Lagos — His mien is a cross between a smile and a grin. And that is actually what he appears to represent. At informal sessions, Babatunde Raji Fashola is an unmistakably playful, even considered 'loose', and very jovial person. But shift the focus to a formal session, and you're confronted with a near-fanatical stickler for time, precision, accuracy, appropriateness and what ever makes for a thorough job. That was his trademark as Bola Ahmed Tinubu's Chief of Staff.

Today,as Lagos State governor, Fashola has raised the stakes.

If staff in the Lagos State governor's office thought Fashola was a workaholic during Tinubu's tenure, they now have an even sterner overseer in the incumbent.

Governor Raji Fashola

In this interview session with Vanguard's Dele Sobowale, Jide Ajani, Adeleke Adeseri and Olasunkanmi Akoni, Governor Fashola explains why Lagosians have to bear with his administration in the face of what may today look like excruciating pains of a re-development scheme.

But he was quick to declare that at the end of the day, Lagos would become a wonderful city, and Lagosians a much happier people.

The passion was self-evident, the commitment, unrivaled.

The snag in the session was that it had to come to an abrupt end - the appointments he had to keep that day were such that extending the interview session one way or another might serve a dysfunctional end. Excerpts:

It has been observed that most of your activities in the last one year have either been patterned after or are a continuation of the recommendations of the transition committees set up by your predecessor in 1999.

It is true. When the transition committee was set up in 1999, I was privileged to be part of it. I served under Alhaji Femi Okunnu, who was the chairman. I was in the Land Sub committee where I also served as secretary. From the various reports of about forty committees, the Lagos state government synthesised the reports. That was how we arrived at the ten point agenda. Under that, we have sub sectors on the global economy. We have transportation, health care, sustainable development, education, revenue generation, housing, poverty alleviation, agriculture and so many other topical areas.

One of these things that I mentioned has parallel twins in the Millennium Development Goals. I was part of the team and I believe in what we did. That is why I did not dismantle it. I knew we were doing the right thing. We identified the problems. That is why I am continuing with them. You know these areas are very important to our existence as a people.

The last administration had taken steps to implement them. Continuity is an important aspect of the life of a nation and a state. That is why our economic summit this year did not focus on problems, rather we were looking for how best to solve the problems. The caliber of people who attended the summit attests to this. This people have relevant experiences to show us.

We had someone from Singapore, who started the urban housing policy of Singapore in 1964. And it has enabled over 80 percent of people in Singapore to own homes. We also had Rice Penalosa, the Mayor of Bogotá, who began to turn around all the slums in Bogotá.

We had Dr Hanado Beshitu, from Lima, Peru

The thesis is that only a small fraction of any society, especially in the capital world was benefiting from the resources. And this was simply because they could not enter into the formal economy at the bottom of the pyramid where they have a large number of people. And the way to do this is to bring the artisans, traders and others together to be able to exchange ideas and transaction in a formal currency of exchange, which is documentation.

Does that in any way tie to the mortgage scheme which is on and which would enable citizens to have a form of documentation and ...

Yes. This is why we are implementing mortgage scheme. It is not only for home ownership, it also involves ownership of shops in our market places. This will enable us to do what is done in other economies. This will allow the economy to open up and encourage invisible trade in currency that every body can identify. Paper work and documentation will be part of it. Once you bring the documentation, we will know that it is an acceptable instrument.

Its like shares as a vehicle for transaction. The way he described it in his opening remarks attests to this. He said, someone wants to identify you, to grant you an entry permit and he says who are you? And you say my name is this, my mother's name is this and he says I don't know that.

But immediately you produce a passport which is an international document of entry and exit known every where, you will be identified. What we are therefore doing is continuing and sharing best practices to be the best in what we are doing. This will re-enforce what we are doing. It will also ensure that we don't veer off from our target. We will learn from their mistakes and gain from their success. And improve our style.

You mentioned Peru, Singapore and Colombia. And I am happy you talked about the start off time. Today, mercifully, things have changed. But then based your comparisons of these economies, I think they have their peculiar manner of evolution. It's seemingly different from what we have in Nigeria, an environment where people are so impatient to get things done, and by so doing illegalities are allowed to take place. How have you been able to marry the hue and cry elicited by what you are doing, with where you are going to?

