It was not by accident that the tagline selected to capture the essence of Lagos is, Centre of Excellence.
The tagline does not say, close to excellent, neither does it say trying to be excellent. The tagline implies, Lagos is fully settled in the midst of excellence, right at the very heart of excellence regardless of its peers.
If Nigeria was a school and states students, Lagos would be the one that always came first. Since Victorian Lagos, Lagos has been a very unique paradox unlike most states that welcome you, Lagos notifies you –
‘This is Lagos‘
In the famous words of Fela
OJO MONDAY..EKO O NI GBA IGBAKUGBA O (No nonsense in Lagos on Monday)
Lagos is the most populated state and is simultaneously one of the smallest states in Nigeria. Way too often, in response to complaints that highlight the hardship and poor quality of life that faces residents of Lagos, A myopic chorus taunts back with responses like this;
‘All the people complaining are Igbos and should go back to their own state’
‘Can their state compare to Lagos?’ They have no right to complain or criticize’.
These cheerleaders expect, NO..They demand we swallow the sickening taste of mediocrity and close our eyes to the very fraudulent, mercantilist state capture that has been our governance for 21 years. Fortunately, I am exempt from taunts like that.
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism ownership of government by an individual, or a group.” – Roosevelt
The wisdom of Roosevelt sums up most appropriately the present tragedy that is the lot of Lagosians.
It is from its massive population that Lagos extracts its huge IGR based on its taxation system. Whilst we commend the successive administrations that have increasingly and more efficiently extracted taxes from residents and companies domiciled in Lagos, we can only celebrate a mercantilist government for so long without asking;
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What about the accompanying social contract, the benefits of political order?
No other state in the South West has been ruled from the Local government level to the state government and Federal Government by one power hegemony for over 20 years. So not only has this social contract been written by this power hegemony, they have had 20 years to deliver on it.
They chant LAGOS IS WORKING but expect us to turn a blind eye to the states inability to supply pipe bourne water and then even worse its lack of empathy to facilitate access but would rather try to tax people in their attempt to provide water for themselves.
A state In the midst of so much water in over 20 years the APC political class has failed to effectively channel such huge resources for consumption. Almost every household continues to be the creator of their own water supply through piped water, boreholes, etc.
What part of the social contract says it is okay to take huge loans from the world bank to supply water, Yet the moribund Lagos Water Corporation claims to cover 35 per cent of Lagos population within the metropolis with a shortfall of 65 per cent.
Where is the excellence in that? Where is the empathy for the citizenry?
Under the Fashola administration, $200m was earmarked by the World Bank to revitalise slums in Lagos State. Instead, the state chose to apply brute force to evict residents of places like Badia that fell under the slum renovation plan.
Till date, no substantial urban development has taken place and the practice of evicting slum dwellers without providing a sustainable housing system for the poor continues to persist with respect to the forceful eviction of OtodoGbame and Tarkwa Bay.
During the Fashola administration, accountability of the World Bank fund cannot be traced because Lagos state government runs a very Opaque financial system without an iota of transparency or accountability.
Again I ask what about the social contract with the citizenry that demands transparency and accountability.
Can Lagos be called excellent whilst its residents spend 4-6 hours in traffic every day? A US study stated that on average about 6liters of petrol is burnt per hour in traffic. This cost about N3,432 / day sitting in traffic, the overall cost of traffic monetary wise, health-wise, productivity-wise, and overall quality of life is very, very significant and not in an excellent way.
The Lagos State government has done a very good job with its ‘packaging ‘ of Lagos in 20 years it projects Lagos to start in Ikeja and end in Lekki, a beautiful image with the Lekki link bridge to boot.
Sadly from Badagry to Amuwo-Odofin all the way to AjeromiIfelodun, to Mushin, Apapa, Surulere all the way to Lagos East, Shomolu, and Ikorodu, The state is in disrepair, and one can’t help but ponder how AlhajiJakande built so much in four years.
