IBRAHIM QUADRI
With exponential increase in population and its accompanied challenges, Lagos State, no doubt, requires systematic planning to meet the corresponding infrastructures that will conveniently be at par with other developed cities of the world.
Apart from being the commercial nerve centre, Lagos is a home to almost every tribe across the country. This development goes to emphasize the necessity to provide for the needs of the increasing residents.
Considered the sixth largest city and one of the most rapidly urbanizing metropolitan areas of the world with a population of over 20 million inhabitants and an annual growth rate of nearly six per cent, Lagos State is one of the world’s mega cities. But with a varying degrees of inadequate amenities.
Acknowledging the enormity of the tasks ahead, a former Governor of the State, Mr. Babatunde Fashola stated during the commemoration of his 2,900 days in office that he would not pretend to say he had done all the work.
He however said he trusted in the ability of his successor, the immediate past Governor of the State, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode that he would continue from where he stopped.
Upon assumption of office, Ambode disclosed at a forum, “as at 2015, our state had 16,000km network of roads but with a daily human traffic of over 7.5 million people and 2.8 million cars.
“The power needs of the state are over 10,000 mw of power but we receive less than 2,000mw.
“We presently supply 210.5 million gallons of water per day (“mgpd”) as against a demand of 750 mgpd”.
The governor explained that the deficit could only be imagined in 2017 as well as the challenges and pressures on the physical and social infrastructure that came with it.
Governor Ambode argued that there was the need to carefully assess situations and take careful and deliberate actions to handle the challenges that face the state.
He noted that it was important to take actions that would not only affect the people’s livelihood today, but also protect the future of the younger generations.
Despite a wide range of infrastructures, put in place by Ambode in his four years in office, the need to meet the demands of Lagosians is a far cry to what is currently obtainable especially, when one considers that many of those infrastructures are at various
stages of constructions.
Retrospectively, before democracy was restored in 1999, Lagos used to be referred as a jungle of various emerging slums. However, a systematic urban development and slum renewal programme under the administration of former Governor of the State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in partnership with several development agencies, has since been put in place to reverse the trend.
Consequently, the Ikeja Model Plan, Victoria Island/Ikoyi Model City Plan, Lekki Comprehensive Land Use and Infrastructure Master Plan have been completed while Mainland Central Model City Plan, Badagry Draft Master Plan and Alimosho Master Plan are at various stages of execution. In order to give the urban renewal programme a legal backing, the Lagos State Model City Development Law was enacted in 2009 while the State Urban and Regional Planning Law were signed on 7 July, 2010.
With the increasing popularity of the scheme, the government empowered the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) to regulate the actvities of Private Sector Partnership (PSP) and created a blueprint of short and long-term action plans; the first from 2005 to 2015, and the second plan was for 2015 to 2025.
Subsequently, LAWMA started a 10-year reform programme, which meant that the rickety vehicles and open trucks used by indigenous investors began to give way to compactors, which is the right equipment, and payment by residents was introduced. The model of allowing LAWMA to take charge of the waste management with the support of PSP still held sway under Fashola.
Ambode, however came up with Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI) which was preceded by amending the State Environmental by the State House of Assembly.
According to the state government, it created the CLI to improve the environment, make it cleaner, safer and healthier for all Lagosians by promoting a harmonised and holistic approach to the challenges of waste management.
At its introduction, Ambode said the initiative was geared towards addressing, enforcing and regulating the challenges in the solid waste management system in Lagos, while also aiming to protect the environment, human health and social living standards of Lagos State residents.
Unfortunately, instead of achieving a better reform, the initiative could be seen as retrogressive. The state began to revert to the old order as heaps of refuse dotted the highways. The government has thereafter upheld the previous method of empowering LAWMA to be in control.
On the area of transportation, the metropolitan area of Lagos is also fast spreading, now extending beyond the borders of Lagos State into the neighbouring Ogun State in the north. Commuter trips are, therefore, growing both in length and number.
The resultant effects have been increasing traffic congestion, worsening state of roads disrepair, deteriorating physical attractiveness and comfort of road-based public transport and high transport fares.
In addition, the absence of effective rail and water mass transit system and the over reliance on road based transportation system has contributed to the number of road accidents recorded, increasing rates of traffic-related emission and atmospheric pollution.
Be that as it may, the onus of addressing these and other challenges such as health care, housing and ensuring standard educational system now falls on the sitting Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
In his inaugural speech titled, “Awakening a greater Lagos,” on May 29, Sanwo-Olu expressed his readiness to hit the ground running. He promised a six-framework to achieve the objetives.
The framework tagged, THEMES, which are Traffic Management and Transportation, Health and Environment, Education and Technology, Making Lagos a 21st century Economy, Entertainment and Tourism and Security and Governance are the Governor’s designed strategy to address the big tasks ahead.
The Gevernor declared, “As long as Lagos flourishes, Nigeria has more than a fair chance to enjoy the development and growth needed for its deserving population. If Lagos falters, Nigeria also stumbles.
“The reality of the integral role we play in Nigeria’s ascent to national greatness coupled with the untapped potentials we hold to produce even greater wealth to improve the living conditions of our people are the things that make Lagos a magnificent place.
“These strategic aspects of our current reality, and of our immediate future, bestow on me and my administration a profound responsibility,” Sanwo-Olu assured.
It is noteworthy to state that Sanwo-Olu’s assurances would be meaningful if considerable attention is deployed on various abandoned projects such as roads, overhead bridges, bus terminals housings and a host of others scattered all over the State by the previous administrations.
In the same vein, Lagosians yearn for the Governor’s action to fufil his promise to clear Apapa gridlock which has become a nightmare and hampering daily business activities within the area and its environ. It is believed that collaboration with federal government and other stakeholders would restore Apapa demeaning glory.
Having signed the 2019 budget, Sanwo-Olu should, as a matter of priority complete these projects that were commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari at the tail end of Ambode’s administration. Though commissioned, were still under constructions.
The projects are: Rehabilitated 10-lane Oshodi/Murtala Muhammed International Airport Road, 170-Bed ‘Ayinke House’ (Maternity Hospital) at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) in Ikeja
Others include: Lagos State Theatre at Oregun in Ikeja, New 820 Mass Transit buses and Multi-level Oshodi Transport Interchange on the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway.
Observers believe these and other uncompleted projects like Pen Cinema Flyover, bus terminals, roads should be completed before initiating his own projects.
The expectations are therefore high…Lagosians demand a sustainable action plan that would transform the State- make it more conveniently habitable and a tourist destination in terms of well-modelled transport system, environmentally attractive, virile economy, ICT advanced education and adequate health care delivery system to all and sundry.
