By Olukorede Yishau
THERE ARE people whose nicknames trump their birth names any day, any time. So popular are their nicknames that even newspaper editors are forced to use them in headlines because doing otherwise is failing the cardinal rule of headline. casting.
The popularity of these nicknames extend to more territories. They also linger in beer parlours where men argue over bottles of lager, in market stalls where traders measure tomatoes against inflation, or in WhatsApp groups where every Nigerian suddenly becomes a constitutional lawyer. One of such is Yayi.
There are others like Jay-Jay, Papilo, Pele. You don’t have to mention their government names before we know who you are talking about.
Mention Solomon Olamilekan Adeola in some places and there may be a moment of silence, but mention Yayi and faces light up because clarity sets in.
They remember him as many things, including being the Ogun State governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who was endorsed by all living past governors and incumbent governor of his state.
Nicknames have always fascinated me that I gave myself one that many friends and colleagues identify me by. Nigerians hardly give them without reason.
They are often earned rather than inherited. Some are affectionate. Others are sarcastic. A few become larger than the names on birth certificates. Yayi belongs to that rare category.
His story did not begin in the chambers of the National Assembly. It began in the orderly world of accounting, where numbers are expected to behave and every debit patiently waits for its credit.
Before politics embraced him, he had worked at The Guardian newspaper, later practised accounting and tax consultancy, and built a professional reputation that eventually earned him fellowship of the accounting profession.
Perhaps that background explains why budgets appear to him not merely as figures but as stories. Every allocation tells a story and every omission tells another.
Politics, however, has a strange way of rewriting biographies. The young accountant from Alimosho became a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly.
Then came the House of Representatives, where he chaired the Public Accounts Committee as a first-term legislator.
From there, he moved to the Senate, representing Lagos West for two terms before taking the unusual political journey to represent Ogun West in 2023.
Today, he chairs the Senate Committee on Appropriations, one of the most influential committees in Nigeria’s legislature.
Not many politicians successfully change political geography.
Politics is fiercely territorial. Communities often ask uncomfortable questions.
“Where are you really from?”
“Who are your people?”
“Can we truly call you our own?”
Those questions have followed Yayi into Ogun politics.
Nigeria has always wrestled with identity. We speak endlessly about state of origin, local government of origin, ancestral villages and ethnic belonging, even in a country where millions live, work and build their futures far from where their grandfathers were buried.
Perhaps that is why the Yayi story resonates beyond Ogun.
It asks an uncomfortable question.
What truly qualifies a leader? Birth? Residence? Acceptance? Performance? Or all of them woven together?
Supporters point to roads, scholarships, empowerment programmes, rural infrastructure and legislative interventions as evidence that representation should ultimately be measured by visible outcomes rather than sentiment.
They see in him a politician who has mastered the difficult art of staying connected to his constituents while navigating the complex machinery of Abuja.
Critics, naturally, see things differently. And democracy needs critics. A politician without critics is either invisible or surrounded by dangerous admirers.
Every serious public office holder deserves scrutiny. Budgets must be questioned. Projects must be verified. Promises must be measured against delivery. Leadership should never become immune from interrogation simply because it enjoys applause.
Yet, there is another lesson hidden inside the Yayi phenomenon.
Visibility matters. Many politicians work quietly and hope history notices them. Others understand that leadership is also communication.
Citizens cannot appreciate what they neither see nor understand.
Whether one agrees with his politics or not, Yayi has remained remarkably visible. His name surfaces whenever conversations drift towards constituency engagement, budgetary influence or Ogun’s political future.
Visibility, of course, is not the same as effectiveness. But invisibility is rarely mistaken for leadership.
Perhaps the greatest currency in politics is not money. It is memory. Can people remember what you stood for? Can they recall your interventions without consulting Google?
Can your name trigger stories in villages where newspapers seldom arrive?
These are questions every elected official should ask before printing another campaign poster.
Some years from now, another generation will occupy today’s political offices.
New slogans will emerge, fresh campaign songs will compete for airtime and another politician will become the darling of social media.
My final take: Every era leaves behind certain personalities who define its conversations. Whether history ultimately remembers Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola as the accountant who mastered politics, the lawmaker who understood budgets, the grassroots politician who crossed political borders, or the man whose nickname became a political brand, only time will deliver the final verdict.
The reason for this is obvious: History applauds nobody too early, condemns nobody too quickly, but it simply waits, watches and writes and when it finally writes, only legacies do.
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