Vanguard
AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE GOVERNOR OF LAGOS: Our plans to transform Lagos State, by Gov Fashola

By Jide Ajani, Political Editor
Posted to the Web: Wednesday, October 10, 2007

* The strategy to curb insecurity
* Speaks of the vision for infrastructural development
* Says Lagos remains strategic to Nigeria and Africa
* Insists the rule of law remains the way forward

What marks the difference between Babatunde Raji Fashola and Bola Ahmed Tinubu?

First of all, quite a number of us have been in government for over a period of four, seven, or even more years and we moreover, contributed into building the foundations under the leadership of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and, therefore, there is a somewhat seamless transition, change of leadership at the top and not necessarily a substantial change. Of course as I have said, I can’t be Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu, because we are different – he is an accountant, I am a lawyer and there are so many things different about us but we share one vision – vision to make change, vision to develop this state, vision to be responsible, vision to care for people.

But as human beings, the way we actualise the vision, the order in which we choose to arrange the priorities, would differ and that would be informed by our different lifestyle cycles, the roads that he has walked are not necessarily the roads that I have walked. I came into government having served in that government for four years. So I have my ideas on how certain things should have been done.  I participated in doing certain things and therefore, I have enough experience on  which way to go now. For example, I joke among my people that I have seen enough proposals that could last me a life time and if I continue to look at proposals, may be I won’t read enough before they say pens down as they say in exams.

I have chosen, for example, not to leave this country unless it becomes imperative that I do so, because each time a proposal is sent to me , I say ‘oh yes, it’s fine, it looks natural on paper, let’s put it on the ground.’ The more hours we spend here, the more hours we spend in planning, we have to bring those proposals we see in Dubai, in South Africa, in US on to the floors of Lagos and we can begin to live it rather than to continue to dream it.

Why these are opportune times:

We are in government at a very opportune time, opportune in the sense that so many good things have happened that did not happen in the time of Governor Tinubu.  There is a lot more money in our economy than there ever was in 1999, oil was selling, I believe for $9 a barrel and hovering between (68 and 81) now, our banks are bigger and stronger now. This is the time to seize the opportunity to do enduring things. I also believe that until we begin to do things here, nobody will come to do it for us.

The plans for the transportation sector:

In the area of transportation, we made a commitment to change the face of transportation in Lagos. This is broken down into three components, road, water and rail.

Traffic management on the roads is a major challenge, it has been…

(Cuts in) The issue of Lagos and traffic management is what brought the term “go slow”.
It has confounded so many governments before my own time. You will recall the odd and even number, park and ride and all of that – they were transportation management strategies. Now, we need to build more roads and we need to make them more efficient. What we have done first of all is that we have decided that there are areas where we called motor grid roads.

If we can use our heads, we can solve traffic management problems there and we have engaged Architects in identifying 25 spots in Lagos that are traffic grid lock areas and researches showed that the problem is conflicting traffic, traffic meeting at a point and one having to wait for the other.

We realised from our experts that if we direct traffic in a manner that it does not conflict, it will move more efficiently. The idea was not for traffic not to meet but for traffic not to conflict.

For example, at an intersection of Glover and Kingsway Road, the traffic coming from Glover must go across that road, that is conflicting traffic. They form a cross at a T- junction, so somebody has to come to a dead stop and immediately you come to that dead stop, the traffic begins to pile up. And what experts advised us to do is don’t allow traffic from that road to cross from one end of Glover into another end of Glover. Instead of doing that, let’s go on and meet traffic coming from Kingsway Road, they meet but don’t conflict and then create an under pass where that traffic can come back and ease into Glover Road at the other end. All of this is being designed because we have agreed we would not compromise quality in what we do. So we have engaged some of the best construction firms, some of them would work on particular roads.

Attacking the recklessness and indiscipline on the roads:

We have decided to change behaviour by attacking it.

We have decided to take on those who violate our traffic laws and encourage LASTMA to do so. One of the things we realised is that attempting to stop a fast moving vehicle driving against opposing traffic is an extremely dangerous venture.  In the process, you can hurt passengers, you can hurt your personnel while trying to enforce the law, you can lose lives. Nobody likes it but how do we stop it? We decided that we are going to position ourselves at those loops where you climb the flyover to drive against the traffic. So we set up units at major points on Third Mainland Bridge.  We are winning.

Personally in my convoy, everybody is virtually a traffic officer now.  We have arrested quite a number of them.  I have personally led the arrest on Third Mainland Bridge; we have their photographs.

We are therefore seeking your (Media) partnership to help us change these attitudes. We are planning to institute law and order pages, so that any time we arrest offenders violating traffic, we put them on the page for members of the public to see – awon to fe ba Eko je ni yen (these are the people who want to mess Lagos up) meaning those who do not mean well for Lagos State.

Those who have been arrested, the Attorney-General is prosecuting them;  there was not much to do really in that sense because we have them on tape, we have them on photographs, they made voluntary confessions but beyond that, we are also moving forward.

