Former governor of Lagos and current
minister designate, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, in this interview, explains how he
was able to curb corruption in the state. He also bares his mind on other
national issues.
What do you regard as your major
accomplishments as governor?
First, I want to say it was a team
effort. We had an outstanding team of public servants and political office
holders, and we worked together to strengthen law enforcement, build
infrastructure and encourage inclusion. The most defining thing was to invest
the people of Lagos with a sense of ownership and pride in their own state. We
had challenges of urban crime, and we turned those challenges into
opportunities. We also expanded opportunities for young people in education and
in agriculture. We were able provide people with more opportunities to work –
to make income with dignity.
How did you tackle the
transformation of broken neighborhoods like Oshodi and is what you did
sustainable?
I knew Oshodi as a child and it was
a very
pleasant community, but it fell into disrepute. People traded in
unapproved places so they obstructed traffic. Crime was increasing because of
the disorderly nature of activities there. It was dysfunctional. We went in to
clean it up. We relocated the traders and we built a new market – that took
some time, but it was finally done. The results were outstanding. Traffic
moved. Crime dropped. Property values soared. The entire stretch of road in
Oshodi is about 10 km. We put patrol vehicles and law enforcement agents on
alternate sides of every kilometer of the road to insure that people obeyed
rules and regulations. If that continues, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be
sustainable. This created work for people to be law enforcement agents, and
they went with pride to their work because they were earning a living.
What led you to launch the ‘Green
Lagos’ initiative?
The seeds were sown by what I had
read and saw when I visited Singapore. The compelling reasons for embarking on
it were the realities of global warming and climate change and what a greener
environment can do in terms of quality of life for people. There was the health
issue and also the calmness that a green environment brought on. This calming
affects the way people behave. We set up small gangs of people for cleaning and
maintaining abandoned spaces – spaces where people were choosing to dump
refuse. They planted seedlings. That created economic opportunities. Plumbers
became busy because they were fixing sprinklers to keep the places green.
Horticulturists began seeing a demand for their seedlings, their trees, plants
and shrubs. A lot of people of people got involved, and I am told about five
million trees were planted by the time my tenure ended. Hundreds of parks had
been rebuilt, reclaimed and beatified. About 92,000 people were involved in the
massive work of keeping those places running and using their skills and talents
to earn a decent and dignified living.
During your Senate screening (as a
presidential nominee), you were asked about expulsions of people from Lagos
while you were in office. How do you respond to that criticism?
First, I think it isn’t appropriate
to classify it as an expulsion. It wasn’t. We had citizens who had no address
and probably migrated from God-knows-where to our state. They were living as
destitutes. Some had psychiatric problems. Some had other health issues. We
rehabilitated them. When they got rehabilitated, they had to leave because it
cost a lot of tax-payer money to keep feeding them on a daily basis, year-in,
year-out. In some cases, they said they wanted to go home. And as I said during
the screening, we didn’t know where home was except for where they told us. We
wrote three letters to their home governments. None of them was acknowledged.
We had to do something. As I said during the screening, we took them to the
boundary of the state they called home, in the belief that they would be able
to reintegrate themselves back to their communities. Perhaps we could have done
a little more. But we were not assisted by their state governments.
There is a misconception that people
can move freely and do what they like. The laws and the constitution that
guarantee the freedom of movement for citizens across the country impose
obligations not to constitute themselves as a nuisance in whatever other state
they move to. Just like any law that guarantees freedom of speech does not
guarantee you the right to defame people. And so those rights can be curtailed
in order to protect the rights of other citizens. As I said during the
screening, they went to court, and the court took the view that [they had] an
unmeritorious claim.
How did you tackle corruption as
governor?
My approach was to see that we got
value for money and that there was good governance and the supremacy of law and
order. Human beings will fall short of standards their society expects of them,
and whenever that happens, what needs to done is to enforce the law and insist
on compliance. That is what I have sought to do. But we must be careful. There
are some instances where people levy allegations when they have no shred of
evidence or they misapprehend the way how the system works.
