Tokunbo Wahab: Giant Strides of a Public Servant at 53

By all accounts, Tokunbo Wahab was never meant to be ordinary. Born on May 17, 1972, in the heart of Lagos, he has danced across decades with the poise of a man always several steps ahead: equal parts barrister, reformer, and urban tactician.

At 53, Wahab wears his public office not as a title, but as a calling. As Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, he has become something of a mythic figure in the city’s landscape wars: clearing, reclaiming, restoring. Shanties have bowed to his will. Flyovers have found their breath again. He has been called many things—unflinching, clinical, relentless—but always effective.

Take Oshodi, that once-maddening knot of chaos. Under Wahab, it now whispers a different tune: of order. Of purpose. Of spaces that remember what they were meant to be. The same tale unfolds at Elegbata, Oja Oba, and Adeniji Adele, where makeshift markets and crumbling shelters have been swept into memory.

Some cry foul. Others, especially those tired of the city’s slow decay, call it long overdue. Wahab hears both but bends to neither. “Sentiment does not govern cities,” he would have quipped. “Structure does.” And structure is what he delivers—ruthlessly at times, but with an endgame, only the brave can pursue.

Before the bulldozers, there was the barrister. A Harvard-trained lawyer with roots in Epe and credentials from Wharton to Benin, Wahab built his legacy in courtrooms and lecture halls. As Special Adviser on Education, he pushed data-led reforms across Lagos tertiary institutions. Today, he shapes the city’s physical ecosystem with the same strategic nerve.

Behind the fierce policies is a family man, a communicator, and a scholar with Mass Comm. and Law degrees, and a deep sense of Lagos as both a place and an idea.

Fifty-three candles later, Wahab isn’t just ageing—he’s advancing. And for a city like Lagos, ever in need of brave hands, that might just be the greatest gift.