‘There’s Nothing Amotekun is Doing Today That My Neighbourhood Watch Doesn’t Do’
Lagos State is determined to retain its leadership position, says Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to a group of jornalists including Nseobong Okon-Ekong and Vanessa Obioha at a recent meeting at State House, Marina to highlight the mix of optimism, anxiety and challenges that mark the second anniversary of his administration
How have you been able to implement your campaign manifesto since you assumed office? It’s been almost two years since I assumed office and I know what it means every day to sleep and wake up and you have that huge challenge. It’s a challenge of honour. It’s a challenge of immense trust. It’s a challenge of a sense of the believe that people have in you. As tough as the job is, looking for that job and asking God to give you that job is also a very difficult job. Two years into it, how will I, with a sense of humility, rate and rank myself? We started this government with an economic agenda, under the T.H.E.M.E.S programme. And we all went into it with a full sense of purpose, that we will break barriers, make audacious decisions and raise the level of governance. Unfortunately, COVID came in about 15 months ago, slowed us down in some areas, extensively, because Lagos remains the epicentre, but it actually has not stopped us from achieving a lot of the things we had wanted to achieve. Because we realise that stories and excuses cannot be a thing that we’re going to put forward. If I take each of the pillars, you will see that indeed we had intervened extensively in each and every one of them. And the very first one which is traffic management and transportation, was something born out of what we ask our citizens during this time, what would they want us to do first, and their answer was for us to give them means of moving from one area to another very quickly and efficiently. So what have we done? We have in the last two years created on an ongoing basis, an opportunity where we can utilise the three modes of transportation that is available to us in Lagos: rail, road and waterways. We have not completed rail but we are certain that before the end of our four year tenure, rail will move in Lagos. Why do we say so? We’ve spent more money in the last two years than what we’ve done in the last six years, and we’re confident now that we’ll take that project, two of them; in fact, the first which is the blue line has one, and the red line. We will take it to completion because we have seen what they call a financial closure. We have a direct inputs into how we can raise money to complete it. We’ve ordered rollingstock, especially for the blue line, which is the one coming on Phase One from Mile 2 to Marina. The two terminals that are remaining are the Marina Terminal, and the Mile 2 Terminal. When you’re driving, immediately after Marina, you see that there’s a big hole, a big trench that they have started excavating, that is actually the construction for the terminal for the Marina. You can see that it has extended to the front of the State House, that will be the last parking point for the Blue Line. We’re convinced that we will see rail. For the Red Line which is even the most audacious one, we are certain that in those two years, we would have completed 10 stations, we have approved to build four overpasses, the Federal Government is supposed to build another four for us but we’re convinced because we’ve raised finance to build our own four overpasses, and the plan around the rollingstock is completed and finalised. We’re saying that in two years time, we believe that Lagosians will be moving on rail. For buses, which is the BRT vehicle. We have commissioned over 600 bosses in the course of two years. Before the end of this month, we are also launching 100 new high capacity buses. We’re introducing what we’ll call the last mile process. There are about 500 buses but we are launching with the first 350 next week. If not for these two public holidays, the buses are here already. They are small, eight/nine seater buses. They are called First Mile, Last Mile. We also launched Lagos Ride, which is the Lagos taxi scheme. The first set of 1000 will be arriving in June, latest July. So, we are intervening in the three components of road infrastructure. There are high capacity, medium capacity, and the taxis, which are the least. We do not say that we have all of the money, but we want to continue to be an enabler in all of these things. So we believe that before the end of these two years, by the time we add another 100 to it, we will have about 700 high capacity, about 450 Last Mile and the Lagos Ride that is coming. On the Lagos Ride, we are actually building a small assembly plant into it where it will be produced. The plan is to have about 5000 at the end of the day. Same with the Last Mile buses. And the work plan is out, you can sew it too. The third component of transportation is waterways. We’re currently building 15 terminals concurrently in different parts of the state. We have in Liverpool, Ebute-Ero, Igbese, Oko-Ajah, in fact we have two in Badagry. Six or seven should be completed before the end of this year, and which we will commission. We see an integrated mass transportation system where our citizens will have the option of if they want to go on a bus, rail or on the waterways. On the waterways as well we’re dredging, we’re putting balls on the navigational system so that people will know how to navigate. We’re also building a command and control centre for the waterways because we know that it is important. We have actually bought search and