Fashola to Jonathan: ‘You will hand over whether you like it or not’

In this session with Lagos State governor,
Babatunde Raji Fashola, he explains the style of
administration that has been put in place in the
state such that successive governments can
build and improve on what has been achieved so
far.  He also takes a swipe at President
Goodluck
Jonathan and his aides who say no
administration in the history of Nigeria has
done as much as theirs.
You will find him as interesting as ever, with
views that are unique both in thought and
presentation.
Excerpts:
Lagos has been experiencing some urban
renewal. Is this renewal an attempt at taking
Lagos back to some forgotten development
plan, or a haphazard work in progress?
If you follow our communication on policy
statement closely, you will notice that I said
from the beginning of my tenure that this was
going to be a government of method; that we
are going to be methodical in things that we will
embark upon. Everything that we have done so
far had been based on very rigorous
examination of what the problems are, what
the choices of solutions are and how to
prioritise in order to make them sustainable.
One of the first things we did after assumption
of office was to conduct a trip round the
state; I commissioned a team based on this to
go and ask the citizens and residents around
the state to specifically tell the governor,
‘what do you want him to do for you?’
That was the beginning of our local government
tour. The results that came showed us that
there were six main items: roads, drainages,
schools, health, jobs and power. But we wanted
to validate that and we went for town hall
meetings in every local government. And while
those things resonated across, they resonated
differently. In some local governments, they
wanted  roads first. In others, they preferred
schools. In some places, their drainages were
their main concern. This formed the basis of
our first full year budget in office (2008
budget).  And we have kept faith with this
approach.
Indeed, from each tour after we came back, it
was to give instructions to each ministry or
department. When we came back from those
tours, we went straight into an executive
meeting everyday giving out assignments as
required; and we have kept track.
Regional plan
The second point was that of regional plan. I
think the last regional plan for the state was
done around 1991 or so. So, we decided to plan
the state into eight towns. We developed a new
regional plan. These towns are Badagry,
Ikorodu, Epe, Lagos Mainland (which covers
part of Oshodi, all through to Orile, to National
Theater and Iddo), Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Lekki
and Ikeja; and to link them up by transport
infrastructures.
Again, we did an audit of the available water
supply. And we saw that we had about roughly
45 or 48 percent water supply and we developed
a plan; a short, medium and long term plan to
provide water for the growing population that
we were anticipating. The short-term plan was
to do two million gallons per day, with facilities
in 15 locations. I have commissioned about nine
of them.  And along with that short term plan
was to get the Iju water works to run at  full
capacity because it was running at  about 35
percent  capacity because of power outages.
This led to the first IGP for Iju water works;
the Akute IGP now runs at about 90 percent.
But it doesn’t solve the problem. Some of these
facilities have aged; Iju was built around 1900.
That’s why you will see we are laying new pipes
through Eko Bridge.
Essentially, we have almost completed the
short-term plan. The medium term plan is to
build bigger water works. Oto-Ikosi is
completed now and being tested. That is four
million gallons to feed part of Epe and support
Ikorodu. We have Odo-mola, which is 25 million
gallons.
There is also the Adiyan phase II, which is 70
million gallons a day. We have already started
constructing this from the budget. We will
finish that in 2016.
That will help us supply Alimosho and Agege, who
are actually close to the water source (Iju) but
who don’t benefit from it because the
Europeans, who built it, didn’t  include them
among beneficiaries.
In Badagry, we want it to stand alone. Ishashi
is four million gallons. And we are also
upgrading Ishashi  to 12 million gallons a day.
The same thing with water treatment and
sewage! The capacity was barely 10 percent. We
drew up a 10-year plan. And that is why we now
have a Lagos State Water Regulatory
Commission, which will regulate the use of
clean water and recycling of used water.
We went into Yaba for massive rehabilitation of
what was once a prime middle class community.
Three roads were commissioned for
construction and we finished substantially 80
percent of the works there. We are
regenerating Apapa as well. Some of old roads
in Victoria Island are being constructed. The
same type of construction is going on in
Alimosho. We have finished LASU-Iba Road. It
is about 20 kilometers and four-lane, as well as
Governor’s Road and a couple  of other roads.
