By Dr Nurudeen Oshinlaja
On a tiring Friday evening, I decided to check out my darling Ikorodu Division and Lagos State (Southwest, Nigeria) to admire the geographic ambience of the enthralling towns and quench my nostalgia. I am captivated by how the Lagos Lagoon bounds and edifies Ikorodu Division as a prominent sprawling littoral Lagos urban society. The coolest thing, to me, from the picture are the imprints of the resilience of the vegetation and drainages (based on GIS imageries I extracted on 07/06/2024) despite the disturbance of poorly controlled urban development.
I thought the imagery depict some palimpsests of the vegetation and drainages of our division. Palimpsests, in this sense, are objects or events which continue to have inestimable significance regardless of consistent uses, modifications, deliveries or emissions, and their latent layering which bellies their inestimable value. Palimpsests have spatial and temporal dimensions and there are ‘true’ palimpsests an‘cumulative’ palimpsests. These perceived Ikorodu vegetation and drainage palimpsests (and the measured ones see e.g., Obiefuna et al., 2013) are, in my opinion, metaphors of people’s public value.
Although the theory of palimpsests is involved, esoteric and philosophically contentious, it is interesting from many perspectives. Theologians appreciate palimpsests for their significance on divine scriptures just as artists, mostly academic, love to paint and study the historical patterns of the unique, often picturesque, imageries on their canvases. Palimpsests are linguists’ and historians’ delight as the dynamism (and, possibly, provenance) of vocabularies and remarkable stories is studied under the palimpsests of meaning. Scientists such as archaeologists, geographers, oceanographers, and geologists often examine the records embedded in palimpsests (e.g., coral reefs) to understand a lot about our solid, living, and changing world. Social scientists also study human relationships, social encounters, and the materiality of objects from the prism of palimpsests. So, by and large, palimpsests have pedagogical, socioeconomic and environmental significance.
There is a stellar performer in our division whose public value characterises palimpsests by all standards. He is Hon. Babajimi Benson (pka, JB). It is often strenuous to unpack palimpsests temporally hence they are assessed spatially – in this way, for example, localised drainages can be separated from channels with wider areal coverage due to their tributaries. It’s the same with JB. We often lose track of his temporal imprints not because the values have been effaced but because he delivers back-to-back. More special are JB’s dendritic, strategically all-encompassing, well-intentioned transformational impacts which galvanise hope and progress in our division. Like palimpsests, JB’s interventions and actions mirror spatiotemporal mosaic and are clearly deployed to develop our division and Lagos State, by extension. That JB’s delivery of regenerative public goods is not biased to one ‘society’, ‘denomination’, ‘demography’, or ‘class of people’ is phenomenal.
It is also a big question as to the extent to which physical traces of palimpsests can be identified because there are many invisible experiences that cannot be tracked easily. Yet, there are many invisible palimpsests that leave physical markers and traces. Going by genuine accounts of many persons, there are life-changing impacts JB has made in many. Some of JB’s invaluable but invisible impacts get easily lost in radar as they are delivered quietly with unreserved grace, but many of these impacts leave indelible impressions and bequeath life-changing progress. For example, I was on the verge of losing an important opportunity until JB diplomatically helped. He was in faraway Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA but remotely resolved the big issue in London, UK within a couple of days. What would have taken 5 months to be achieved, by which time the opportunity would be off, was achieved in 1 week without violating any moral, ethical, or legal codes! The assortment of non-localised, invaluable impacts of JB distinguishes him from the pack of contemporary public officers.
In this time when Ikorodu Division’s needs that will place her on her deserved pedestal are numerous and with our natural insatiable wants, true public value, like true palimpsests, becomes easily unappreciated. However, like cumulative palimpsests, successive positive actions make it undebatable to distinguish the men from the boys in public service delivery. As JB constantly stacks new public (and private) goods on top of another, his life-long public value is maintained and eternally engraved. Unlike in cumulative palimpsests where loss of resolution is a big concern, JB’s public value grows in layers, extents, and essence such that the value will always be materially and spatially conspicuous. JB cannot be appreciated enough!
It is important to reiterate that sustaining one’s public value requires an intermixture of being true to the cause of humanity, making unceasing contributions that are at least commensurate with one’s position, and having an all-inclusive (socially and geographically) transformational mindset. This intermixture is more germane for public officers. It is off-putting for public officers to be tardy and lazy to tackle societal problems using the public resources and the always receptive human capital resources at their disposal. The performance of enigmas like JB who moves mountains to do more and more in revitalising Ikorodu Division (and Lagos State, by extension) should continue to inspire (private) selfless contributions and sharpen all our public officers into giving top-level performance day in day out. Enough of pedestrianism, excusiology, and lack of gravitas. As we remain grateful to all contributors and impact makers, I pray that Ikorodu Division becomes more and more successful and fruitful.
Nurudeen Oshinlaja, a university researcher writes from Cardiff, UK
Obiefuna, J. N., Nwilo, P. C., Atagbaza, A. O., and Okolie, C. J. (2013). Spatial Changes in the Wetlands of Lagos/Lekki Lagoons of Lagos, Nigeria. Journal of Sustainable Development; Vol. 6, No. 7; 2013 ISSN 1913-9063 E-ISSN 1913-9071.