rescue boats for Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA). The command and control centre will have cameras on some of the strategic waterways, so that, indeed, people can be safe and be sure that we are not just throwing people in the deep body of water. We have to be able to utilise all of that very well. That’s traffic management for us, where people will be able to determine and safely say that a 30-minute journey should not be more than 35 or 40 minutes. It’s not one and a half hours. On top of that, is all the road and traffic improvement. We are removing all the roundabouts, we are putting traffic signs, traffic lights, and junction improvement so that in places where we have gridlocks, we can remove or reduce all of these things. All of that is going on concurrently. We are obviously looking at a single payment system in our transportation master plan where a single card can take you on a bus, on the rail, and on the waterways. We have a carry card that Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA ) has launched. There are about 8000 already available. The plan is to have like 200,000 in over the next couple of months. Moving away from traffic management and transportation, we talk about health and environment. COVID has been both a positive and a negative for us. We are the epicentre so we had to put everything we have into it, and thank God that we, if we must say it, we think we did a fairly good job, because we’re the ones that saved the larger part of the country, proactively taking some decisions, and everybody also following suit. We’re out of the second wave completely, we are just monitoring and ensuring that we don’t have a third variant of wave so that’s why you see that we’re leading the conversation to help Federal Government block people coming into our international border post and other critical decisions just make sure that we do not have any variant that will make nuisance of our vaccines. So, as bad as COVID is,it also gives us a learning experience around ensuring that we can improve our infrastructure in the health space. Not only have we recruited more doctors and nurses, in the last one year than we’ve done in the last six years, we’ve also been able to up infrastructure in almost all of our secondary health facilities. We’re currently rebuilding about six of them right now. We have opened Badagry, Eti-Osa and we’re going to open Epe. We’re building brand new hospitals across the state including the Massey St. Hospital, a general hospital behind the Ojo Cantonment. Apart from that we have the Radiology and Orthopaedic Hospital that we’re going to be opening before the end of this month. We’re currently doing extensive innovation at general hospitals such as Lagos, Isolo General Hospital, Ebute Metta General Hospital, concurrently where the capacity is developing in terms of infrastructure that we have, and which are some of the fallout of COVID knowing fully well that we don’t have any place to go. And we’re also asking ourselves how can we ensure that we reduce medical tourism in the country. So these are some of the things that COVID has helped us with. We’ve also partnered with the private sector to open the first real Cancer Centre in this country and the new specialist hospital in Lekki. As a government too, part of the things that we’re working on the Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) model to up the equipment, the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), so that we can have a model where they can supply more of the CT scan, MRI scanner, all of those high end equipment, and have them in our hospital.
Environment is still about ensuring that we can work. We’re shutting down two landfill sites. We’ve done extensive renovation with them, one at Olusosun and Egbeda. In Olusosun, we are spreading laterite on it. We hope in three years time, it will come down. Beyond that, we have 100 contractor trucks which are going to be launching before the end of this month. We have also imported and fabricated 150 dino bins, which are also going to launch before the end of this month. So, these are all things that are in the cooler, and that we’re going to see. There is
I will not say that we are the best in the world but I will say that we are aware of it. We are fully aware and we are doing a lot of interventions to ensure that we reduce energy emissions in our systems. What do I mean? Almost all of the buildings that we are doing now, we are ensuring that they are low energy buildings in which we can reduce greenhouse emissions and all of that. The hospitals that I mentioned earlier, they are all well ventilated where you don’t need all of the energies or generators. So we are developing smart buildings to ensure that they are green carbon compliant and in future you can actually present them and get some carbon credit and grant coming from it
direct intervention in the environment. We have ordered 40,000 waste bins that we’re going to give out to tenements in front of their various houses. We will continue to ensure the PPP model that we’re using and ensuring waste collection and management is in place.
People come around and say that they can do waste conversion. I’ve had over 20 presentations but I’ve not seen the person that will write the cheque yet. If I see somebody that wants to do waste to energy today, I’ll give them the concession, but a lot of people come and say that they can do it, but nobody has actually signed it up to be able to do it, so that’s why we have not done full waste to energy conversion. But we’re doing a lot of waste management in terms of plastics and recyclable ones.