This time last year, we handed over 11 new
roads in Alimosho.
In all this, we have consciously kept one
contractor; almost like a resident contractor.
Once you finished, we move you to the next
phase. In Ikorodu, for example, the resident
contractors are two; the Chinese and Arab
Contractors. The Chinese are doing the main
road and the Arab Contractors are doing the
inner ones.
In Mile 12 and Agiliti, there is a new bridge and
about seven new roads that will finish in about
June. In Ijegun-Isheri, you have Hi-Tec
there, constructing the bridge to link the two
communities.
So, there is a conscious effort to be
methodical so that, instead of demobilizing one
contractor and bringing another one, we have a
network of roads and we tackle them one after
the other.
*Fashola
As you wind down on your tenure, are there
any other development plans in the offing you
have not talked about? And how do you react to
the allegation that some of these projects are
elitist?
If it is the elite who live in Mile 12, in Agiliti,
then I am happy to serve them. If it is the elite
who live in Ajegunle, where we handed over a
new road last week, I am happy to serve to
them. Also,
if it is the elite who live in Mushin, where we
handed over 16 roads, then I am happy to serve
them. If it is the elite who live in Ikeja, where
we just finished Kodeso and Medical Roads, it is
my pleasure to serve them; they are taxpayers
too.
The biggest project that we are undertaking,
the transport project… from Mile 12 through
Ikorodu Road, if it is the elite who live in this
17 kilometer road expansion, I am happy to
serve them. If you go from Orile right through
to Alaba, Mile 2 we are doing the train station
and if that also is for the elite who live there, I
should be so delighted to serve them.  These are
places where no activity of any sustainable
attention had been paid. Over the years, we
have not really had this long period of
government to really sit down, develop a plan
and run with it. Yes, we haven’t served
everybody and we can pretend we will be able to
serve everybody. But the fact that an asset is
built in a community where you live doesn’t
mean that it belongs to you. And the choices
that we have always made, given our limited
resources, is ‘where is the most impactful area
of need?’
People have now forgotten what the areas
around Stadium, Barracks and Alaka used to
look like. There is a seven kilometer of
drainage submerged under that road today,
because when we started the BRT system, that
was where the buses used to get trapped. It
occurred to us then that instead of going to do
residential roads, ‘why don’t we fix roads that
take people to places of their daily bread?’
Roughly about six million commuters move
around there daily. That’s one of the busiest
roads. Then we went to open up Agege Motor
Road and Oshodi to free traffic that used to be
a daily nightmare to people. I remember that
people at the Airport  toll gate were not happy
with us because our effort impacted negatively
on their revenue. Then, people were paying to
avoid that gridlock at Oshodi only to come back
to Agege Motor Road. We succeeded in putting
that money back in their pockets. This debate
(on elitism or otherwise) will never go away. In
any case, I am proud to be serving somebody.
The pain on the other side is that, today, we
don’t have electricity, but does it really matter
who first got it? If some people start to get it,
the rest of us can hope it will soon get to us.
When you started out, not much of a politician
was seen in you. But for sustainability of some
of your projects, how concerned are you about
your successor? Have you now transmuted to a
political godfather enough to say, for
sustainability, you prefer Mr. A or Mrs. B as
successor?
The answer to that is to continue to insist
that a government that is run around
institutions is the most sustainable form of
government.
Lagos State has been very lucky so far to have
a lot of action governors. But how much we can
continue to build on luck is another thing. Up
to my immediate predecessor in office, they
have all been very wonderful people in office. I
think what we need is to move to action
government, where whatever happens, the
system will run. That is why we are doing a lot
of human capacity development, training public
servants; part of the reasons behind our last
retreat that had become very frequent. We
have also yielded a lot of independence to
parastatals so that we can hold people
responsible for implementation.