On road contracts awarded by the last administration

We have passed the supplementary budget to continue many of the roads that were awarded during the tenure of the last administration so that we can complete them. We have approved the construction of thirty-six (36) roads in what is the old Yaba, from Murtala Mohammed Way all through to Oyingbo, back through Borno Way, all through and back down to Jibowu and some connecting streets. We’ll be doing this over a period of four years.

We have awarded the contracts, we’ll be doing them in phases, the contractors would soon move to site. We will be doing the same thing in Alimosho – we’re doing eleven roads in Alimosho – major roads – over the next four years. We have awarded the contract for the continuation of the dualisation of Awolowo Road, Ikoyi,  which was awarded by the last administration, but we have mobilised Julius Berger back to site, they’ll be moving to site I think (next week Monday) to continue the Bourdillon expansion right through the back to the Osborne interchange and similarly, we have concluded agreement (some two days ago) to continue the conclusion of the Akin Adesola dualisation first half from Eko Hotel/Bar Beach to Ajose Adeogun roundabout, and we’re taking from Ajose Adeogun now to come and meet the work that is going on at the Lekki-Epe Expressway for the dualisation of that road. All of these have been concluded, we are sustaining our commitment to the dualisation of Lekki-Epe Expressway.

What’s the significance of the dualisation of the Lekki/Epe Expressway?

What is important about that transaction is that it is more than just a road, it is a philosophy of using private sector funding to develop a public infrastructure. That is the way all international cities are going and that is why this is a partnership with some of the best corporate organisations you could think of in the world.

They are employing the best practices, working at night, trying to manage traffic during the day, widening an existing road while allowing commuters to still use the road in a manner that minimises obstruction of traffic.

Resistance to the project:

We have met with resistance on that project and the success of that project had very significant implications for the development of this state. This is the first time in the whole of this country that a non-Nigerian organisation has come to invest in road development. It is significant because its success sends a very positive message just as the successes we have recorded as a nation in the telecommunication industry has sent a positive message that this kind of business can thrive in Nigeria. We continue to appeal to you and all of those organisations whose businesses or daily activities and individuals will be affected by the work we are doing on that road. It is to our collective benefit, it is in our collective interest that this project succeeds.

There are a few organisations that have taken us to court because we have asked them to move their fences. Everybody wants a road but it has to pass through some place, we have undertaken not just to move the fences but to rebuild them, that is part of our obligation.

And indeed, all the places where we have identified the need to move the fences, these are legitimate requests that we have made because we have found out that they have gone beyond normal set-backs; but because of individual business interests, some have taken us to court.

This is a Public/Private Partnership (PPP) programme that has to be completed to a particular schedule.  Everyday of delay of the project makes it expensive.

It is pertinent that our people are made to understand certain facts.

Firstly, until the fence is set, you can’t determine the actual width of roads. Because we want to create an additional lane and that must come from somewhere.

Now before you set the drain, you must set the embarkment of the drain which is the wall and if you can’t do that wall, you cannot do any inch of the road.  Yes, you may be able to do corresponding alignment and it becomes more expensive. The traffic on Lekki/Epe Expressway is such that  armed robbers are just attacking motorists in traffic and now the citizens we want to serve do not want to give a few inches of their fences to relieve this traffic.  Now, how do we do this? This is the kind of environment in which we’ve had to work, but we are not looking back, we know what we are doing is right, we would answer all those cases.

One must commend the understanding of the judiciary here, because there was a particular case which they tried to get an Experte Order to stop all the work there, but the judge very sensibly declined the order and asked that they should put the company on notice and come and argue the merit of the injunction and ultimately after listening, he saw clearly that the balance of convenience was in favour of the public having the road and declined the injunction.

This is the kind of partnership we want that can sustain real investment in the country.

Our intention is to maximise resources at our disposal and to seek private partnership in developing infrastructure. We are more or less compiling the remaining projects that we want to do hoping to be able to present it to the public.
 
New frontiers on road construction and expansion:

(On Wednesday) our Executive Council also approved the design for the expansion of the Lagos- Badagry Expressway; we have committed money for its design.  We are also speaking with the Federal Government on it.  We have taken the first big step, because you can’t build a road unless you design it and cost it. So we have awarded it for design so that we would at least know to the letter where the alignment is, how much it will cost and seek the funding partnership to do it.

Vision for transportation in Lagos State:

In the area of road transportation, we are at a stage where very soon, we would be awarding the contract for the design for road routes for Lagos State; that is all I wish to say about that at this moment.

Water transportation

Similarly in the area of water transportation, we have identified seven major water ways and we have chosen to start with three, this is a part of the promises I made during the election to provide water transportation and since assumption of office, I have met with some of the very best from the world, we are looking at the issues of safety, dredging, design of jetties and water ways and how to concession it and get partnership for private sector operation.  All of these have taken time but we are almost closing . For those who are expecting the ferries to be running within 100 days, you have to wait a little bit more.  But I want to assure you that we are making progress.