On technology and education, we’ve had over 1000 projects in educational space. Recently, I commissioned four schools concurrently. In the course of this week, all the cabinet members will be going out to different local government areas to commission schools because there are too many. We have increased about 500 new classrooms, we have built over 2000 hostel accommodations in our boarding schools. We’ve had over 100,000 new benches and tables in our schools. We’ve done almost every impact that we can, so all the commissioners will just go there and be cutting tape because there are so many of them. For the first time we are actually building brand new schools. There are three brand new schools that we’re building. There are two in Badagry. Those are some of our intervention, infrastructure, in education. We’ve recruited about 1500 new teachers. We’ve started what we call Eko Excel, which is a tablet or handheld device at a primary school. We’re not leaving primary school to the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) or local government, we’re actually directly paying more money there than any other person has done in the last 10 years. So we have a tablet now they’re using, Eko Excel
The whole idea of the Eko Excel is that all of your primary school teachers can have a single means to identify what their curriculum will be and be able to also time. At the back end, you will know which teacher in the class actually uploaded and treated those lessons, so that you can monitor them off site. Outside of that, we’re ensuring that we can use technology as a strong enabler for our schools. I’m sure you’re aware about our 3000 Metropolitan fibre optics for fibre in Lagos. The red, yellow, green cable on the road is a 3000 kilometre fibre grid that we’re putting in this city. We have done 1800... it is PPP, but we are the enablers. We gave them all the right of way, concessions, and the approvals that are required. Even while we were building our routes, we were creating the dots for them. What that griding will do for us is that the first 100 schools that will have fibre in the schools because we are launching before the end of this month. I have a list of the schools already, at least I have a list of 80 schools already. We will have about 100 fibre in those schools, enhancing internet capability. It is meant to go around all our privates, all our public secondary schools, and of course our hospitals and our public buildings, that’s the plan that we have. Once you have fibre, which is the new oil, that’s data, before the end of the year, in the private sector area, there are two Marines that are lagging in Lagos. The amount of 4G, 5G that’s going to come into our system will allow internet and data availability. We’ve seen what COVID has done for all of us, we all know that data is one of the things that we must do, so we’re building that infrastructure to be able to help that sector.
Last year we also supported techpreneurs. We gave out grants over N250 million using the Lagos State Science Research and Innovation Council (LASRIC). It is headed by the Vice Chancellor of University of Lagos. We have the grant and someone even got a grant of N25 million, and some of them have actually been recommended to hire things now on tech space. This year, they are asking for N500 million but I think we’ve given approval for up to N350 million. Let them go and identify young, vibrant tech startups that we can support and we can be an enabler for them. So these are some of our own direct interventions, we’re building the real Yaba Tech Hub. Google, Facebook are working with us on that. We have issues with land acquisitions and all of that so we are just meant to pay off all of the families around that place and we’ll have the land. It is on 7.5 hectares of land and so we’re building like a campus for techpreneurs and startups to support that industry. We believe that technology also can be a strong driver of our government policy. In Alausa, we call it Alausa Campus Infrastructure campus infrastructure, where all our offices we’re using ourselves as a test case that we have there. On top of our 3000 fibre optics is also what we call the Safe City Project, which people have said that some people have attempted to do. We are actually doing it, where we said that we’re going to build a smart city. The first set of 120 cameras are live as we speak, in different parts of the city. We’re going to 2000. That’s why we don’t make any noise about it yet. So, it’s something that we are funding directly, and it’s supposed to help us on security, on traffic management, on investigation. A city like this must use technology as a strong enabler to reduce crime. And so we believe that that’s the way to go. So all of these are sitting on our technology infrastructure.
In making Lagos a 21st century economy, we will look at infrastructure, housing, energy, agriculture, and each of those sectors, there are lots of things.
On Infrastructure, I can tell you with all sense of modesty that we’re intervening on the roads. In fact, people have complained that we’re doing too many roads concurrently and we’re not shying away from that. We believe that’s the way to go. We believe that road is one thing that, even if you don’t use my hospital or school, you’ll use my road. It’s a strong enabler. From Ikoyi to VI, from Ikorodu to Epe to Badagry to Ojo. We’ve done the same in housing. In two years, we’ve commissioned about eight housing projects. And so we have about 4000 housing blocks and there are still so many that are working-in-progress that we haven’t commissioned yet. This, we believe, is just a dot. All of these things are meant to be enablers. It is really to work with the private sector, and get them to do a lot quicker and faster than us. We’re giving out a sizable number of lands to serious and identified private developers that we can partner with, and they can use their own equity and their own funds to be able to provide houses that are affordable and accessible. So these are conversations that are going on.on agric, we just launched our five-year roadmap. Tough area for us but we said that even with our small size, we cannot fold our hands and not intervene. You know about our rice mill, we will complete it this year. We’ve gotten three state governments that are doing massive rice farming. The states are in the north central and they are supporting us extensively. On the meat value chain, we consume about 60 to 65 per cent of total meat that has been brought down here. So we said, let’s even know what is happening. Let’s be able to know where these meat are coming from. Let’s even have our own means of breeding. We set out 100 hectares of land that we’re going to turn into feedstock. The land is being cleared as we speak. They even offered to give me two hectares, which I’ll be checking just to encourage us. Here in the State House, we have a snail farm, poultry, fish and small farms. And we eat some of those things and that’s part of what we are trying to promote. Urban farming. So that we can reduce dependence on external feeding in our culture.
