the lawmaker is second to none.

Within the first half of his current mandate, he facilitated unprecedented interventions in EDUCATION (classrooms, furniture, libraries, ICT centres, books, scholarship/bursaries, school buses); HEALTHCARE (primary healthcare centres, medical outreaches, free glasses, surgery, ambulances, ICUs); INFRASTRUCTURE (road construction/rehabilitation, town halls, security posts, transformers, solar street lights, boreholes); AGRICULTURE (tractors, equipment, fertilizers, seedlings, cash grants, motorised tricycles); CAPACITY BUILDING (Artisans training, skills acquisition programmes for youths, Laptops/IT kits, employment into public/private sectors, cash grants). YAYI’s MEGA EMPOWERMENTS have become a standard to beat in this clime owing to the sheer volume and quality of items he constantly provides to help the disadvantaged in his constituency.

Items such as tricycles, motorbikes, mini buses, sewing machines, embroidery machines, hair-making tools, barbing kits, deep freezers, grinding machines and lots more – have been benefited by his people in their thousands. Without any doubt, the many wonders of YAYI have resonated all over Ogun State and beyond. The epicentre and gravitas of politics today in the Gateway state has shifted in the direction of Ogun West – even citizens from Ogun Central (his maternal root) and Ogun East have entreated the benevolence of the uncommon legislator. He has become the topic of conversation around the state. Both his admirers and traducers have a common denominator – the name YAYI. Undeniably, Senator Adeola’s shinning performance in the last 24 months represents the fourth signpost of his merit-based political ascendancy.

Love him or loathe him, he remains focused on adding value to the lives of his people and as he often says, “I have no apologies to anyone when the conversation is about empowering the people. Besides my incontrovertible contribution to national growth, If I am labelled desperate in the pursuit of facilitating development for the largest numbers of my people per time, then I will remain deviant in this regard”. YAYI’s political trajectory is again taking a progressive leap. At every turn in his political journey, he has gained one promotion or the other – which came about by doing good with public trust. His growth has been on the plank of meritocracy. Again, he has loudly stamped his passport for higher service by the end of his current mandate in 2027.

All around Ogun State today, the call is getting louder and the demand for him to venture into executive office is audible to the deaf. The demand of fate may yet catapult him to the ultimate date with destiny. After all, his people – the people of Yewa-Awori – already see him as the rallying point to emancipate them from 50 years of subjugation within the Ogun state subset. For those echoing the same sentient from outside of Ogun West, it is about the desire to taste the goodies currently pervading the western division. To them, what is good for one can be good for all. In Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, the people already see a man capable of moving Ogun State to the next phase of its physical development and socioeconomic regeneration; and on daily basis, the senator continue to strengthen his case for executive leadership.