Gbenga Ashafa’s Measured Hope

These are trying times for Nigeria and Nigerians, times largely defined by its anxieties. Yet, it is now that Gbenga Ashafa speaks the language of patience. The former senator and housing chief believes Nigeria is inching, quietly, toward prosperity. To him, recovery is not an explosion but a climb, one that is slow, deliberate, and already underway.

At the 45th anniversary of the FS Club in Lagos, Ashafa looked cheerful, even buoyant. He told reporters that under President Bola Tinubu, the nation was “easing toward prosperity, little by little.” He pointed to fewer Nigerians migrating abroad, more young people learning trades, and the faint hum of local industry returning to life.

It was the kind of optimism that comes from spreadsheets rather than slogans. Ashafa, once Permanent Secretary of the Lagos Lands Bureau and later Managing Director of the Federal Housing Authority, has spent decades translating policy into projects. He is no stranger to how long reform takes—or how fragile progress can be.

His faith in Tinubu’s leadership is both political and personal. The two share a long history from Lagos governance circles, and Ashafa frames Tinubu’s presidency as a continuation of that technocratic legacy. “We have not got there yet,” he said, “but we will get there.” Being measured, linear, confident, this is clearly conviction delivered in an engineer’s cadence.

Ashafa credits recent economic stability to Tinubu’s fiscal reforms, citing the World Bank and IMF’s approval as validation. Yet, even he concedes that the productive sector remains weak and job creation is sluggish. His call, therefore, was less triumphal than pragmatic: stay the course, refine the machinery, keep faith in the system.

For a nation weary of promises, Ashafa’s optimism is almost quaint. Still, it carries the weight of someone who has built things before (namely, policies, railways, housing estates) and seen them stand. Maybe that’s the point. His hope is not blind. It’s professional.