When ministries focus on policy formulation and
articulation and allow parastatals to
implement, you have a more efficient public
service. Examples are already there. For
example, the Ministry of
Environment is our policy formulator in waste
management, whether it is solid or liquid or
polluted airwaves while an agency  like LASEMA
is dealing with air and liquid waste and LAWMA
dealing with solid waste. So, if there is
particular problem, the commissioner knows
who to call. We are also seeing the same thing
in the transportation sector; LAMATA is dealing
with the public through the BRT system and
coordinating the rail.
The Lagos State Water Authority is running the
water system, building the jetties and
developing the regulations for the ferries.  The
same thing is in the Ministry of Works. The
ministry now takes over the segmented
maintenance of roads, through Public Works
Corporation. Last year alone they did more
than 900 roads – construction and
rehabilitations. There is now a separate
department in charge of traffic lights. So, if a
traffic light fails, the commissioner knows who
the head of that department is. We are
creating specialization in an organic way that
cascades to the pyramid of the organogram.
So, whoever becomes the next governor, all he
needs to do is to take those people’s budget,
give them the money they need; because they
already know what to do.
There are some new FERMA-trainees seen
around the state. How much do you know about
this development? And is FERMA going to
replace the Federal Road Safety Commission,
FRSC?
Honestly, I really don’t know a thing about it.
But when contacted, the Minister of Works
said it did not have his approval. The parastatal
is under the Ministry of Works, but the
question to ask is
what is going on? Where is the money for this
particular exercise coming from? If they are
recruiting, what is the purpose? If they want
to police federal highways, what is now the role
of the FRSC? Is it a task force such as
contemplated within the law? Have they
appropriated funding for it because you can’t
have an agency in a constitutional democracy
without having appropriation for it in the
budget! Or are you funding them with slush
fund?  Is it SURE-P money, meant for the
development of Lagos State that is being used
to do this?
And, again, you ask yourself, ‘what is the need
for such a task force?’
There are about 10,000 roads in the state, out
of which 6,000 belong to the state
government. A little over 3,000 belong to the
local government. Less than 120 belong to the
Federal Government. So what do you need such
a large army for, unless there are some
ulterior motives? I hope we are not going back
to the days of machetes.
If the resort is violence, they have served
Lagosians notice. For me, if that is the way to
repay Lagosians for the votes they receive
here, we will review our strategies.
With the gale of defections into the All
Progressives Congress, there is hardly any
difference between that party and the Peoples
Democratic Party. If this were so, why would
one want to cast his or her vote for the APC
instead of the PDP?
Even our worst critics cannot sustain any
argument about the fact that in the state that
we have added value; visible and demonstrable
value.
Fortunately, in most of those states: Edo,
Ekiti, Ogun, Osun and Oyo, the electorate have
had the misfortune to have been governed by
the PDP-led governments. The choice is now
clearer to them. If you take Ogun State, for
example, in less than two years, bridges have
been built. If you take Oyo as another example,
the bad stories about the eyesores have
disappeared. They now even have a bridge,
which is the first in about 34 years. So, the
electorate  have seen both sides of the coin
now and they are wiser. This can only suggest
to you that it is a model that is working, by
peer review, by peer influence and by healthy
competition among the governors to succeed;
that can only be good for the states.
Now, if you look at the other side that decided
to join us, you cannot dismiss their
achievement by a wave of the hand; even under
PDP. But they have seen clearly that
development cannot continue with sudden
disappearance of revenues while they are
expected to keep a conspiratorial silence and
continue benefitting. In terms of public
accountability, we bring that to the table.
Secondly, and perhaps, more importantly, like-
minds are calling unto each other about the
need for the development of the country. In
any political arena, people are complaining that
things are not moving in the country, where
the national government has 52 percent of the
resources. Even with the very best effort of
the 36 states and over 700 local governments,
if they perform at a 100 percent, in terms of
risk analysis and risk allotment, if they keep
less than 50 percent of resources, their 100
percent is still not a pass mark. But in spite of
these complaints, people still feel that nobody
can defeat this behemoth. ‘So, we will either
not vote or we will vote for them because we
know  they will not lose.’  And that is what APC
also brings to the table for Nigerians — to give
them a real choice. Ultimately, it is people of
Nigeria who will get the opportunity to be in
absolute control of their destiny and then whip
governments into line.
