A friend of mine recently said that it would be a joke taken too far for anyone to expect Lagosians to transfer the governance of Lagos State to a dying People’s Democratic Party (PDP) after the state has resisted the PDP for so long – even when it was at its prime. I dare say, for political correctness, that it would be a risk taken too far for Lagosians to abandon their good old All Progressive’s Congress (APC) for the PDP now that power at the centre has shifted to the APC.
For 16 years, Lagos has endured the scorn and neglect of the Federal Government because of the state’s refusal to surrender to the PDP. The state has had to be ingenious in its income generation drive to survive the suffocating 8 years of Baba Olusegun Obasanjo and has had to cope with the chicanery and manipulations of her sons who believe that the state’s independence could be breached by strangulating it from the centre. One question I know Lagosians can answer without difficulty is: considering the role played by Senator Bola Tinubu and the Southwest in general in ensuring the victory of APC at the March 28 election, what would an APC state like Lagos benefit from an APC-led Federal Government?
Regardless of the low number of accredited voters for the last presidential election, Lagos is the most politically sophisticated state in Nigeria. No state in the country comes close to the political awareness of Lagos residents. The vibrations of political activity in Lagos have a way of arousing political curiosity and motivation for participation of the elite in politics across the land. This possibly has to do with the status of Lagos as Nigeria’s economic and financial capital. The state represents the nation’s civilization peak – its highest socio-economic development. If more stateshad acquired an appreciable development close to that of Lagos, Nigeria would have featured more favourably in the world Human Development index.
Whilst I may not have an answer to the question as to why Lagosians are that interested in politics and are so concerned about those who govern them, I can easily tell why I am putting out myself to encourage Lagosians to stick with the APC in the coming April 11 gubernatorial election.
Starting with the personal, I still recall my law school days. Then I was staying at Ijanikin, adjacent to Otto-Awori, along Lagos--Badagry expressway. To be able to catch a 6a.m. ferry at Mile 2 bus stop to take me to Lagos Island (CMS), I must be at the bus stop (Ile-Oba bus stop) as early as 4a.m. Even at that, if it rained, meeting up with lectures at the Law School at 9 a.m. might be impossible. A friend of mine and I still dedicate special days to thank God for what He has done for us in our lives. Of special interest in our law school days was the day we had to trek from the Law School to Mile 2, a distance of over ten kilometres, because the rain had locked down the city. Besides the rain beating us silly, we could not get a bus (“molue”) to take us to Okokomaiko, near Ijanikin, until the following day, about 3a.m. when commercial bus drivers began their early morning runs.
I am certain that my experience and story of the Mile 2–-Badagry axis in 1990 may not be different from those of my colleagues from other axes of Lagos. The pointer to it is that the perennial traffic gridlock was the impetus, besides other factors, for the movement of the country’s Federal Capitalto Abuja. Lagos of the 80s and 90s was an impossible city. Besides the other socio-political reasons for the movement of the Federal Capital, there was that feeling that Lagos was undevelopable and that it might be cheaper to build an Abuja from scratch than to rebuild a Lagos.
Lagos has, through the feats of Bola Tinubu and Babatunde Fashola, defied all human judgments, and has won over skeptics whose cynicism had sold the dummy across the world that Lagos was undevelopable. Lagos, once the world’s dirtiest city, is today fighting for pride of place with the best cities across the globe. I recently volunteered to take an international presidential election observer to Transcorp Hilton for the sole benefit of picking her brains about her impression about Abuja. Whilst she did not hide her admiration for Abuja, her best praises, which came unsolicited, were for Lagos. She recalled her first experience with Lagos when she first visited in the early 90s as her country’s Minister of Development, and was lodged at a hotel on Lagos Island. She said she could not muster the courage to venture out of the hotel after her experience on her way from the airport. She spent over 30 minutes telling me not just how impressed she was with the present-day Lagos, but how democratic governance could impact on development. She particularly expressed her yearning to meet with either Tinubu or Fashola so as to take home a complete Lagos story.
The last time I was in Lagos, I visited a friend of mine who teaches at Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Otto/Ijanikin. I saw– and commented excitedly on –the light rail project and the ongoing expansion of the Lagos--Badagry expressway. Putting that beside what Ebute Metta has turned out to be between 1999 and today, I have no hesitation in commending Governor Fashola, and wishing that governance remains in the hands of the progressives.
I started my legal practice at Abosede Kuboye in Surulere; thus, I need no one to tell me about the efforts that have been expended on modernizing that part of Lagos. I lived at Ademola Street, off Awolowo Road, in Ikoyi, between 1994 and 1998;I can gauge the level of development that has graced Ikoyi between 1999 and now. During the failed banks tribunal era, no one could sell a plot of land at Lekki for N100,000; but today, Lekki can pass for any exclusive development in America or Europe. I have had a private school at Ikeja GRA since 1998, and I am in a position to say how proud I am of the development that has taken place in Ikeja.
On the human angle, one can tell that Lagos has, in the last 16 years, contributed to the middle class more than any other state in Nigeria. It has remained the best place for business and businessmen and women of every race, tribe or religious persuasion. It is easy for some to dismiss these phenomena, because not many of us realise the correlation between governance and human development.
One aspect that is bound to raise eyebrows is the question of whether or not the level of development on the ground is commensurate to the income of the state. I will defer on this issue to experts who have consistently rated Lagos higher than other states. If those who have the requisite knowledge and skill to make informed comparative analysis conclude that the state is better managed and its resources much more judiciously utilized, why should I be bothered by the uninformed judgments of people whose knowledge on the subject is not better than mine?
I have followed with rapt attention the debate over what wasA friend of mine recently said that it would be a joke taken too far for anyone to expect Lagosians to transfer the governance of Lagos State to a dying People’s Democratic Party (PDP) after the state has resisted the PDP for so long – even when it was at its prime. I dare say, for political correctness, that it would be a risk taken too far for Lagosians to abandon their good old All Progressive’s Congress (APC) for the PDP now that power at the centre has shifted to the APC.
As you go out to vote on Saturday, please vote not for the devil you know; remember: this is the time for Lagos to reap from its investment in progressive governance in the last 16 years. Lagos cannot afford to hold the dirty end of a dying PDP.
Source:
Comments
Post a Comment