Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, in this interview, speaks on the THEMES agenda of his administration in Lagos State, his relationship with All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and 2023 general elections among other issues

Transportation is a major issue in Lagos State. What is your government doing to improve transportation across the state?

Transportation is the first pillar in our THEMES agenda. It was something that we designed out of the questions from our audience during our campaign and after we won the election. So, it is not something that just fell on us. Traffic management and transportation is the most challenging issue that people asked us to solve. Talking about our direct intervention in that space, we have introduced about 1,300 high-capacity buses which we call BRT. We have introduced about 1,000 medium-capacity buses.

We have introduced about 500 First and Last Mile buses, which are like the bigger version of Korope, eight to 10-seat minibuses. We have also introduced about a thousand taxis, which is LAGRIDE. So, these are just interventions in straight road infrastructure, which all of us usually ply today. But you know that one-third of Lagos is water. The question is how well can we use the water infrastructure as a means to move people from one point to the other?

The good news is that we are currently constructing 16 jetties concurrently and we have actually completed eight of those jetties. We just need time to commission them. They are like small-small terminals, which people can embark on and disembark. It is meant to improve movement on the waterways. But we are not sitting back just to wait for that completion. We have added about 22 ferries, meaning they are carrying 60, 50, 40, and 30 passengers in fairly big capacities like that. We have done fairly enough dredging and we still need to do a bit more. The third one is the rail. The plan for public transportation is to have what we call an Integrated Urban Mass Transportation System; using rail, waterways, and BRT road infrastructure.

Many construction projects are currently ongoing on the Lagos-Badagry Expressway axis but there are some other factors affecting it, especially NUPENG activities while trying to access the port. How do you plan to manage the challenge?

The plan around that corridor is to continue to improve apart from the right of way. It is a road that hitherto was four lanes; two lanes on each side that we have turned into 10 lanes. So, you can see that it is more than double the number. The plan is to have one BRT corridor, one lane for BRT, the most inward lane, two express roads and then two outer roads. So, on the bypass road you are talking about, for example, if you are coming in from Eric Moore, you know that at some point in time before you will get to FESTAC or wherever you are going to tee off, make sure you leave the express road and go on the service lane. It is when you are on the service lane that you can now get out. If you come out from FESTAC and you are going to be coming out at Agboju again, why would you want to enter the express road? Stay on the service lane and continue to go until you get to Agboju or Trade Fair. One of the challenges is that people want to get on the express and also want to exit at their own convenience.

Road transportation is not designed like that. If I want to do 40 kilometers and I am on the express, let me fly the express for at least 35 kilometers before I get on the service lane but if I am going to do two and a half kilometers, I shouldn’t get on the express and imagine that when I want to get out, it would be available for me to get out. What is called an express cannot be accessible to everybody and anybody at every time because they are moving fast. They want to get to Agbara and begin to go to Badagry faster and quicker, and that is what we promised. I understand the challenge you talked about.

NUPENG

That corridor strategically feeds about 65 percent of the total fuel corridor of this country. That is where you have all the tank farms, I didn’t create it. It is a national issue and if we look at it, we didn’t wait for the Federal Government. The Buba Marwa Road that I am doing cost us close to N10 billion. This is a federally used road by all of the tankers that you are talking about. We are constructing the road and the concrete is very thick and we are trying to finish it.

So, that will be some sort of continuous conversation that we need to have with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC. We don’t control NUPENG. So, they will tell you that if you don’t give them access as well, there won’t be fuel in every part of the country. So, it is something that we need to continue to solve.

I know there is a need for a lot of bypass roads on the Ojo axis. We are doing roads in Mosafejo, Afromedia, and other places. We are doing inner roads in that axis so that people can indeed have relief not just on the express road. We will finish Navy Town Road very soon. We are on Old Ojo Road so that we can have an alternative.

What are your plans concerning waste management? In 2019, you talked about landfill and the amount of waste we get. We also know that in waste there is money. We know LAWMA is doing a lot of work and we can see improvement in going around and getting the waste off our streets. But when it gets to the landfill, what are we doing with that and the value chain from that?

That speaks to the issues around climate change and all of the things that we can solve. As a mega city, we generate between 12,000 to 13,000 metric tons of waste every day. It is largely domestic waste. Some are industrial waste. A lot of people will tell you there is money in waste, which we have begun to see. There is a lot of sorting that is happening. People are recycling but it still has not answered the huge number of opportunities that are there. These are investments I believe the private sector can indeed take on and we have seen a few people come up but they never finished through.

