By Ikeddy ISIGUZO
AN embarrassing narrative about Bola Ahmed Tinubu is that he built Lagos and was going to transfer that same passion to building Nigeria. Not only is the tale dumb but more embarrassing was that it refused to fly.
Tinubu was and remains an affliction to Lagos – and Nigeria. Tinubu has nothing to show for eight years of being Governor of Lagos. His policies can be destructive, to the shock of those who have been lured to the deceptive stories of Tinubu’s deeds in Lagos.
Some of his propagandists claim Tinubu is the one who built what they nebulously called “modern Lagos”. Tinubu didn’t build anything and is proving incapable of using the vast resources under his control to work for the common good.
He did the same in Lagos and today his principal boast is his expertise in tax collection.
In only four years in office, Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande built the modern Lagos State, to the shock of his successors who have been unable, all combined, to do a tiny fraction of what Jakande did.
Their underground campaign against Jakande cites working for Sani Abacha and being originally from Kwara State, when every civilian Governor of Lagos State is known to originally to hail from outside Lagos State.
Jakande’s name evokes jealousy instead of inspiring the latter-day owners of Lagos to continue to treat Lagos with the zeal with which Jakande administered Lagos.
Some of the things Jakande did in just four years include:
*Building the current Lagos State Secretariat which houses all the state ministries as well as the Governor”s occupied by all subsequent governors of the State.
*Built the Lagos State House of Assembly complex.
*Built the Lagos State Television and Radio Lagos
*Lagos State University which they will not name after Jakande because the ‘modern builders’ of Lagos do not want the world to keep remembering Jakande. They want to re-write the history of Lagos to cover Tinubu’s emptiness.
*Jakande built General Hospitals in zones all over the State with free health care.
*Teacher Training College and the College of Education.
*Thousands of low cost, medium cost, and high cost houses in Ijaiye, Dolphin, Oke-Afa, Ije, Abesan, Iponri, Ipaja, Abule Nla, Epe, Amuwo-Odofin, Anikantamo, Surulere, Iba, Ikorodu, Badagry, Isheri/Olowu, Orisigun, Ogba, Maryland etc.
*Water Management Board and Waste Disposal Board.
*Incinerators in Oshodi, Epe, Ilubirin, in Lagos Island. The Lagos State never used them, instead Babatunde Fashola built one incinerator in Agege towards the end of his tenure.
*Constructed the Adiyan Water Works to increase water supply in the State to 18.16 million litres per day.
*Modernised and expanded the Iju Water Works, first commissioned in 1915 to increase daily capacity from 159 million to 204 million litres per day.
*Commissioned the giant car crusher equipment to crush derelict vehicles in Lagos State. It had the capacity to crush 45 vehicles per day.
*Rehabilitated and resurfaced Epe/Ijebu-Ode Road, Oba Akran Avenue, Toyin Street, Town Planning Way, Alimosho-Idimu-Egbe Road, Idimu-Iba-LASU Road, the new secretariat road and several others.
*Constructed Victoria Island/Epe Road which someone said was worth more than “an oil well”. The construction created the Lekki- Ajah- Epe corridor on which seats property businesses reckoned in trillions of Naira. Other businesses the opening of Epe produced include Dangote Refinery, Lekki Deep Seaport, Lagos Business School, and Pan-Atlantic University. The road, if you are distracted by the cosmetic improvements on it, is almost where Jakande left it, 43 years, more than half of that time, 27 years, under Tinubu-controlled administrations.
Jakande left in 1983 at the instance of Muhammadu Buhari, who APC gifted eight years of civilian presidency on Tinubu’s orders. The Epe Express is supposed to have two bridges approaching Epe, only one has been in use, 43 years after Jakande, and in 27 years of Tinubu’s effective control of Lagos.
*Asphalt Plant for the Department of Public Works.
.*Established Electricity Board for Rural Electrification with provision of street lights.
*Modernised, expanded and commissioned Onikan Stadium in 1982.
*Established a singular school system and ensured genuine free education in Lagos State. Lagos ran a three-stream educational system before Jakande.
*Raised primary schools in Lagos State to 812 with 533,001 pupils (against 605 primary schools with 434,545 pupils he met in 1979) and secondary schools to 223 with 167,629 students (against 105 schools with 107,835 students in 1979).
*Constructed 11,729 classrooms with the maximum of 40 children per class between March and August 1980, by 1983, he had constructed over 22,000 classrooms. The buildings derided as “chicken pen”, are still in use.
*Commercial passenger boats christened “Baba Kekere and “Itafaji” to run the Mile 2 – Marina (CMS) route via the lagoons were inaugurated to mark the official launch of the Lagos State Ferry Services.
*Lagos State Printing Corporation and Lagos Television.
*State Traffic Management Authority (Road Marshals).
*The metroline that Jakande was building was also aborted by Buhari’s coup. Nigeria had to repay the loan for that project.
*Small scale Industries Credit Scheme which preceded the Eko Bank.
*Established LASACO Insurance.
*Expanded existing markets and built new ones.
*Established Traditional Medicine Board.
*Lagos State ran a prudent financial system that it had enough money in reserves that it once lent money to Borno State.
All these and more Jakande did in four years. What did Tinubu do in 27 years?
Tinubu did some remarkable things:
Enron scandal, an $800 million Independent Power Project in year 2000 as Governor of Lagos State was one of his biggest projects. The federal government and the World Bank kicked against the technology, the cost of the project, its sustainability, and the outrageous contract terms that favoured Enron, among them a 20-year tax holiday and requirements that Lagos would settle vast financial obligations if the contract was terminated, and protection for Enron from penalties. Tinubu denied any wrong doing. The contract eventually collapsed after Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States in late 2001. Tinubu had campaigned to end the epileptic power supply in Lagos State.
Only in 2022, Tinubu made the needless claim that he brought Econet, now Airtel, to Nigeria. Everyone, except Tinubu, remembers that it was the Zimbabwean businessman Strive Masiyiwa who secured the licence. Akwa Ibom, Delta, and Lagos States made investments that they later withdrew under controversial circumstances.
With all that Jakande did that the Lagos State government refuses to acknowledge, Tinubu believes that he could hoodwink people through ownership of the development of Lagos.
This is the man who claims he developed Lagos – his latest addition being the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, that has increased flooding in the Lekki area, and that is being re-designed as it is being constructed, to manage flooding, wants Nigerians to believe he has interest in making Nigeria better.
In three years, Tinubu has proven himself incapable of leading Nigeria. Our circumstances are already too dreary to contemplate more years of Tinubu.
Finally…
AFTER almost two months in captivity, pupils and teachers abducted in Orire Local Government Area of Oyo State have been “released” or “rescued”. Bayo Onanuga, Tinubu’s spokesman is uncertain which happened. “Finally, the kidnapped pupils and teachers in Orire, Oyo, have been freed by their abductors,” Onanuga wrote. He would later write that the security agencies freed the captives.
WHAT is the place of ICPC in investigating the alleged phantom agency when the President has pressed absolute confidence in the integrity of his Chief of Staff? Is it expected that ICPC will doubt Tinubu’s word? Moreover, what will ICPC be investigating when the matter is already in court? Why did the police arrest the father of the defendant? What was his link with the agency?
*ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues