Hakeem Muri-Okunola (born 7 January 1972) is a Nigerian lawyer, public administrator, technocrat and current

Lagos State Head of Service The Lagos State Head of Service is the highest rank of the Lagos State Civil Service. The appointment is often confirmed by the Governor of Lagos State subject to the approval of the State House of Assembly. The appointment is often based on the yea ...

. He is the first son of the late respected Justice Muritala Okunola.

Background & Education

After his primary education in

Lagos Island Lagos Island (''Ìsàlẹ̀ Èkó'') is the principal and central local government area (LGA) in Lagos, it was the capital of Lagos State until 1957. It is part of the Lagos Division. As of the preliminary 2006 Nigerian census, the LGA had a pop ...

where he grew up, a young Muri-Okunola became a student of the Nigeria Navy Secondary School, Lagos in 1982. By 1989, he had become an undergraduate of the Lagos State University, Ojo, graduating in 1995 with a bachelor's degree in Law, following which he completed the mandatory one year of study at the

Nigeria Law School The Nigerian Law School is an educational institution set up by the Government of Nigeria in 1962 to provide a Nigerian legal education to foreign-trained lawyers, and to provide practical training for aspiring Legal Practitioners in Nigeria. ...

. Three years on, he gained admission into the prestigious Queen Mary & Westfield College,

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

, obtaining a master's degree in International Business Law in 1999.

Career

Law

Between 1996-1999, he served as an Associate Solicitor wit
Adepetun, Caxton-Martins and Agbor
before joining Company Secretary/Legal Adviser at Ibile Holdings Limited, the Investment Company of Lagos State Government, a position he held from 2000 to 2003.

Civil Service

Muri-Okunola joined the Lagos state civil service in 2001. Between 2003 2005, he was personal assistant to

Bola Tinubu Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu (born 29 March 1952) is a Nigerian accountant and politician who served as the Governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007 and Senator for Lagos West during the brief Third Republic. In June 2022, he was chosen as the A ...

, then governor of

Lagos Lagos (Nigerian English: ; ) is the largest city in Nigeria and the List of cities in Africa by population, second most populous city in Africa, with a population of 15.4 million as of 2015 within the city proper. Lagos was the national ca ...

until Tinubu appointed him Executive Secretary to the Governor, Land Use and Allocation Committee. Afterwards, he was promoted to the position of Permanent Secretary in the Lagos State Public Service in 2011. He was deployed to the Lands Bureau in the Governor's Office where he supervised the State's Lands Administration machinery. In this capacity, he played significant roles in improving the state's ranking in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index. These include the Electronic Certificate of Occupancy (E-C of O), the Electronic Data Management System (EDMS) and the 30-day processing of consent applications. In 2015, he was named Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Youth and Social Development, working on the amended version of the Child's Rights Law and the Child Protection Policy among other things. During this period, he was also on the board of the Lagos State Office for Disability Affairs (LASODA). Muri-Okunola was appointed Head of Service on 28 December 2018, being the most senior ranking member of the Body of Permanent Secretaries in Lagos State.

Personal life

He lives in Lagos and is happily married with children. A member of the Ikoyi Club 1938, Lagos Motor Boat Club, Lagos Polo Club and F's Club, his hobbies include

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competiti ...

polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...

boating Boating is the leisurely activity of travelling by boat, or the recreational use of a boat whether Motorboat, powerboats, Sailing, sailboats, or man-powered vessels (such as rowing and paddle boats), focused on the travel itself, as well as sp ...

, squash,

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

and many other water sports.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muri-Okunola, Hakeem 1972 births Living people People from Lagos State Lagos State civil servants Lagos State University alumni Yoruba politicians