Jim Nwobodo: What Jakande told me before he died

A former governor of Anambra State, Senator Jim Nwobodo, has lamented the death of the first executive governor of Lagos State, Lateef Kayode Jakande.

Nwobodo, who was one of the 19 governors that served alongside late Jakande in 1979, said he received the news of his demise with shock.

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He said the former Lagos Governor had expressed worries over the state of the nation when they met last December 2020.

He said, “I was as shocked that he died. The last time we saw was at a party hosted by the Lagos State Governor. It was a Christmas party and it was in commemoration of Tinubu’s birthday, I saw him and we embraced,” Nwobobo said in an interview.

“But even before then I visited him with the Secretary of the Former Governors Forum and we chatted a lot about things, he showed me all his old pictures and so on and so forth, we remembered that good old days, we laughed and he felt that things are not as good as they used to be, because he was so friendly and the governors were also friendly too. ”

Nwobodo, who described late Jakande as his brother, said he called the family to console them over the death of their patriarch.

“If you saw the governors, it didn’t matter what party you came from. We saw Jakande as a brother, the thing that shocked mostly is that I have now lost another brother and friend and its unfortunate but he is gone.

“So what I did was to call his house, I got his son, Tunji and I got his wife, I spoke to the wife also I know the wife very well,” he said.

Describing the relationship between governors in the progressive parties in 1979, Nwobodo who was under the late Nnamdi Azikwe’s Nigerian People Party (NPP), said back then, they were bounded by unity of purpose.

“Not only was there a very good relationship, Jakande was in UPN under the progressives, I was in NPP under the progressives, Abubakar Rimi PRP under the progressives, Balarabe Musa, under the progressives, Goni, Solomon Lar under the progressives,” he said.