14/10/2025
Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo: A One Special Breed in Every Generation That Cannot Be Distracted.
By Olanrewaju Oluseyi
12/10/2025
There are leaders who inherit positions and leaders who remake the places they serve. Born May 1, 1982 in Okeagbe-Akoko, Ondo State, he moved from running an ICT firm in his twenties to shaping national institutions, always with a focus on measurable fixes, not rhetoric.
Tunji-Ojo’s record is straightforward to summarise: spot a large operational problem, apply technology and management, measure progress, then report outcomes. Early in his public life he pressed for transparency in the House of Representatives (2019–2023), most visibly in oversight of agencies where he pushed for clearer accounting and governance. That managerial instinct carried into the executive when he became Minister of Interior in August 2023.
As minister he set concrete targets: clear the passport backlog, regularize promotions and welfare across paramilitary services, and build digital capacity to reduce friction at borders. His office reports that it cleared about 200,000 unprinted passport applications and settled roughly ₦28 billion in legacy debts inherited from earlier administrations. Those actions were accompanied by a drive to accelerate promotions across the services, figures reported by the ministry and press indicate tens of thousands of promotions, with later statements putting cumulative promotions under his watch above 50,000 across paramilitary services.
The ministry also commissioned the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Technology Innovation Complex (BATTIC), a data-and-operations hub described in public accounts as housing a command-and-control centre, an NIS data centre, an ECOWAS biometric production facility and a visa/passport processing centre, infrastructure intended to cut costs, speed service and reduce opportunities for corruption. These are system-level changes: not headline stunts but investments meant to keep services running better after any single officeholder leaves.
No reformer escapes critics. In 2023 Tunji-Ojo faced accusations about the authenticity of his NYSC discharge certificate; opponents urged his resignation and sought judicial review. The NYSC, after an internal check, publicly clarified that his certificate was genuine, explaining that he had been first mobilised in 2006, later remobilised in 2019, and that a printing omission delayed issuance until February 2023, and a court date was set for related legal challenges. The Senate proceeded with his confirmation following the NYSC verification. These events show how controversy and verification can move in parallel: allegation, institutional check, and then adjudication.
Facts and figures matter because they limit spin. Tunji-Ojo’s approach combines private-sector speed with public-sector scale: clear numeric targets (passport backlogs, debt settled, promotions processed), a technology backbone (BATTIC), and operational follow-through (facility visits, policy tweaks). He will make enemies whenever he remakes old routines; that is the cost of systems reform. But on the record today, the measurable gains he claims have independent reportage and institutional confirmation and the NYSC episode, once checked by the Corps, did not stop his confirmation.
Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo’s public profile is not flawless, but it is defined by a single habit: refuse to be distracted from fixing the machine. For a generation that needs administrators who deliver, that relentlessness combined with verifiable outcomes is why I call him “one special breed.”