On the environmental challenges confronting Lagos State:

In the area of environment, we have decided to employ more hands and we have seen that people are responding to our call to dump refuse in the bin, though there is still more to be done. We have taken the aesthetics of our environment very seriously; we have taken the outer Marina for beautification project; we have identified 10 loops from Ikoyi through to the toll gate, that is going through the Third Mainland Bridge.  Though we identified 20 loops, but we decided to work on 10. A chain of contractors are working there. What is interesting is that they have engaged the services of all the miscreants normally found under those loops, we have registered them and taught them how to plant seeds, among others. The project started some weeks ago. They have created a nursery where they are planting and also engaged the neighbourhood kids they find their. When we finish this project, the intention is to leave those kids there as managers of those plants.

When you approach Lagos toll gate on the right and left side, you see a project going on there .  We acknowledged the partnership and buying-in of many of the organisations around there who have also embarked on the massive greening which complements our efforts, and we feel if this is sustained, it would give a lot of beauty and ambience to our state. Maintaining this greening projects takes a lot of work but in this way, we think we can respond to one challenge that confronts us.

The dumping sites:

Formally, we will soon commission our Waste-to-Wealth plant at Ikorodu but what we have also done in that area is to ask our partners to expand from Ikorodu to Epe and Badagry. Just recently,  I was told they have located two satisfactory sites in those places.

If we have one in Epe and Badagry we would divert waste collection in Badagry to that place, reduce traffic in that area, similarly for Epe and still create some productive activities.

We are also building new land fill sites towards Epe and Badagry and transfer loading stations to reduce the need for all vehicles to face one direction of the state. Our turn around is also limited by the fact that this job operators work during the same time all of us are operating so if we make them localised, we can also improve on efficiency. We are to procure more refuse management trucks but as you are aware, it is holiday seasons in all of Europe and all these have to be manufactured and delivered.

On water ways, we face an environmental challenge too, the Bar beach, and I must commend the vision of the last administration in Lagos. It was last year we had the heaviest recorded rain.

The work already done on the Bar beach looks quite capable of dealing with ocean surge. We have discovered that there is need to elongate the sea defence wall by another 500 metres – what we did was 1,000 metres and we have included this in the supplementary budget, we mobilised and commissioned the contractors to conclude that.

What we realised is that what is going on in the whole world particularly in the Gulf of Mexico and United States really does have a ripple effect on our coast and each time you have Hurricanes or whatever, in US, Mexico, the experts have told us that in 10 to 14 days, we see the impact here, and the explanation is simple and logical, it’s one body of water. It’s like throwing a coin into a bucket of water. At the point of entry, it is impactful and the ripple goes all the way down, so what is happening at the Bar beach, apart from our experiences when we disturbed the natural setting by the creation of Apapa Port in 1909 or there about, we are one and part of that global village. So what happens there impacts here.

We are responding to our challenge as best as we can.

Securing Lagos:

We realised that we can’t do it alone.

We also realised that we have an underpaid, under-motivated, under-equipped security agency which is the Police. I observed a trend that seems not to be peculiar to Lagos alone. It seems that security concerns are heightened when there is a change of government and I drew an analogy between 9/11, when Clinton left and Bush came in, I drew an analogy between the high security concern, when Tony Blair left and Gordon Brown came in, the terror alert build up in the UK. And again, when you see at the Federal level, the Niger-Delta has almost taken a life of its own in the transition period.

And when we discuss the security concern of Lagos State, we must do so to the fullest perspective.

When you measure the security statistics in a place populated by 18 million people, in a place that is the commercial nerve centre of the country and then you compare the statistics to a place that has one quarter of that population, that doesn’t have a comparable commercial activity as what you are looking at. I think that is when you begin to see the true degenerative nature of what is happening vis a vis your numbers.

What we decided to do is not just to only equip the Police, that is the responsibility of the Federal Government as currently constituted by our constitution but we will not abdicate our responsibility to provide security for lives and property.

We set up a security committee when I came in and the recommendation included the strengthening of the Rapid Response to violent crimes. We have divided Lagos into 35 core units that need up to 245 police vehicles and we need thousands of men, working on an eight-hour shift. Now, they go 12 to 24-hour circuit; at a point in time they must get tired.

All of this has been assessed as requiring about N2.3 billion to fund, provide protective head-gears, bullet proof vests, walkie-talkies, vehicles, fuel. And we reached out to the public, particularly the corporate bodies, knowing that they also invest money in security. We thought that if we pull these resources together, then we can protect a lot more people than for each and everyone of us to be providing his own private army.

They responded very well I must say, and I thank them for it.

But beyond just providing vehicles and all these, is the idea that we must provide a way of sustaining what we start. I look back and I realise that over the years, many governments have  provided equipment. But what happens is that these things have their life cycles. In corporate accounting, vehicles attract zero value after four years, now if we are considering vehicles for security, we must think of a life span of a two-year period or at the most three. And we asked ourselves whether we would be fair on the system and the society to, after this initiative, start again and we said no. We enabled a legislation to create a security trust fund by which we can continue to amass money and amass resources, so we are receiving contributions in kind and in cash.

And to crown it, we have a committee in the state, comprising eminent, trusted, tested and good natured people to manage the resources and help fight the scourge of crime.  Things are bad the way they are but we believe that we can, and we are making progress.