How did he build so much mass housing over 30,000 housing units located all over Lagos e.g Amuwo-Odofin, Ijaiye, Dolphin, Oke-Afa, Ije, Abesan, Iponri, Ipaja, AbuleNla, Epe, Anikantamo, Surulere, Iba, Ikorodu, Badagry and still make a huge impact in the health care system of Lagos by the construction of the General Hospital in Gbagada and Ikorodu and built about 20 health centres within the state?
He started a Metroline project that was subsequently cancelled by General Buhari in 1983. 37 years on, a government and party that has been in power for over 20 of those 37 years have been trying to build one metro line for the last 10 years.
The contract for the Blue Line (the 27-kilometre Badagry line running from Okokomaiko to Marina via Iddo) was awarded at the colossal cost of $1.2 billion compared to similar projects in other parts of Africa awarded for just a fraction of that amount. gin Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a similar contract was awarded for a 34 kilometre and 39 stations electrified light rail network in 2012. By September 2015 it was completed.
It was constructed for $475 million. The Lagos state government defends the astronomical cost by highlighting the marshland and swamp areas of the Lagos Lagoon, that required piers and foundations that down to 40 and 88 metres, also the need for relocation, reconstruction and resettlements especially for 9km of the line.
Ok, but still the Ethiopian track is 7Km longer than that of Lagos. The Ethiopian system has 32 stations, Lagos has constructed 4 stations. We could compare and contrast with other projects but its best to assume similar factors affect the administration of projects in Africa.
So even if we take the 7km cost to compensate for all the excuses, why would a 27-kilometre project cost $1.2 billion when a 34-kilometre project cost only $475 million?
Furthermore the China Railway Construction Company (CRCC), contractors of the light rail project, in its 2010 report, put the cost of construction at $182 million. Are we saying preliminary works and relocation cost $1billion dollars? 83 per cent of the project cost?
Now because of the opaque fiscal and financial system run by Lagos, the state government has refused to release the contract papers for the project and have refused to answer any question or queries from any quarters on the project.
Yet they expect us like sheep to pay our taxes but fail to yield to demands for accountability and transparency. Their responses are defensive as though they were doing the citizenry a favour by answering their questions. Then we have the NGN2.5 billion 115 metre ramp that links OzumbaMbadiwe road to Falomobridge. This was built at NGN 21.7million/meter?
As a reference,3 flyovers were built in India of lengths 800m, 340m and 375m (i.e. over 1.5km in total length) were built at a cost of $7.5m (2007 cost). This equates to about $750,000 for 150meter of flyover compared to over $15m for a 115meter section of a flyover in Lagos.
This is a simple ramp for goodness sake, a 500meter flyover in the Philippines cost $4m for 500meter, this still comes to less than $1million per 100meters. For how long will we play ostrich at the reckless waste of our state resources and clap at the political hegemony’s ability to tax and generate over 70billion a month without holding them to account on how it is spent!!!
A state that should aim to both reduce the number of cars on the road as well as increase the number of people being carried by each car, technology would go a long way to help achieve that, instead, LASG wants Uber and Taxify to pay N10m for every 1000 cars, remit 10 per cent of their revenue as service charge and use only cars that are 3 years or less, leaving aside how erratic the state governments policy affected tech companies like Gokada and its long term effect on inflows of foreign capital, Tech companies are moving out of Lagos in droves because Small Businesses in Lagos are overburdened with over taxation and random levies and charges.
As opposed to seeing opportunities to reform Lagos, The State will rather tax -squeeze and extract because reform is too intellectually tasking and most importantly it would involve discipline, accountability, and transparency.
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Whilst the state boast of how much revenue they generate it still is ranked one of the worst places to live in the world, directly after war-torn countries like Iraq. This shows you cannot tax your way to prosperity or hope to create wealth by strangulating businesses.
It is impossible for a political hegemony to self-reflect and self-correct, The gross inefficiencies, the wasteful spending, and huge debts racked up with nothing really to show for it when considering the antecedents of AlhajiJakande.
Fiscal/ wasteful profligacy can never be self-corrected, similar to what happened to the PDP between 1999 to 2015, the more politicians can get away with, the more citizens refuse to hold them accountable, the more they push the limits of what they can and cannot do. Hence why
‘Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.’ – LAGOS IS FAR FROM EXCELLENT, LAGOS IS simply NOT WORKING.
