Posted on: Sun, 10 Feb 2008
Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola
Lagos State is currently implementing many changes in order to address the state's infrastructure, housing and transport challenges. Caterina Bortolussi spoke to the executive governor, His Excellency Babatunde Raji Fashola, about the measures his administration is taking with regard to these problems and to identify investment opportunities for local and foreign investors.
Please give us an overview of the Lagos State economy and the broader economic outlook of Nigeria in general?
The current leadership is a fresh and more youthful generation that have experienced both sides of the coin in the period of Nigeria’s development. We must now focus on broadening economic development in the non-oil economy and maximizing the opportunities that this presents. Encouraging enterprise and creating jobs is paramount. We have been more or less stagnant for almost a quarter of a century in almost all departments. Locally and nationally we can’t finish all the work required in a four-year term but we could set irreversible milestones and an irreversible foundation for the future.
How are you going to ensure continuity with the work of the last administration in the state?
I was the chief of staff to the immediate past governor and I was there with him for four and half years. Continuity of that vision was the underpinning message in my campaign because all the promises were made from an informed position of an insider on what was achievable.
I had extremely detailed knowledge of what was going on in all the ministries. Lagos state government passed a supplementary budget of N35.9-billion to essentially sustain continuity of infrastructural projects that my predecessor started which include the expansion of LASU-Egba highway into a dual carriage way, expansion of the second phase of the Awolowo road project, school rehabilitation projects, payment of some local debts to encourage and grow the capacity of local contractors and so on. It is really a continuation of the administration and a continued vision. I was part and parcel of that administration and I remain committed to continuity.
The Lagos State government recently raised alarm over
the worsening condition of bridges in the metropolis.
What are the main competitive advantages of Lagos State and the reasons behind its position as the commercial hub of the country?
The competitive advantages of Lagos State are its geographical location and resource of people. When you have a large population it is an asset but unless properly harnessed, it can be a liability because you have to provide essential services for the people at the expense of government.
The geographical location of Lagos State as a coastal state is also a major selling point which makes international trade really easy and that is why Lagos state has a history of international trade that dates back to the 18th century, long before colonial rule. Lagos handles a substantial volume of about 60% of trading activities of the ports across the country. Lagos state is still in need of a new port and that is why we are developing a free trade zone to network and expanding the opportunities our coastal location provides for us.
One critical factor is the coastline of Lagos that is about 180km. It is an enormous advantage over others in terms tourism. We are coming to a quarter of a century of national slumber in terms of infrastructure and if we want to move tourism forward we must carry out infrastructural regeneration. It should be possible to leverage on the physical opportunities that we have to become a major tourist destination for the continent, not just for the country.
As the major financial centre of the country, we need to provide infrastructure and provide access not only to financial services that international businesses depend upon but also on the leisure that the operators of international finance will need.
We know you have taken major steps towards providing jobs for unemployed youths in the state, could you please explain your roadmap for the rehabilitation of the slums and the 'area boys'?
Area boys are street urchins, largely young boys, emerging teenagers, and unemployed graduates in some cases. With the degeneration of the last 25 years opportunities have collapsed but Lagos continues to be the lighthouse where all the financial transactions still take place. The Lagos hinterland used to be rich in industries such as farming, manufacturing and mining but when these collapsed everybody headed for Lagos to try and survive in one way or another. That created some of these slums that you have identified because people don't have shelter.
Before you can plan and develop these areas, they must be free. These are people you swore to protect, you can't whisk them away and they can't evaporate. What we are doing now is to ensure that the areas that are emerging in Lagos are quickly provided with infrastructure like schools, markets, and health centers.
In the last four months the government has gone back to the basics by providing vacation jobs for young school leavers and those who are still in school before they get into crime. We want to keep them busy during the vacations before otherwise they are drawn to the street. We enrolled about 4 500 of them within the first fifty days that I took office and we pay them a montly amount of N10 000 as pocket money.
We are also embarking on a massive beautification programme to harness our potentials as tourist destination and to retain our competitiveness as a financial centre. We have started reclaiming open parks, greening them and you will see most of these boys who used to live under the bridges busy planting, digging, grading, learning skills. I even have their phone numbers and from time to time call them to check on progress.
We are also using sports to get the area boys to start thinking positively and we have made tremendous progress in that aspect.
Lagos's 180 km coastline provides many opportunities
for tourism development.
Infrastructure and, in particular, the transportation system is at the heart of Lagos’s problems. How are you tackling the problem of mass transit that stigmatises Lagos?
The State government has embarked on massive infrastructural development projects and we are doing this in partnership with the federal government. One of our challenge now is to develop the waterways and we are taking three routes as pilot routes; the Lekki area of Lagos to link Marina and compliment the road expansion work going on at Lekki, Ikorodu to Marina and the Badagry water route right up to Mile 2 linking to Marina.
We have commissioned the design of a light road from Badagry, which will run from Ojo straight to Marina, and we have decided to build the first phase of it from Ojo to Mile 2 to link with the water route to Marina. From what we are doing, we are showing the way and we believe some international partners would want to come and join us.
The government will not run water transportation but will fulfill its role of providing regulations, ensuring safety and so on. We will build jetties of top quality and of international standard. We are partnering with a Dutch company with vast experience and we will build competitive passenger waiting rooms at embarking and disembarking points. From there on the private sector will run the routes on a concession basis.