Our attitude is that we do not recognise that what we are doing is impossible, hence its been done elsewhere. We promised Lagosians that they would not find us wanting in any thing. And we will continue to do our very best for them. Our responsibility as people entrusted with office is to lead people to a place where we are convinced within our knowledge that is beneficial to them and it will also be beneficial to the common cause.

The choice we have is to do nothing, and that will be a very grave one with dire consequences. That is why we are changing the face of Lagos. I can tell you that a country like Singapore faced this kind of problem when they started their housing policy. The very first chapter of a book that was produced on it, showed when the bulldozers came and it showed a noodle seller who said it is over his dead body that his shop would be demolished.

But today they are not only enjoying the dividends, they are thankful that it happened. The most important thing is to earn the trust of the people. And to make them understand that we do it in their interest. The fact that we are not taking their properties and appropriating it for personal use will give some confidence. And that is why we are not doing every thing at the same time.

We have to demonstrate that it works. We did not create this problem, we inherited most of them. If it wasn't done when we were three million people, it will be more difficult to do it now. But we are succeeding.

If we don't do any thing, we will have twenty five million people who need that service, but could not get it because of inability to do it. And life will become more difficult. If a road needs to be fixed when you have hundred cars and you failed, when it starts taking three hundred cars, it will be more difficult to do. If you still refuse to do it because of pains that will trail it, when you now have one thousand cars, the road will not be available.

We had this experience when we were doing Lekki/Ekpe Expressway and Ozurumba Nbadiwe. Everyday I complain to the contractor based on the phone calls I was getting. I almost concluded that the contractor was not working. But he explained the difficulties to me. He said at least 50 to 80,000 thousand cars ply this road every day. He explained that he can not close the road. He however demanded that if given the authority to close the road, he will finish it within three months. But people must move around. And that was why we worked at night.

We did the same thing on Ikorodu bridge. the bridge was threatening to collapse and we didn"t want it to fall. That is why we puled it down without delay. There was nothing that was not said about it. And today they have a safer bridge. It was a discomfort of four months. This is our responsibility. And that is why we are doing it.

Education is also a concomitant part of it. We must educate people on it. And this is where you, the media, have to come in. Once you are convinced that we do it in a common interest, I think half of our job is done. What you will do is to begin to tell them that we are doing what we do for the good of all Lagosians.

I must commend the efforts of some national dailies who have helped in asking people to cooperate with us. We are clearing the drainage, building bridges and other things. They will not succeed if people do not support it.

Let me take you back to the formalisation of the informal economy. There was a study sometime ago which demonstrated that forty percent of people living in Lagos, live on crime. How soon do you hope to complete this?

Its difficult to put a time frame. One must also question the statistics that supports your conclusion and the parameters of your assessment. I disagree with your assessment because if you look at Lagos Island, even without any survey, what you will find are rows and rows of shops. Jankara, Iddo, Idumota, Akpongbon, Okearin, Balogun and Marina are good examples.

You will find people selling on the streets. And that can not constitute illegal activities. Street trading is understandable. How many street traders do we even have? It can not be compared with the people in the market. I disagree with your assessment .

The more important thing however, is your question. We are not moving into a formal structure, rather we are formalizing their transaction mood. It will be done by issuing evidence of tax payment. It will help us to have the statics of those who pay tax. It helps us to keep statistics of the number of people who use the market.

If we don't, when we are building another market or developing the present market, we might use a wrong statistics. When you want to supply power or water to that market, you will know how many people you are panning for. It will also help when planning for transportation. It's easier now to open them into the micro credit system that we have introduced. The whole idea is that there must be some documentation.

We don't expect them to wear shirt and trousers with ties like bankers or like lawyers. But we expect them to be able to fill basic forms because we have made the tax assessment form easy to fill. We expect them to also be able to give account of their own inventory. You can see it's a re-generational thing. It will help them in building their business and as well help them in assessing micro finance loan. We are using the enterprise registration scheme in the ministry of commerce and industry to register and enumerate them.

