MODELLING LAGOS SMART CITY

Greater Lagos feasibility demonstration district should learn from the Abuja experience, writes Willie Eleje-Abili

Ibelieve that this article should constitute the locus classicus rationale of my series on modelling Lagos SMART City of October 30, which was preceded by Lessons from Rwanda, published on the 24th. I must confess that organisation of the body of ideas did not derive from study of any facts relating to the topics. Consequently they have been in entirety an exercise of speculative imagination. At the end nevertheless, I found an impressive consistency in my narrative, for ‘the heart of the wise teacheth his mouth and addeth learning to his lips’ according to the Book of Proverbs, Chapter 16 verse 23. From the preceding two articles, we may then begin to conclude that the necessary and sufficient conditions for a SMART city state to evolve are: a shared leadership vision, a people’s noble culture, societal civilisation and public order but certainty of permanence, would have to depend on maintenance. Now, to make a case for what I might term an exclusive bourgeois estate of the state to be designated, Greater Lagos Feasibility Demonstration District, proposed to comprise Lagos Island and Etiosa, let us then attempt an application of SMART as an acronym to interrogate the feasibility of such a district, beginning with the question: can Lagos infrastructure indeed be specific? In order words, what would be the specification or rather can we possibly define the standards of Lagos infrastructure as instructed by the truths which we hold to be self-evident about world class SMART cities such as Singapore, Dubai or London? Can we locate our values in making a choice of such specimens, within a system of services and training establishments, such that would underscore the framework of an efficient city? We then go on to ask, can the infrastructure indeed be measurable, or rather can we be precise in distribution of the quality, quantity and cost of infrastructural services on the basis of our acceptable standard of infrastructural performance and in the light of culture, demography, land use and other current state of affairs within the designated district and is our preferred standard achievable such that we can accomplish the purpose to good effect? Are our expectations, we ask, of such a standard of infrastructural performance, realistic in fact and in law? Can we accept things as they are and not be making our decision based on unlikely hope? We finally ask: are such expectations timely? Can they be opportune at this material time or are they ahead or have been overtaken by events? If we can render objective answers to the foregoing questions, we would find that our demonstration district as proposed would likely be feasible. In the district therefore, you are unlikely to find post-paid electric meters, individuated septic tanks, water boreholes, or anyone hauling cooking gas cylinders back and forth. It then becomes axiomatic that, infrastructure performance efficiency and justification of tax payers’ money, occupy the defining leit motif of a SMART city and a city can be smart but not mega, but a mega city may not be smart. The two therefore, are not mutually exclusive. But to verify the experiment, we need to set up a control, in which all other factors, except the variant being tested are kept identical. By implication the district must be rendered exclusive, with a degree of restriction on ingress and egress. In other words, access can no longer be without let or hindrance. This can be done by application of visitor permits or rendering the district too costly for anyone without serious business to operate. But to avoid surrender of the exclusive rendition to market forces, on-going work on a deep sea port and refinery around the district should go pari-passu with an efficient rail system on concessionary or privatised terms. It then becomes self-explanatory that Lagos cannot be rendered smart all at once. In its hay days, a drive from the airport into Abuja city was an exotic and exhilarating experience of five-star treatment. Bill Clinton Drive within the airport precinct was adorned with a bunting of flags. A superlative macadamised thorough-fare bound on both sides by a tract of grassland, widely spaced trees, shrubs and flowers, heralded you into the magnificent city. Today, all that splendour has given way to a bourgeoning conurbation and down-grading vista. Abuja municipality was a Smart City ideology conceived in an efficient political and administrative capital for the Nigerian federation. I believe the plan was to centralise dedicated infrastructure to citizens, such that would model the dignity of man and the pride of our nation. But the city was not rendered exclusive and the vision was not shared with citizens such that they can claim legitimate ownership of full effect which was gradually compromised in unscrupulous all comers’ affair of the state. Greater Lagos feasibility demonstration district should learn from Abuja experience.