The concession will be managed by the New Ferry Transport Agency that will be fully commercial and run according to the best practices. The transportation infrastructure is so critical to the economy of Lagos because it is a service and trading economy.
A city with a population of 10-million people is a mega city and Lagos has been projected to be the third largest mega city in size by 2015. It is imperative that any government in charge of Lagos state must focus and accelerate the preparations necessary to enable Lagos to deal with and manage the challenges that come with being a mega city. These challenges include transportation, water, security, etc. They are the vital cogs that create quality of life and make the city livable.
In the last four months, we have awarded a total of 33 road projects for Lagos. We have taken the old Yaba built by the colonial masters and have awarded 36 road projects on a four year term and by the time we finish the total renewal of that area, this will compliment in many respect the renewal of the central business district that was completed by my predecessor. And this we believe will simplify movement between Lagos Mainland and Lagos Island.
In areas like Apapa, we are looking at 10 new roads and other infrastructures in the next 24 months that will enable it to operate and reduce the migration movements that cause traffic to bottle-up.
These are not simple projects however. Taking into account population growth we will have 18-million people within a restricted 3 775 sq. km. of island land. The island is going to be massively congested and we cannot just build our way out of congestion. It requires a myriad of solutions. We must move to multi-model transportation of water and rail. These are opportunities where we will look for partnerships to develop our rail system.
Fashola's administration has taken various steps to
ease congestion on the state's roads.
The road projects in Lekki seem to have been a great success. Sustainability is very important so do you have plans to replicate this project in other areas?
The Ikorodu road is a major arterial road in Lagos that links eastern axis towards Ogun State and back into the central business district with a distance of about 27km. This is a major arterial road built over thirty years ago and the demand on the road now has outstripped its capacity and therefore what we want to do is to implement a bus public transport system.
What we have done is to provide infrastructure in dedicated places, taking one lane out of the main carriageway and dedicating it to the buses but the service will be run by special purpose vehicle called Las Bus Company. We have about 75,000 commercial buses in Lagos but most are of an unacceptable quality. They need to be replaced in a rolling programme.
We currently have 200 new buses deployed and we are getting those commercial bus owners to come and invest. They have put their resources together and they have bought buses of the same quality that we bought. They are making an investment now, they have taken concessions and they are running it.
So the operators of those rackety yellow buses are now in partnership with us and we are regulating the standards and eliminating cash through prepaid ticketing. We hope this progress will stimulate and encourage additional investors in this sector.
Many people look at Lagos as one of the favoured investment destinations because the naira is one of the most stable currencies and Lagos is the commercial hub of West Africa. What is your administration doing in order to encourage participation by the local and international private sector?
I was a private sector person before I came into government and therefore I understand the mindset of the private sector; they will make an investment if the environment is right and the return on investment good. Nigeria is as an emerging economy and will deliver a high return on investment provided structures and services necessary to support enterprises are in place. In addition we must provide a secure environment supported by an efficient judicial system.
Right now we are doing massive reform of infrastructure of the magistrate system. We are currently operating on three sites and over the next four years we intend to build and provide more than 121 magistrate court rooms with modern court equipment and we also intend to bring more hands into the system. Our judicial reforms will increase the jurisdiction of the magistrates making it simpler, more robust and more efficient.
Lagos State has also launched a renewed rapid respond squad to deal with violent crime in partnership with the private sector that provided 200 brand new vehicles to support the Lagos state security command. Security of life and property is the foundation upon which all of these programmes will stand. We have provided vehicles with communication gadgets and uniforms to the police, walkie-talkies, bulletproof vests and we have set up a security trust fund to sustain what we have done so that it will be sustainable.
I intend that after me, no governor will come to deal with this kind of problem again. This programme has been successful largely due to the partnership we built with the private sector and this is a signal for international investors to start booking their flights to Lagos.
More facilities, such as the landmark Eko Hotel, are set
to be built to cater for tourists and business people.
Environmental issues such as waste management are major priorities for the national government. What plans and progress has been made to tackle the waste management of Lagos State?
We have an opportunity here and we also have a challenge. The challenge is how to manage over 9,000 metric tones of waste that are generated everyday, which is larger than what some countries generate. My predecessor succeeded in initiating the waste to wealth programme, which is now operational in Ikorodu where they are turning our organic waste into organic fertilizer.
We have plans to scale up the project so that they can open up two other sites at Epe and Badagry that we believe will help create job opportunities.
We have decided to engage the private sector operators in general waste management services. We have used our 377 wards as operational units and we have given operators single wards as to know who is operating well.
There is deficit of equipment capacity; we do not have a local manufacturing company for those trucks. Most of the existing trucks are old and although the government has ordered more trucks the number is still far below what is needed. We want the private sector to get involved by either financing the equipment, hiring them on a daily basis or manufacturing them locally.
We are looking for technical support to enlarge our capacity to deal with big issues by leveraging on opportunities that exist now on carbon credit, carbon emissions by reducing the number of vehicles on the road and waste to wealth programmes. The benefits will include managing much more efficiently our waste disposal that constitutes a very serious danger to the society.
- Invest in the development of Lagos's waterways
- Lagos requires resorts and leisure centres