Because in the cases where you have  thin
margins between parliamentary
representation, state representations, one
bad choice and you are out because the other
party stands a fair chance to win
the election. Of course, there will be smaller
parties. Parties can be more definitive when
coalitions are necessary as we saw in Britain,
where Liberal Democrats and the Conservative
partnered to kick Labour out; and even they
have started fighting. None of the
disagreements that you have also seen here is
peculiar to us.
There are appointments Obama cannot make
today. You may quarrel with the morality of it,
but the legitimacy of it is unquestionable. That
is what lies at the heart of the doctrine of
separation of powers and checks and balances.
And the position our party has taken is a
contingent position. You cannot hide behind a
finger and say you don’t know what is going on
in Rivers State. If you don’t, it must be in
your enlightened best interest to know.
Security of life and property is the primary
reason  government exists. And even if there is
no legal duty, I think there is moral duty.
As things continue to unfold, you will see
clearly that we are a party of method and of
process and in the fullest of time we will unveil
to you in a very clear detail what we are about.
But again, you
cannot have a party without people, and we are
following our plan. Our plan was to register the
party, against all the odds, against history that
no merger has ever been concluded. It is a
defining event in the political history of
Nigeria. Having finished that, we went into
contact and mobilization, we are now going
into membership registration which entails
producing the management of the party and,
when that is done, we will tell you Nigerians
why we want to be members of the APC.
Your party’s directive to its members in the
National Assembly to block executive bill, I read
about you defending it and you have also done
so here; in my word, I think it is pre mature
because your party doesn’t have that majority
in both houses and another thing is, what is
the case of constructive engagement?
You have rushed to judgment. I don’t think
that we should be repulsed by the idea, it
hasn’t happened, but we are saying, if  certain
things do not happen as they relate to law and
order, we will come to a conclusion that this is
a pre-meditated design to use executive power
and, if there is no communication, we will bring
you to the table and one of the ways to do so is
by exercising our own powers; I have always
said that the virtue of power is the restraint in
exercising it, but it is sometimes important to
remind people that that power exists. When the
party was meeting and setting up its members
to withdraw operations from the executive;
they were withdrawing cooperation from the
executive.
If you know the way legislative business goes,
you cannot have clear lines in parliament. It is
also for our leadership to say, ‘Let  us come
together and deliberate on issues’. I think that
because our democracy is just about 14 years,
it is going to throw up many learning curves, it
needs a lot of maturity for one to realise how
much power one has and to know that you can’t
act on your own. Therefore, we must see the
glass as half full all the time, we don’t want
the nation to collapse because we want to win
and we expect that we will win.
We are beginning to witness  discontent on
defection from APC, how is the party handling
disagreements?
The more the Nigerian public gets involved in
politics and understand politics for what it is,
the better; it is about interests and human
beings and everybody wants something. There
are conflicts defined by interests that would be
resolved. That is high-wire politics going on.
Let’s just decompose these things and
understand them, it is happening on the macro
to the micro, it is local, international and
global.
The taxes in Lagos, following down to the
principle of federalism, which you have always
preached, will it be okay if the money you get
from Alimosho with the highest population and
all that is spent almost exclusively in Alimosho?
I think the first thing to do is to explain that
there are different sources of revenues.
Taking advertising for instance, it is income
that comes to the local government under the
management of LASA, which is a company
statutorily created, owned by the state and
local government; because the local government
has responsibility for advertising which takes
place on the land managed by the state, so
there is a joint business.
When the income is distributed at the end of
the year, there is a derivation principle that
goes to the local government. In terms of how
resources are allocated, the needs across the
state are not the same; in some places, all you
need to do is patch a road while in others you
have to start from the beginning. Every time
you construct a road, people take positions,
capital appreciation follows road construction
and the way to go is to ask where the taxes for
roads like the LASU- Iba and Ijegun come from.