The acronym for it is ENTRIDA. It's a continuous enumeration for mechanics, block merchants, traders and artisans. And they are coming out to register. Right there at the bottom is the mortgage scheme policy. This will make them not to be perpetual tenants in their shops. They will own the shop through a mortgage.

And they will pay gradually over time. The mortgage gives them equity. Instead of paying two million naira to buy a shop at once, you can pay the money over a period, for convenience. The benefit of that is that it eliminates desperation from the system. And when desperation is removed, the propensity to crime is removed.

Once there is equity, there is invisible collateral. And that is what the people in the informal sector never had. When they go to the bank, collateral will be requested. So the equity becomes an invisible collateral that has value. People can now have access to credit because that is the driver of the capitalist economy. It's credit and not cash. It is when there is credit that production can be stimulated.

That is why we are securitizing all the land in Lagos. We want to know who owns every piece of land in this state. We are using technology to create a data base for property. We are assessing them. We will be changing Certificate of Occupancies, C of Os, when we are done with this process. We will eliminate the fakes and issue new ones.

This is part of continuing and implementation. My sub-committee for land in 1999 recommended it and Tinubu implemented it up to the time his tenure allowed him to go. He started with the computerization of the land registry. For one to search for any C of O, you have search the vault. In the process, it became easy to tamper with it.

All of that is gone. Now all is scanned into the computer. The access is only to it is on the screen. It can not be tampered with. The next level is that we are issuing more C of Os and we want to title every piece of land that is being occupied.

It will also give idea of the real net worth of the assets of Lagos. Its not only for invisible transaction. The state wants to show that it does not need federal government guarantee, if the need to borrow money arises. This will give us a whole lot of information to plan as a state.

Okay, let's move to this face off between the Lagos State government and the federal government using the Federal Secretariat as an example.

There is no face of between Lagos state and the federal government. The lingering issue has been the issue of the Federal Secretariat. They are now finding a reversal difficult. The position taken by the last administration which I was part of is that the exercise was not properly done. I must tread cautiously because some of these issues are before the courts. As it relates to issue of planning we have asked an important question.

The Federal Secretariat was built for a transient or moving population. This population comes in the morning and moves out at night. And application was now submitted to turn it into a residential area. And the question that our planning department raised is okay. When this community now becomes a permanent security, what becomes of their security? Is it the small Ikoyi Police Station that will police them? What is the plan for the education of the children who will be born in that estate? Is it Saint Saviour that will go to?

Or the public school on Osborn that will take care of the population? These are the planning issues that we have raised. Those issues do not concern the federal government but the person who acquired the property. If there is a disaster or epidemic there I am the one who will be called. Even your medium, Vanguard, will be bordered on what Governor Fashola is doing. Today everybody is complaining that Okadas have invaded Ikoyi.

It sounds as if I can throw all the Okadas into the sea. But nobody has asked why some residential buildings have been continuously converted into offices. It provided economic activities for Okoda. You know drivers and clerical officers will have to get to work without a bus system. Okadas are not going there for sight seeing. Even the mama puts there are servicing the economy that has been created outside the master plan.

If the people of Ikoyi decide that they no longer want Okadas, let them stop the Okadas from operating there. On the issue between Lagos and Mr. President, the has said that the problem has been there since 1967 when Lagos was created. I will commend the President for saying we should sit down and solve the problem. it shows willingness to address problems. You know we celebrate problems sometimes and they remain there. That is why I said that it shows courage.

Have you gone into any negotiations?

We have been talking. All of these happened in the last few days. I am also preparing because I don't go into negotiations without preparing. I want whoever I am negotiating with to understand my position, because you must present a case that is easy to understand when trying to compromise. I get to the dialogue table I will give reasons to the President on things I said. But we cant lump all areas that are easy to agree with few area that are difficult to agree. If we can agree on certain areas, then let us have a lasting solution. Were we fail to agree, we can find another solution. We might even go to court.

What can you say about one thousand and four estate?

I said that quite a number of them are in court. But the one that is in the public domain is the federal secretariat. I am doing this because its among my campaign promises. I made commitment that the federal secretariat will be returned. The plan is that then was to move the capital back to the Island and to use that place as the state secretariat.

