I am not a politician and I do not belong to any political party because honestly I detest the present system call democracy. As I see it as self serving, looting and stealing and even when there are apparatus setup for check and balances they choose to look elsewhere and chase after petty thief while the bigger thieves in worst case scenario do what we called the now popular plea bargain and part of the money stolen about 0.00005% is refunded back to the state coffer, while the petty thief are send to various long prison term and the politicians work back into the system to savor and enjoy what they have looted. Even at that because I live in Lagos and have property in Lagos, I have seen Governor Raji Babatunde Fashola at close range and to an extent I seem to like him as a person even as a neutralist.
However looking forward if truly Nigerians are allowed to exercise their civil franchise, if the voters will truly count, if Nigerians government and it’s agency allowed the will of the people to count then I see AC now APC not winning the next gubernatorial election slated for 2015.
Last week, I stood under an umbrella in Victoria Island, watching Lagos rush beneath a rain that couldn’t make up its mind whether it wanted to stop or not. Next to me were two elderly women, petty traders from what I could see. They were discussing Fashola, in Yoruba.
‘Fashola is wicked,’ said one. ‘He terrifies me.’ They shared stories of the state government’s sustained assault on the city’s poorest; the demolitions and evictions everywhere from Oshodi to Amukoko. They compared it to the wiping out of Maroko (in the early ‘90s). ‘When this rain is done, ‘they’ will find fresh victims, claiming that the houses are sitting on drainage channels,’ one of them lamented.”
Since that encounter, the Lagos demolition train has moved on to Ijora Badia, and who knows where else? In its body language, the Lagos we all know advertises and represents itself as “No Place for Poor People”.
From street hawkers consistently terrorised by Kick Against Indiscipline operatives to taxi drivers priced out of business by the government’s decision to phase out the trademark yellow-and-black taxis in favour of brand new cabs, to dumpsite dwellers at the mercy of a government that has no plans for them, to the multitudes forced out of the city into the hinterland under a puzzling ‘deportation’ programme. Are we asking ourselves this troubling question: All those former okada riders now out of work – where are they; what are they doing; how are they surviving?
There is what seems to be a disproportionate government focus on the wealthier sections of the city, at the expense of the poor, which disregards the fact that twice as many Lagosians live on the Mainland as on the Islands. On the low-income mass housing front, it doesn’t seem that the government is doing enough, compared to the attention being focused on developing, say, Eko Atlantic City. The impressive bid by architect Kunle Adeyemi to regenerate Makoko through innovative housing solutions is now in limbo, threatened by a state government that has declared it “illegal”. Yet, this is perhaps the only state government in Nigeria that can boast having an “Innovation Advisory Council”.
What about the tenement rate that has now been changed to Land use charge and with over 600% increase, the land lords are groaning and of course part of this if not more has been push through the throat of their tenants.
LASTMA the state government agency are either not trained or not properly supervised, some of us have had the opportunities to travel out at some point in time or the other, because I am 100% sure what Fashola try to emulate is what is obtainable in Europe and other industrialized nations of the world. However the case of Lagos is that the LASTMA officials hide or look elsewhere waiting for you to commit a traffic offence and they then pounce on you and issue a ridiculous amount of money as a penalty which in most cases does not even get to the government purse. A lot of Lagosians are groaning and you need to experience this to understand it better. The fear of LASTMA is the ………….., you wait to experience a fault with your car on the highway be it Federal or state highway to feel LASTMA stinger………Yet this are the same people that were employed to be of service to road users and motorist and today have become a monsters bigger than LIFE.
A visit to the state hospitals will leave you in shudder, as part of the General Hospitals in Ikeja and Lagos Island has actually been privatized and rather than serving the poor and the peasant it has become for those who can afford it, especially drug wise, while the so call called consultants spend more time on their private hospitals.
There’s also the fact that Lagos is not the most transparent of state governments, fuelling suspicion that there’s much more that the state could be doing with the resources it has. And then I don’t think the state government is putting enough pressure on the local government(s) – who are grandmasters of revenue collection but utterly hopeless at governance – to justify their existence.
I acknowledge Fashola’s dilemma. On the one hand is the vision to speedily subvert the decay and dysfunction that have long plagued the city, and set it on the path to becoming a city that stays ahead of its needs; on the other hand is the need to ensure that the envisioned Lagos is not leaving anyone, no matter how poor, behind. Fashola needs to temper the “Eko O Ni Baje!” vision with a “No One Left Behind” philosophy.
It’s very tricky, no doubt: On the one hand, Oshodi needed to be sanitised; on the other hand is the fate of its displaced masses; they can’t simply be wished into oblivion.
It’s a fine balance, and the way Fashola handles it will go a long way towards determining his lasting legacy when he steps down as Governor about700 days from now.
If feelers is anything to go by…Lagosians are waiting and many who has witness the pit that AC has sent them to will readily ensure that APC do not get the mantle of leadership comes 2015 except of course given the type of country we are, where VOTES don’t count, where election rigging has become the order of the day, where corruption has become a style and accepted…that is the only reason AC/APC can continue to hold sway in LAGOS come 2015.
Ogbeide Osa Kennedy write from Lagos
[Opinion] Why APC May Not Win Lagos Come 2015 By Ogbeide Osa Kennedy
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