There was a time when the kind of development
and construction in Alimosho didn’t go on and
so at the end of the day, it’s not easy to
isolate and say this is what came from here,
the only way we do that kind of isolation is if
we collect capital development levies for land
sold in any estate, we use the money from that
estate to build its roads, drainages and
infrastructure; it doesn’t go a lot but it helps.
*Fashola
That is why we have scheme accounts; Lekki
phase one has a scheme account. When the
residents pay, the money goes back to them;
after UACPDC bought 1004 Estate and paid their
capital development levy, we used it to start
phase two of Adetokunbo Ademola Road.But
that did not fund the road to completion of the
Lekki -Epe Expressway.
The point is that all the revenues go to the
consolidated revenues of the state and what
we do is a budget based on input and on
development plan.
Many of us are worried about the place of the
local government in your development plans.
Where I live there is absolutely no impact of
that level of government at all…
No, they may not have served your personal
needs at the moment and that will not be good
to generalise; because you don’t feel the
impact, those who could see appreciate it. Local
governments are driving primary healthcare
and primary education, which are the
foundation of development of the most
important resources, the human resources-
making him or her health and giving him or her
skills.
You can see that we are yet to develop certain
parts of Lagos. People are building at a  pace
higher than we are able to respond and that is
not our fault or yours.
Now, it’s the understanding that we seek
because how fast can we get across to you is a
function of time.
We are not planning 100 rooms now but we are
planning 400 rooms at once across all the local
governments. So, at incremental level, the
work is progressing.
For instance, in 2007, how many streets did
you see with streetlight at night? But we
started with  Awolowo Road. There were
streetlights but they were not working. What
happened? It was one vulcanizer at TBS, who
was heating tyre and melted the cable in one of
the poles and that affected light. We fixed it
and switched on. We started putting diesel and
we drove on that road and it looked like our
small London.
We continued like that; last year alone, we had
over 50 roads with streetlights because there
is an incremental capacity. We are making poles
in Lagos and this year we are looking at doing
another 100 roads.
Alimosho had about 11 roads lit up last year. And
around Agege Motor Road, we lit up the road
and traders can now sell till night and that
means doubling their income. These are the
elite that I’m serving.
In Shomolu, they used to stop selling their
akara and dodo by 6pm because of fear of
insecurity. We gave them light and, today, they
sell into the night. Obalende is back.
Your Commissioner for Budget and Planning
gave the debt profile at N120 billion, but I’m
aware that Lagos is the only state that pays
salary from IGR. How sustainable is this
system?
Simple, there are few things to understand.
There are upper limits of debt profiles by global
standards, in relation to a certain percentage
of the GDP. We are not near that threshold
anywhere.
Secondly, what types of debt profile is it, is it
for recurrent expenditure or capital? It is for
capital.
If in less than two years to go, I went to the
stock market to raise N85billion and it was fully
subscribed and you know bankers do not want
to lose money; they know what is coming from
that and they keyed in; with these projects
people earn income and because they earn
income, they pay taxes. We are simply moving
the money round.
In 1999, when my predecessor took over, we
were working with N14 billion IGR and we are
now having a budget of almost half a trillion
naira and how do you want us to finance that?
Is it the money under the pillow? You can’t
build a city like that. We want rail and all that,
you don’t do it waiting for people to bring kobo
kobo.
For instance, the track Europeans built are
still there. It is a 100-year asset. You have to
finance it by debt and it will pay off.
During Tinubu’s time, when he drew N15 billion
out of N25 billion bond, they said he had
mortgaged Lagos.
I paid that debt in my first year in the office.
The first bond that we took is maturing this
year.
It is a N50 billion bond. We have N90 billion in
trustees account to pay off N50billion.
If we keep waiting until the money gathers
together, you can’t begin to tell me that there
is no road to your house. Where am I supposed
to build them? The road that Asiwaju built with
N15 billion, I can’t touch again with the same
amount of money. The dollar was trading at
less than one to a naira, but it is almost
doubled.
When I assumed office, the dollar was at $1 to
N112 and we were borrowing at 10 per cent.