We also intended using the National Assembly complex as state House of Assembly. Alausa was also planned to be converted to a teaching hospital and college of medicine for Lagos State University. We also have the issue of Trade Fare Complex. We also have the Tafewa Balewa Square, which belonged to Lagos State. It was a horse racing ground.

It's a historic ground where we had independence, where I was sworn in as governor. If we throw all of them away, what will be our historical monuments? What can we tell our children? Where is then our sense of history? Or we will tell them that there used to be one race course here? But when we go to New York we will appreciate Washington's monument there. In London you will see Trafalgar Square and the Buckingham Palace.

The Coliseum is still existing in Rome. And that was where Julius Ceaser used to preside. The gladiators used to fight before the Emperors of Rome there. They are still preserved as historical monuments. And then we are giving ours away for private interest. Our national Museum is dead and we are becoming a people without history. We can no longer look back to our past.

There's another controversy between Lagos state and the Federal government on the issue of the Eko Atlantic City. A few days ago the federal government was still saying that you had no right to go ahead with that project.

There is no dispute. Like I said it's just a misunderstanding. If we don't talk about it we would not find solution. It's part of the problems of our federation. We have a federal constitution which operates unitary laws created by the military. And these laws were preserved when the military was leaving. It creates confusion in the minds of the operators of our constitution. Sometimes we don't know if we are operating a federation or unitary system of government.

In a federal system centralized issues like VAT is anachronistic. Even the National Sports Lottery is anachronistic. It is anti federal. If it's unitary why am I buying vehicles for the police? Why am I paying allowances? Why am I insuring them against disability and other things? Why am I housing them? I know how much I am spending on security. If I have a state House of Assembly, why can't I enforce the laws that they make?

What kind of federation is that? It's not a fault of the leaders of this generation. They are errors of the past. They are political problems. When the military annexed powers to make laws without testing whether the powers were federal or not, they put them in the constitution. That is why Mr. President is keen on the issue of constitution amendment and devolution of powers. It's a commendable idea. I hope we can all support him in implementing it.

If Nigerians decide that they don't want a federal constitution, then we should opt for unitary. We can't be unitary in the morning and federal at night. On the Eko Atlantic project, when Apapa Port was built in 1908, a groove was created to create a big seaport. By doing that, they interfered with the natural deposition of sand and the natural movement of the Atlantic. The Eastward and Westward current were interfered with.

These are the ones bringing and taking away sand. The Europeans who did it put an artificial replenishment system there. But we refused to manage it. And the system collapsed. Now only the current that is taking away sand is active. The current place where you have the shore line of the Beach is not where it was when I was a child. There used to be the house of Dr. Maja, but it has been submerged. That is the land of Lagos.

And that is what I am claiming back. That is why I said there is no fight but misunderstanding. But that is not the boundary of Lagos to the sea. The size of the land that we have lost is more than one and half the size of Victoria Island. That is what I am restoring back. I don't need anybody's permission to do that. Whose permission do my colleagues in the North need to stop desert encroachment? Let's get the whole thing clear.

Nobody asked me the permission I sought to rescue victims of disaster or accident of the highway. Why should there be a problem anytime we want to do something in the interest of Lagos? Did they ask me by whose permission I was paying allowances to policemen? And that is in the national interest. I don't want to get caught in all these funny attitudes. I am concerned with the betterment of Lagos for every body.

And that is why I keep insisting that only true federalism can save Nigeria. With true federalism, most of these problems and confusion will not even arise.

My primary concern is the interest and the welfare of the people who entrusted this office to me.

Can we have a clear idea of what you want to do in Oshodi, especially after the demolition that has been done?

We have looked at it and realised that no matter how many roads we construct, if we do not make them functional, it will be a waste of time. We have to manage them and make them efficient. I went back into the archives that I am privileged to have and discovered things about the Agege Motor road and Ikorodu road. I have taken pains to explain to them that Lagos had only three million people when Ikorodu road was constructed.

