Hate him; if you so wish. Yes, Engr. Adedeji Doherty has his own imperfections, but he’s not short in showing love and spreading happiness to people around him. No man is perfect, from all I know. And I believe everyone knows that too.
But one thing that can be said of the Lagos Island boy is that, whatever are his imperfections as a human being, he comes across distinctively as one who’s of the natural mintage of God’s best human creatures; a specie of the biblical man created by God in His own image and likeness.
Adedeji Doherty is a good-natured man. Anyone might have a different opinion of him, he could perhaps seem to some other persons the worst of human creatures they have ever experienced. Yes, I concede to haters and their families of flippant characters the total right to roast in the savagery of their own misguided thoughts.
Let me quickly make a caveat here, I do not claim to know all the open and closed sides to the life of Adedeji Doherty and his ways. Since this my piece is not a commissioned biography but a personal observatory to illustrate and celebrate a man after our hearts on his birthday, I will be scant about things that are very personal to his life.
Adedeji Doherty is a successful business man, a hugely successful one at that, and everyone can see.
I am not engrained in the Adedeji Doherty family but as someone who enters his house very freely and regularly, and can feel the serenity of relations within the home I will say he’s one of the luckiest men in the world to run a happy family. Having a very affable personality as a wife, a very urbane and respectful woman, and his boisterous legion of promising children, Deji, as fondly called by his buddies, is surely a happy family man with an assured time ahead of him in his old age.
However, I have observed Doherty more as a politician and the much that I can say of him since we encountered each other on the topsy-turvy field of politics in the Lagos PDP is that he’s a rare leader among the pack; a great company to be with at any time.
From the time of working with him as the State Chairman of our great party when I was a local government chairman I have come to appreciate him for his political sagacity and administrative acumen. He gave the most inspiring leadership to the local government so much so that he had at least 18 out of 20 LGA Chairmen working with him, a feat none of his predecessors achieved in the recent time.
Since the end of the era of the founding State Chairman, Mr. Olorunfunmi Bashorun no state helmsman had ever succeeded in navigating our beleaguered, crisis-ridden system and welded the party’s administrative structures together as much as Doherty did, even as his every step was unrelentingly being attacked from the very first day that he took the reins of power as State Chairman by ill-tempered leaders who took delight in seeing the party in crisis and bleeding.
Doherty always provided the necessary guidance to assisting the party executives at the grassroots for proper and efficient management of the structures, the resultant effect being in the applaudable growth of the membership after the party’s population across the wards had been badly depleted as a consequence of the long protracted crisis that had held the party down for many years. By his leadership style anchored on mutual respect, mutual commitment and mutual interactions to develop the best approach to handling very complex issues and his ever resilient spirit to stand with resolutions on mutual consensus by all involved, Doherty as State Chairman proved himself as a rare leader of men and a gracious builder of potential leaders.
It is little wonder that virtually all the LGA Chairmen and other critical leaders who worked with him during his tenure are still with him up till this day as his friends and committed allies.
Mention must also be specially made of the then symbols of the Lagos PDP at the national front, the three sitting reps – Hon. Oghene, Hon. Soyinka and Hon. Obasa, who stood by Doherty all through the turbulent times and were always around to encourage us.
The rare politician in Doherty doesn’t make him abandon his friends in time of trouble. Rather than watch his allies and followers go down in a war he takes the bullet for them to survive and be safe.
On different occasions Doherty has had to sacrifice his own ambitions if he saw that pushing further could blow the roof off the heads of his followers or kill their collective political prospects. When Oyo State Gov. Seyi Makinde, as overseer of the affairs of the Lagos PDP being leader of the party in the South West, picked a war with Doherty and his associates, he took the assault in its stride and offered himself on the crucifix as the governor would love to have him. Gov. Makinde insisted on having another person as the State Chairman, even when Doherty still had the constitutional right to contest for one more term, and he gently gave way so we could have a seamless congress in the Lagos PDP. What became paramount to Doherty as the governor bullied him out of the way was how his several followers who were positioning themselves for various positions could have their own catch.
That was Doherty’s mother-hen spirit of protecting those who subscribe to his leadership, which subsequently birthed the current party executives and saw most of his allies in his Unity Freedom Group (UFG) emerge either at the Ward level, local government or the State.
So many unwarranted wars viciously waged against Doherty that could have totally exterminated almost everyone who were known to associate with him failed because he stood his ground and he became the fall guy all the way.
Personally, he is warm like a toast. A man of pleasant emotions and affectionate with kind disposition. If you make him your friend you can be sure too that you have in him a great friend you can count on. He is a man that is always there to shake off the pains of his agonising friend; with his broad chest you can cry out your tears of sorrow and on his large shoulders he will gladly lift the burden of his friends who are heavy-laden.
Our own leader of leaders, congratulations on your birthday. All UFG members across the state remain proud of you and wish you many more blissful years in your life ahead.
*MUKA POPOOLA*
Senior member, Agege PDP/ Head, DD Media Team