Now you are lucky to get at 17 per cent.
Dollar is now $1 to over N170. Those are the
realities and we must salute our economic team
for the investment they have been able to
achieve.
If not for that, would you have LASU-Iba
Road, that rail, or make Ikorodu  Road
motorable today; Badagry expressway and
others? The money we are spending on Ikorodu
Road is a loan. It’s a long-term loan. Take the
money now and pay back later as long as the
people continue to pay their taxes and financial
capacity continues.
Was your visit to Edo State solely to endorse
the presidential ambition of Governor Adams
Oshiomhole?
Really, our country needs development and
knowing Edo well, with the things I saw there,
I think it’s a development that should come on
board every state if that experience is brought
to a larger theater of expression.
I’m in support of everybody, who has worked so
that we will not come up to say we will not have
electricity because we do not have gas.
That gas is not gotten from one alien country,
it’s seated underneath us.
It baffles me each time thing I hear we have
money, but we are looking for the whereabouts
of 12billion dollars. Let us even say for the
sake of argument, why couldn’t that money be
spent on pipelines to pump fuel over the
country or even repair the pipelines?
The issue is, after many years that the country
has been extracting crude oil, are the pipes not
due for change? I’m changing water pipes on
the bridge. So we spent huge sums on power
project yet there is no solution.
And I begin to wonder what the United Arab
Emirate spent in their total power energy?
They powered the desert. How much more can it
cost? So it was in that context that I said that
I will support any one who is doing well and who
has done well, so that such development will
come across on board.
In this moment of power shift, will the
northerners in your party support him?
I can’t speak for a group. That is your fear. I
have a stake. At the end, you can’t speak for a
group. They decide on what to be done.
For now we are still early in our party
programme to discuss the issue of candidates.
Until we put in place  the organs of party and
officers, that question will not  be addressed.
The Information Minister, Labaran Maku
recently said that, at all levels, no government
has done what the Jonathan administration had
done. But here you are reeling out
achievements. How does that make you feel,
compared to the assertion that they have done
the best?
All I can say is that I hope the best of Nigeria is
really further ahead. I don’t want to be the
best governor of Lagos. I want better
governors to come after me. I think that it’s a
leadership problem.
When this sort of statement is  made, you must
contextualize it into whether or not we really
have prepared ourselves for the kind of
responsibilities that we have. Would there have
been a Nigeria if those who fought the war
didn’t sacrifice? So, for somebody to come
after that to say, ‘we are the best…’ That was
governance. Keeping the peace and unity of
this country, people lost their lives. They
served.
How do you dishonour their memory and service
by saying nobody has done what you have done?
I have never heard any government that wants
to progress say those kinds of things. There
must be a place for your predecessors. Its a
ladder and a house built on so many blocks of
blood, sweat and tears. And whether you like it
or not, you will hand over the baton. How would
you feel after that, when somebody says you
haven’t done anything? Let’s look at power.
Did they pass the legislation? They are
concluding the process.
There is pension reform today. Did they pass
the legislation? It’s a process of thinking and
doing sometimes. As
I told people, Thabo Mbeki hosted the World
Cup, was he the one who did the bidding for it?
What is the value they have added to the GSM
today? There are more drop calls now than
when the system started. Were they the ones
who did it? It was a government that licensed
private TV otherwise all of us would be locked
on to NTA today and you won’t be here because
there would only have been Daily Times. That’s
the incremental contributions of your
predecessors. So, how are they supposed to
feel? And you want to build a nation? You’re
provoking everybody? I think there can be
better tactics to underscore your development.
We can’t show that we are good by showing
that everybody is bad. Unfortunately, it’s a
strategy that has also worked in some states,
but I have always said, look, you must
acknowledge what your predecessors have
done. They may not have done as much as you
have done. They may have operated at a more
difficult time than you are operating, but they
added value. I don’t believe that anybody is
absolutely useless. Everything operates in a
time and space. It’s a leadership problem.
Democracy is growing. We are building a nation
undoubtedly, but we must recognize
everybody’s contributions.