The road has not expanded but the number of cars that plies it has increased. Therefore you can exponent the increase in the vehicles. And I found out that the main route between the old western region, Ikeja, Surulere and the Island was Agege motor road. If you were going to the airport then, you must pass through Bolade, Oshodi, Challenge, Mushin , Idioro and others. Because of the growing rate of Lagos, government decided to build a bye-pass in 1974 or 73.

And that is Ikorodu road. It was a bye-pass to create an alternative link to Surulere and Yaba from Ikeja and Agege. Now we cant use Agege road because Oshodi up to Cappa has become a market. If you are coming from Ikeja airport and you are going to Mushin, you will pass through Mobolaji Bank Anthony, then you go to Challenge. If you are lucky to be at the up side you will enter from challenge. If you are unlucky, you will get to Jibowu.

Then you will do a U-turn back. You will realise that you are wasting fuel and time. And millions of Nigerians are groaning in pains everyday, as a result of this. I looked at it that reclaiming the road will make the problem disappear. I am so convinced in my mind. Even the last government expanded Mushin. What is the problem.

We can re-organise them into a functional market without blocking the roads. And all of us will benefit positively from it. It's a long process. Architects are working on it in a manner that will be functional. We will keep the people there, but they will be kept in a functional way. All they want to do is to do there business. And we owe them that responsibility to create the opportunity to do their business. But we will do it in a proper way.

There's this talk now about food crisis. What's the Lagos State government doing about it in the interest of Lagosians?

Lagos state is doing its own bit. We will focus on areas where we have comparative advantage. That is the marine approach. In the last administration we had fish farm settlements in Ikorodu. And it became the largest source of fish in this sub-region. And we are going into the second phase. We are also coming up with small industries that will process the fish. Lagos is the smallest state in the whole country in terms of land mass.

We are even smaller than Bayelsa. In fact we are less than one percent of the total land area. We have the highest density of population. So we have large density of people to land. So where is the land for farming. Although we have few rice compatible settlements, but it can only go that far. We started graduate skill acquisition and youth empowerment programme in Badagry and Epe. We gave them little money and land to go and farm.

But we did it to keep them busy in a sustainable way rather than to feed the country. The area of our comparative strength is trading. It includes Banking, retail, financial, the financial centre and others. This is where I am going to focus more on. If it were to be proper federation, Lagos does not necessarily need to produce food. Benue and Kwara states can feed this country. Shaki in the Old western region can do same too.

Most parts of the old western region have vast farmland. How many rams or chicken do we rear in Lagos? But during Sallah they bring them here and we buy them: That's how an economy should work. Every area of comparative advantage should be developed so that the economy will move. My idea is a situation that accommodates comparative advantage. Everybody must put in something and everybody will prosper. Such economy allows comparative advantages to develop.

Some of your colleagues said that in the last eight years of Obasanjo, there were so many things that were not done properly, particularly in the area of deductions from the common purse but now it has created fresh crisis. Can you give two examples of such deductions?

The whole concept of creating an excess crude account is not proper. It proceeded on an unconstitutional basis. You may hear arguments for the rationale. but I know that problems are not solved by breaking the law. When Roosevelt became the President and he introduced his famous new deal in a hundred days, it became an albatross for all of us.

But most of the laws he made during his tenure were struck out by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. That is why I maintain that we should discuss solutions not problems. The recent deducted money from the local governments is not healthy. Can you explain how money will be deducted and given to one contractor to build health centres in all the 724 local governments.

It's not all these local governments that need hospitals. Some need to be equipped. Some even need their roofs to be repaired.

When did this deduction happen?

It happened during the life of the last administration. We are all stuck in it. The money is tied in one account because the matter is now in court. The N235billion deduction from my own state which is peculiar is another thing. And I am saying that it can not happen, that even if I am owing. I am saying and disputing that claim. Not only do I have a court injunction, as a matter of principle my liability has to be adjusted if there is a dispute.

It's an abuse of power to deduct my money from source. The constitution does not sanction any deduction of money from the source. A court order must be gotten for such an action. It was seized by the federal government because they are the conduit to share the money.

Some of your colleagues in the governors' forum see the forum as mere arena for them to meet. To what extent have governors actually discussed this food crisis.