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There are reports that you spent 78
million naira on a website (U.S. $400 thousand) and another large amount on
boreholes (water wells). How do you respond to those criticisms?
First of all, the reports are untrue
to the extent that they accuse me of any wrong doing. Specifically to the
boreholes, it never happened. But I have chosen not to continue to defend
myself on the pages of newspapers because that is not the place to resolve
allegations of criminal wrongdoing. [You do it] in a court of law. These are
institutions of state who have the authority to ask me to answer. As far as the
website is concerned, first of all it was I, as governor, who insisted that
every procurement be published on our state website. So if we had anything to hide,
it would stand logic upside down to be publicizing our wrongdoing ourselves.
And as I said during the senate screening, as governor I headed a network of
institutions. If we wanted anything that had to do with computing, science and
technology, we had consulting ministries. In this case, the ministry of science
and technology was the consulting ministry. They vetted the proposals and
approved the prices. There is also an independent procurement agency that
validates procurements. All I did as governor was to sign off and approve
expenditure after the procurement agency approved.
It is important to also make this
point: I wasn’t elected with any limitations of powers of expenditure. It was I
as governor who set limits on what I could do and what procurement agencies do.
I want to add that some of these allegations come out of a misunderstanding of
how our processes work. As I said during the screening, I didn’t sign checks
and I didn’t fix prices. And so if you wanted to accuse me, the only thing you
could perhaps say, which is still very debatable, is that our pricing
mechanisms were wrong.
This was not only a website upgrade.
We installed applications to allow smartphone users to download applications.
We had an application for android phone users, one for Microsoft and [several]
others. The advice we received was that, if we asked users to pay for those
applications, we would not have the kind of traffic and footprint that we
expected from people who wanted to know what government was doing. So we paid for
the different applications. We also paid for hosting overseas, and we had a
contract for a web master to manage all the information – videos, speeches,
executive orders and more.
It wasn’t just a website upgrade
that cost 78 million naira. In any case, all the documents are with the
government so they can be examined.
There was great excitement after the
March election and President Buhari’s Inauguration in late May. Are those high
hopes continuing?
I would think so, but human beings
being what they are, people expect rapid results. The easiest way to sustain
optimism is to continue to show results. It has been a very challenging
one-and-a-half years for the country. We spent a lot of time preparing for
elections and, globally, when elections are coming, things generally slow down.
Ours took 15 months. The economy has been challenged as a result of that. We
need to get back to production and productivity, and people need to see their
institutions at work.
It has taken President Buhari longer
than many expected to nominate people to serve as ministers. Do you expect
things to start happening now?
My sense is that people are waiting
to get a clear direction. I am optimistic that the president will begin to show
results. The time frame is the challenge: how much more time will Nigerians
afford him? Having been a governor before, I know that the first 6-to-9 months
are defining. At the level of national government, which is a behemoth, it
takes time to get a grip on it. The president has picked people to assist him,
some of whose experience and reputations are quite inspiring. I think when the
budget comes out it will signify a clear direction about what the government
will do, where it will be investing energy and resources. I think people will
respond accordingly.
What do you regard as top priorities
for the new government?
Security is one. The economy is the
other. Within the economy, you have components such as infrastructure –
transport infrastructure [and] energy infrastructure particularly. If
transportation gets better, goods and services and people will move much more
efficiently and that can only lead to productivity and the prosperity and
quality of life that people want to see. The President is clearly focused on
security. We have seen some results, and it will get better. Dealing with the
criminals who now terrorize parts of our country in a faceless manner poses
challenges for our security apparatus, who were trained to deal with
conventional opponents rather than these unconventional methods where soft
targets are their victims. And government really, with all its best intentions,
can’t be in every home and every corner of our society
Can you tell us which ministerial
post you will hold?
Only the president can tell. He
nominated us, so he would have a very clear idea what role he wants each of us
to play. I believe he must have had deep reflection on who will be in what
position.
Nigeria NewsDesk
Nigeria NewsDesk
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