I am actually waiting for somebody that has the funding that is required to do the end-to-end waste conversion. We have done waste to fertilizer in the state before, organic fertilizer. It became unsustainable for them because even for them the cost of the fertilizer when he finished was even more expensive than the regular one.

Let us talk about education because I know that is an area you have invested a lot. I heard that your education budget in Lagos is larger than a few states’ entire budgets…

We have deliberately increased our budget for education because we believe that is one intervention in one area that we need to show real sustainability. I think last year we did about 11 percent of our total budget, so to date in terms of infrastructure, we have built over 1,047 new classrooms in less than four years. We have touched on about 197 new school projects, and we have touched close to about 1,000 different things in schools. We have added about 200,000 new chairs and benches. We have done almost 2,000 new bed spaces in the boarding schools.

We have also intervened in all of the vocational schools and the likes that we have. But for me, the interesting one is what we have done with primary schools, which is where we started, which is where education truly really should start. That is where the EKO EXCEL starts from. What we have done is that we have been able to have tablets that are given to teachers at primary schools for them to have the same learning curriculum at that level.

They have the same lesson notes and ensure that we can reduce absenteeism, truancies, and even teachers not coming. We can remotely monitor them and see who is teaching what and the quality of teaching across primary schools to ensure they are almost the same. It doesn’t matter what part of the state you are in. Those are the interventions and we have seen growth in the number of people coming back to our primary schools from private schools or whatever.

What is the update on the blue and red lines rail project?

We have completed Phase I of the Blue line and the news that I am going to pass on is that Mr. President himself will be coming later in the month to officially commission the Blue line. Phase I of the blue line is from Mile 2 to Marina. There are five stations on that corridor. We have finished it and it is completed. We have seen the new trains and additional trains are in the ports. They are going to be cleared this week and you will see them before the end of the month. So, we are ready. It is a rail that is running on electricity, which is for climate change.

Will it not be disrupted by the power supply?

We have IPP and it is going to be dedicated to it. It is an intra-city train, meaning that we understand that we have load. It is open. You can walk in and walk out very quickly. When Mr. President comes, we are starting Phase II immediately and Phase II is from Mile 2 to Okokomaiko. The beauty of that one is that it is in the middle as well. It will be done quicker and faster because it is not elevated like the first one. It is at grid level, so we will finish it in no time.

The Red line for me is the one that my heart beats a lot for because of the level of infrastructure that the Red line will do and we will complete it. By the way, we got only until May 29 this year, which is the thing that I signed with Lagosians. We will finish it in our first term. The Red line is from Oyingbo to Agbado. Agbado is actually in Ogun State and we extended it because we wanted to catch all of the traffic to make it viable. It is on the old rail corridor.

We build our own with the Federal Government doing Lagos-Ibadan. So, they will leave from Ebute-Metta, go straight to Agege, and get out of Lagos but we will start from Oyingbo. We will do Ebute Metta, Yaba, Ilupeju, Mushin, Ikeja, Agege, Ayoola Cooker, Iju, and then Agbado. It is a whole stretch.

One of the things I admire about you is putting in place fire-fighting equipment by rolling out about 62 fire trucks recently. So, concerning the trains, what are the measures you have put in place for emergency interventions for the rail line?

Inside the trains themselves they have CCTV cameras. We are not going to rush to start operations next week or the next two weeks, we are going to ensure that we can carry you free of charge. We will invite Your View crew one day and you will go with other stakeholders on a free ride to experience how you embark or disembark, how to use the turnstiles, and how you use your card. You are going to feel the entire terminal. It is an experience.

You come into a station terminal, it is supposed to be an experience where you have cafes and viewing centers; all of that will be installed with CCTV cameras. The tracks are going to be walled off so you don’t have anybody on the track for whatever reason. So, inside the terminal buildings, there will be CCTV. They are going to have their own local security and inside the trains themselves, there will be security. You will need to show and have a turnstile to be able to go to the platforms.

The platform is where you are embarking and they are elevated. All the platforms are elevated, so you need to get in, and get out. We will do this for a month or two so that there is a lot of advocacy. Market women, children, civil society groups, civil servants, and other people will come in and have an experience free just so that they get to understand it and have a feel of it.

What will you highlight as your key health achievements in the past four years and what will you do to make it even better for those that use the public health system?