On energy, that’s one area we haven’t done as much as we wanted. The reason being they are still heavily regulated. They will tell you it is deregulated but it’s not true. We’ve had plans with the Discos to intervene, but each time we do it, we meet a brick wall. They’ve said to us that there’s so many stimulus that we put together, but they will tell you that you still need to enter their own system for it to work for you. So we continue to have that negotiation. We have brought out our own energy master plan but in terms of engagement with them, we are still fighting but they are our friends. We will continue to engage. We have 20,000 metres that we have ordered that we want to use to send metres to people’s houses. Twenty thousand we have ordered and we said to them that we want to put those metres out there and they said to us that if they do, they will be the one to put the energy there, so who owns the metres. These are some of the hiccups that we have in that sector, that is not allowing us to intervene as much as we will, but on our own, our Lagos electricity port, we’re doing 1200, which will fit in right around Lagos. You will notice that the LED that you have on Third Mainland Bridge, there are bright white LED lights. We just started installing them, and you will see those installations in the next three months. They’re massive. In fact, because I tested it, I turned off my headlights while driving and I could still see. These are high, LED lights that we believe that our citizens need, and we’re doing it on 1200 roads, in all of our highways and streets. So these are part of our interventions on energy.
On entertainment and tourism, entertainment is a place where we see a lot of employment being generated. We see a lot of people that if we enable them, they can create employment for a lot of our citizens. What have we done? We have directly looked at the sector and decided to work with the private sector. So we set up the Lagos Ebony Academy. Lagos Ebony Academy is training film producers, film editors. It’s all grants that we put on the table for that sector. It’s been run by EbonyLife. There’s also another company called Del-York Academy. We signed an online training for 1500. We launched it about two weeks ago, they are treating them right now to develop content everywhere in the world. And at the end of their exercise, they’re going to do real creative stuff, in which they will turn to producers or movie directors. Just last week we also set up another committee where Richard Mofe-Damijo (RMD) is the chairman. We’re also again, giving them grants for people that have strong storylines, but they don’t have producers, they don’t have sponsors that will take those storylines into filmmaking. So we’ve set up a grant, like we did with technology, where I said that we’re giving people money. The committee is meant to support owners of scripts with the grants, just to be able to employ Lagosians and people in that sector to be able to take their film, either to the cinema or to Netflix. So, these are some of the problems that we know they have in that sector. One of the things we said to them when we started, we can bring a lot more private sector, to say that the government has put this, it is live, real and working. That we also support this industry, because that’s really what they need. If we can support them, they can employ a lot of people, and that’s one of the places where we believe we’re helping out. We have a one billion Naira tourism fund. We realise that a lot of them might not be able to access it because of all of these small conditions that are inherent but the fund is there by Lagos State Employment Trust Fund. On the tourism side is to look at it and let’s continue to be an enabler. We have 18 different sites in Badagry that were completed and are tourist places for the future of the tourism industry in this state. There are also one or two private sector led beach lines that are currently being constructed and we have given them next to nothing in terms of fees or charges just to support them, or be able to create that tourism ecosystem for our citizens. So we believe in these places too, the government cannot be into everything but we can intervene.
Fortunately and unfortunately has only two borders: Atlantic Ocean and Ogun state. Ogun State is not in any form a forest, it’s all a community built up and the terrain of Lagos, also does not even support heavy forestry. So in terms of the structure and what is meant to achieve, we do not fully fall into that geographical enclave. But we are in sympathy support of it and we actually also bought our vehicles. One of the problems of governance is building structures and layers upon layers and replicating the same thing. And so, are we going to kill my neighbourhood watch, because I want to create a name, and just have a 200 or 30-man, the answer is no. What exactly are they meant to do? There’s nothing that Amotekun is doing today that my Neighbourhood Watch does not do
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