Ambode: Riding On The Wings Of A Legacy Of Excellence

By Mac Durugbo

In the last two weeks, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has concentrated much attention on the Southwest geopolitical zone of the country, especially Lagos State, where some of its top chieftains, including the outgoing President, Goodluck Jonathan, have literally shifted base in the run-up to the Presidential election. In what seems a last minute desperate move to “capture Lagos” (or the Southwest), as the President once said, the Party is moving both men and materials to ensure the realization of its dreams. The grapevine has been abuzz since the last time the President visited, ostensibly to commission a Naval Ship at Apapa. But, according to the grapevine, dollars exchanged hands and even those who never saw, not to talk of touch, the currency, had a feel of it. How did I know? Well the black market reverberated as market women and others down the line, which ordinarily would not easily have access to the dollar, came to exchange them for the local currency. The market is still very vibrant; so it’s verifiable.

The question that is agitating the minds of Nigerians at the moment is what are the President and his team of foot soldiers doing in Lagos and what do they intend to achieve? There is no gainsaying that Lagos has become the cynosure of both local and international attention, especially since the last eight years when the incumbent administration in the State, led by the cerebral Governor Babatunde Fashola embarked on the total transformation of this City. It is not a matter of political grandstanding to say that the City of Lagos has become an internationally preferred city where foreign diplomats and heads of government as well as dignitaries prefer to visit instead of the seat of the Federal Government in Abuja. In the last eight years, all kinds of missions and commissions– Trade, Health, Energy, Cultural, Religious and other missions – have visited this State seeking partnership in their areas of concern. World leaders have come to identify with the infrastructure transformation and the practical demonstration of good governance in the State. As a result, the Governor has become the toast of leadership mentors and propagators of good governance both nationally and internationally. In the last four years, he has been invited to at least ten international events to deliver lectures on Leadership and Infrastructure Renewal. Even chieftains of the PDP know and some have acknowledged it in various for a. For example, of his quality of transformational leadership, a Chieftain of the PDP and one time Foreign Minister of the country, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, was quoted as saying at the meeting of the Nigerian Bar Association in Lagos in 2010; “The Governor of Lagos State has shown that what we need to change Nigeria is that you be the change. I told him that in my new job as the Foreign Affairs Minister he has made my job easy because sometimes, to the chagrin of Peoples Democratic Party leaders, I say that the Governor of Lagos State provides an absolute and overwhelming evidence of what leadership can achieve: the transformational possibilities of leadership”. The truth, therefore, is that this State, as the Governor said recently, is taken. Any thought by the PDP of “capturing” this State is an illusion.

Why do I sound so confident? One of the reasons is that this city has become so sophisticated and the residents have developed along the line of that sophistication over the years. What could work politically for the PDP or for any Nigerian politician in any other state of the Federation cannot work here. For example, sharing dollars to Lagosians, especially at this crucial period of our electoral history, will not work. Of course Lagosians will take money, wherever it comes from, because times are indeed hard. But let no one be deceived that any Lagosian could be bought with money. Secondly, the PDP led Federal Government has not been fair to Lagos State in the last 16 years. The state has been neglected over the years in appointment of Ministers. When it woke up to do the needful, it appointed a man who is, more or less, enemy of the State. In terms of infrastructure, the Federal Government has not only abandoned the responsibility of maintaining its own infrastructure in the State, it has failed to refund the money which the State Government has spent so far, N51 billion, in maintaining these infrastructures. Also other promises made to Lagosians by the President in 2011 remain unfulfilled till date. For example, he promised to rebuild the road leading to the Murtala Mohammed International Airport. He also promise stable electricity supply and even said people who owned generators would soon begin to give them away. But four years down the line, the Murtala Mohammed International Airport Road remains abandoned by him while people are even buying more generators because power supply has gone even worse than when the President assumed office.

Conversely, Lagos State, overseen by an All Progressives Congress government, has grown in leaps and bounds in the last four years. Many roads, including the one leading to the Murtala Mohammed International Airport and other Federal Government roads and infrastructure as well as other life changing infrastructures and institutions, have benefited from the transformational and infrastructure renewal policies of the present administration. New projects like the 10-lane Lagos Badagry Expressway coming with a light rail line from Okokomaiko to Marina in Central Lagos  as well as the completed state-of-the-art Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge and the expanded Lekki- Eti Osa-Epe Expressway, will stand as a living legacy of this administration for many generations to come.   All sectors of the Economy – Education, Power, Health, Agriculture, Transportation, and Housing – have received adequate attention. In Education, aside the physical infrastructures that have been upgraded, the intellectual infrastructure has also greatly improved as a result of the Education policies of the Government which have improved learning. From a record of seven percent of the number of students who passed the West African School Certificate examination with five credits, including English and Mathematics, in 2007, the record has improved to 49 percent in 2014. In Health, Government has, in the last eight years built 10 Maternal and Childcare Centres across the State in addition to rebuilding and reequipping all the hospitals and Primary Healthcare Centres across the 20 local Government Areas in the State. Recently, the Governor just commissioned the first Cardiac and Renal Centre  at the State’s University Teaching Hospital Annex in Gbagada which also has an operational Burns Centre. In the area of Power, it has completed five Independent Power Projects (IPPs) now giving stable power supply to important government institutions across the State. But for the inaccuracies of the Federal Government policy on Power, the State Government would have begun supplying 24-hour electricity to homes in the State. In Agriculture, the State under the Strategic Programme for Accelerated Agricultural Growth (SPAAG) whose primary focus is to increase agricultural productivity and reduce dependence on imported food, has expanded the acreage of race production from 30 to 250 hectares in the first two and half years if the administration and the decision to further increase it to 500 hectares. It has built a rice mill in Imota with the capacity to produce 20, 000 metric tonnes of rice annually with additional 10, 000 tonne storage capacity and 45,000 tonnes capacity storage for finished rice.  Operating optimally, the rice mill is estimated to produce between 350,000 and 400,000 bags of rice per year. It has also expanded its fish production capacity and poultry to make Lagos self sufficient in food production. In Housing and Transportation the story is no different as the State’s Home Ownership and Mortgage Scheme (Lagos HOMS) continues to gain both momentum and popularity in the State giving out an average of 200 houses on affordable mortgage to be won by Lagos residents in monthly draws. Transportation has equally been expanded with Lagosians now given the choice to get to their destinations either by road or by the waterways. With the roads and the waterways greatly improved, travel time has also improved while more improvement is coming with the expanded Lagos-Badagry Expressway, the completion of new jetties across the state and the Light Rail project. Of course, this sterling record cannot be complete without mention being made of Security. Those who live in this city must give testimony that crime and criminality have reduced to the barest minimum. From weekly violent robberies, especially bank robberies, in 2007, no successful bank robbery has taken place in this City in the last three years. Besides, people now come here to spend their annual leave and important festivities, like Christmas, instead of their villages, as a result of improved security. Night life has reemerged with the increase in night economy as many streets are now adorned with lights, courtesy of the IPPs.

Finally, my confidence that this City is already taken by the APC rests on the glaring fact that the record of leadership of the ruling PDP-led Federal Government  is, to say the least, uninspiring. Perhaps, as Governor Fashola has often said. The only reason why Lagos is still working is because it remains the only state in the Federation yet to be ruled by the PDP.

I tend to agree “intoto”. What about you? I guess you like good things as well. So vote for CONTINUITY. Vote Akinwunmi Ambode.

•Durugbo is a political analyst based in Lagos