Without sounding like a broken record, one of our strongest successes in health influence was the fact that we were able to proactively put in place structures that kept all of you alive during COVID. We tend to forget where we are coming from. If indeed Lagos carried 50 percent of the total burden of this country and as a government, we were able to proactively put in place structures that kept all of us safe.

Throughout that period, we have four levels of spice and what the whole world said was going to happen to us didn’t happen; a bit of credit needed to come to the Lagos State Government. COVID slowed us down in some other areas and we can continue to lead the country throughout that space. That is something that I need to give credit not to myself but to the entire health family that I have; all of the frontline workers, the doctors, nurses, and interventionists.

All of them rose at some point, some of them were living in rented hotels for a week and two weeks. They were not going home because we don’t want them to infect their families. That for us is a pandemic. it is a generational solution that nobody can take away from us. That is one.

You are doing a lot in the health sector in terms of infrastructure but some critics are of the view that they are not getting the care they are supposed to get in government hospitals in terms of drugs, beds, and proper care for patients

People will say but let the fact also speak for itself. We are in a system where we don’t have full proof of citizens’ data, where we can see for ourselves how many people come from Ebonyi State or other parts of the country.

I know the numbers because when you go to LASUTH at 6:30 am the whole place is filled up. And when you find out, you will realise that a lot of them came via overnight bus into Lagos so that they can receive medical care. What we know is that if we can manage that influx, then we can do a much better job, especially if it is predictable.

But in all of our general hospitals, if you are on our care list, we are expecting you and we know how to better prepare for you. The number speaks for itself. I have over 30 general hospitals. Nobody has any number close to that. I am still the only one paying full employment for resident doctors; 100 percent of their examination fees.

You are a huge supporter of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Why do people give Tinubu credit for a lot of things in Lagos?

I think these are instructive learning points that we need to put forward. With all sense of humility, I joined the Tinubu government over 20 years ago. I was General Manager in my bank before I joined Tinubu in November 2002. We had criticised the government two, three years before then and I had that rare opportunity when I was appointed Special Adviser. From the very first day of my appointment, I was in Tinubu’s cabinet and I saw things firsthand even before the end of his first tenure. I am a living witness to the development vision put forward by Tinubu.

It is not anything that we are blabbing about. it is something that we know. So, what happened at that time was that we set up documents called LASEEDS and SEEDS documents, which are Lagos State economic development documents. We also had what we called a 10-point agenda; it is like what I called the THEMES agenda now. The 10-point agenda had a revenue generation drive, transportation reform, public infrastructure renewal, and many things encapsulated in the LASEEDS and SEEDS, which are economic documents. We set up and started the Ehingbeti document, where you take input from the private sector and you put it into your own flesh-up document and it becomes the working paper that you can live with moving forward.

Tinubu

During his ,Tinubu, eight years as governor, I worked with him closely for at least five years; one year before the end of his first tenure and the entire four years of his second tenure. I was the Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget. I was part of those that developed the document. Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority ,LAMATA, for example, did not just come out of the space. Tinubu set up LAMATA with the World Bank in 2002. I was one of those people that recruited the first set of personnel that worked in LAMATA. It was one of the best World Bank transportation agencies that anybody can see in the world. And it was at the beginning of democracy in 1999.

That was how the blueprint was developed and we had a 20-year development plan, which of course former Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola improved on. He expunged some items and added some. Former Governor Akinwunmi Ambode did a similar thing. And because there is continuity in all of these things, we were able to see what the challenges of previous governments were and what you need to take into your government. These are some of the things that have helped us. We give him that credit because he was the one that was able to bake the first retinue of very intelligent people that worked with him.

People say you are being controlled by someone…

It is a position of humility. It is a position in which you need to be grateful to God. Given my humble background, when you have the unique, rare opportunity to serve over 20 million citizens; the biggest African city in the world, a city that is projected to be the rising sign of modern Africa, I think you need to wake up every day and be thankful to God with the opportunity, asking God to give you every energy that you require to be able to serve them. So, for me, it is really around understanding what the social contract with my citizens is. I have done almost 90 percent of my time.

What are Tinubu’s chances, especially in Lagos State?

We are confident. Lagos is an APC state and you can see APC government doing everything to ensure that we meet the yearning and aspirations of the citizens of the state. Asiwaju’s chances in Lagos are very bright, but we will not leave anything to chance. We would continue to engage people.

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