We discussed it at the last economic council meeting. The honourable minister of Agriculture was summoned to make a presentation on it. What we usually sought to do is to hold our governors forum the night before the economic council. That will enable us to discuss and debate issues. The economic council is made up of governors, few officers at the federal level and chaired by the Vice President. It shortens the debate time.

Instead of all the 36 governors debating on an issue we would have taken a position. And when there is disagreement, we compromise on it at the meeting instead of all of us speaking and tangling. The governors' forum is just an institution. And institutions like this don't have mind of their own. It's the people who think and act for institutions. So where institutions fail or succeed is because the people either failed or succeeded.

How do you place the governors forum now, as a member of that forum?

I am usually reluctant to assess myself. I think you have answered the question when you said somebody held an opinion before which has become more favourable. Just yesterday we also held a meeting with the members of the press. It was to tell them our challenges. People castigated us for trying to build a complex in Abuja.

They felt we were using appropriated fund. But the truth is that we used our land there. And we debated and arrived at what we are doing now. We took it as an asset for all the 36 states. What we will get, is a functional office where we can hold our meetings. The revenues will go back to the coffers of the state. And we would have left office then. And the developer would have recouped his money. That was what we did.

There is this problem between the federal government and Lagos state and the Speaker even came to Lagos and tried to shed some light on this LG elections, saying it can not hold in 57 councils but ....

Three is nothing between federal and Lagos state government. The chief executive of the. country is the President. And I am sure about his commitment to the rule of law. He has never said anything to me about local government elections. And he has never said anything publicly on it either. Nothing should be ascribed to him in that respect.

It's not the jurisdiction of the federal government. It's not the business of the PDP - it's a political party and has that right to speak just for itself. It has the right to contest for local government elections in every state where it aspires to assume elective positions. What I am saying is that the party should not be mixed with government. I have employees who are PDP in my own office at Alausa. When I go to my party secretariat, I am AC. When I get back to Alausa, I am governor of all Lagosians.

So you don't know when elections would be held in those local governments. Whether the elections will be held in 57 or 20 LGs. How will it be held and where will it be held for all the 57 local governments in the state?

I have a political party that recognises 57 local governments. But I am not the one mandated by the law to run the elections. I think you know that. The people of Lagos have constituted a body through their elected representatives. The body is LASIEC. That is the body empowered by the law to conduct elections. I have done my own job. It's about the estimate for the elections. The House of Assembly has okayed it in this year's budget. When LASIEC is ready for elections, it will hold.

Can you put a cost-tag on what you've spent so far on security?

And then there was this report that you turned down ....

I must say here immediately that these are some of the things that have the capacity to damage our economy, I did not turn down any thing. I was credited to have written a letter. I would be very glad to see that letter. And these are information which can always be verified which are sometimes not verified It has the potential to send signals that are not accurate.

In less than one year, I've had how many commissioners of police? I think its three. I had two GOC's. I had two Brigade Commanders. I had three Directors of SSS.

One thing about me is that I am a team player. I can work with anybody. The people are not my personal staff. We were members of a team. And we have responsibilities individually. But it's all collective responsibility. I am the chief security officer without command.

In terms of what we've spent, I will be reckless to tell you how much I spend every month here. I can only tell you when I go through the records. The issue of security does not limit itself to budgeting. It also lends itself to budgeting.

If I get a piece of information now, which I do everyday, that they are planning an uprising, I must respond immediately; but that may not be in the budget. You can spend less or more. If riot breaks out anywhere, I can respond to it. Presently we are clearing the Ijora bridge. We are doing it based on a tip off. We got information that the place was a den of robbers. We took a decision and the security team said we should evacuate it.

How does the security trust fund which you oversee work?

The security trust fund is not to be managed by me personally. But I supervise it. What we have done is to appoint a chairman. And the executive secretary gives full report to me for every expenditure made. We are partnering to provide a better Lagos. And the overwhelming support of every body will take us there.

Some people insist that your predecessor, Bola Tinubu keeps hanging around you...

(Cuts in) Hanging around me?

Yes.

We go out together some times and we will go out together again. We will continue to go out together. People will still see us together (laughs)