Senator Solomon Adeola, is a serving Senator representing Lagos west district for the second term. A chartered accountant, auditor, tax consultant and politician, he has sustained a progressive advancement on the ladder of power and position since his first election into the Lagos State House of Assembly in 2003.
He joined active politics during the military directed political dispensation when he pitched his tent with the then Social Democratic Party. Having been part of the struggle for the survival of democracy under the military dictatorship, he was a ready candidate for electoral contest at the down of the 4th republic.
He won the Lagos State House of Assembly election in 2003, representing Alimosho state constituency 2 under the platform of the then ruling Action Congress. He was re-elected for the second-term in 2007. Adeola clearly identified with Tinubu’s Lagos development blueprint and played an instrumental role in making it happen.
The lawmaker gets the credit for being one of the architects of Tinubu’s development agenda in Lagos State. He played his role through the provision of legislative backing of the executive’s plans and strategies during his eight-year stint as a state parliamentarian.
The funding support needed to implement the development blueprint rested on the state assembly giving its nod to the governor’s proposed reforms. Central to these was the strengthening of Lagos State Internal Revenue Service. Being then chairman of finance committee and joint chairman of appropriation committee of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeola was in a position to help or hinder the passage of the enabling bill.
He bought into the vision and is reputed to be instrumental to the enactment of the law that transformed the agency and made it a model in internally generated revenue in Nigeria. He also played a key role in the passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act and the Public Procurement Act of Lagos Stat’2e. The two laws paved the way for the state to access development financing programmes of international financial institutions.
Adeola finished his eight years of legislative service in the Lagos State House of Assembly with a reference mark of sterling performance. One good turn deserved another, which made him Tinubu’s first choice for promotion to national service.
He was elected to the federal legislature to represent Alimosho federal constituency in the House of Representative in 2011. Given his immense financial and political skills, he got the post of chairman, public accounts committee of the house – the only constitutional committee, notwithstanding being a first time member of the house.
Bringing his professional competence once again into play in the House of Representatives, Adeola sponsored and successfully pushed through the passage of a bill that repealed the colonial Audit Act of 1956 and a re-enactment of the Audit Act 2014. The new law establishes a Federal Audit Service Commission and grants autonomy to the office of the auditor general of the federation.
Impressive performance of his legislative duties is combined with effective representation of his constituency all the way from the state assembly to the federal legislature. The good performance again pivots on the Tinubu’s political structure of rewards for loyalty under which he is nick-named ‘distinguished son’. To Adeola, there are no regrets having Tinubu as his political godfather neither is there anything wrong in having a godfather in politics.
Adeola advanced further on the political ranks when he was considered the best leg forward for the vacant seat of Senator for the Lagos west senatorial district for the 2015 general elections.
Three candidates had to step down for him for his party’s primaries. He won the senatorial seat in the 2015 election, representing the largest senatorial district by population in Nigeria. He was re-elected senator for the second term in the 2019 general elections.
Looking back through his journey from the Lagos legislative house to the senate, Adeola gives the credit to Tinubu, who has nurtured his political career. “I want to thank my father, mentor and role model, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu who endorsed me as the party’s candidate. Were it not for God and Tinubu, I would not have been here today”
