allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Lagos - Figure It Out (Page 1 of 1)

Figure this out. I never realised the fabulous figure of Lagos until I visited New York City again, last September. I held tightly to my suitcases as I walked around JFK. On my way to a meeting in Manhattan, I felt like fish out of water, in spite of the famed bravado that runs through every Nigerian's DNA. I love to walk around the alleys of Manhattan, but was afraid of the many crazy-looking NewYorkers, mostly youngsters with sassy hairdos. If it's a bad hair day, it couldn't be for all, I thought, but they blended nicely with bankers and others in well-cut clothes. I think it was after that experience that I called the city "Zoo York".

I have since relocated to Lagos and love the experience and now it even feels like there is no place like it, like home.

I love Lagos because it is home. I am tempted to say that there is no other place that I'd rather be, but alas! It's far from perfect, we know, because for me, an alien, a northerner in Lagos, the city exudes too much pride and too much prejudice. Many people are poor and hungry. Many others are desperate and angry, even frustrated. Some schools, located near the million naira homes of the Island, eat lunch, enjoy bus rides and air conditioning on sweltering days. They also have low drop-out rates. Schools of the inner-cities of Ajegunle, Agege, Ikotun, and the like, are not as lucky. Here, alcohol and illegal drugs have destroyed kids, endangered neighbourhoods, dismembered families, and incapacitated generations of citizens. Here, drop-out rates are astronomical.

But these social misfits that the city is breeding unintentionally are among the least of my worries as yet. Lagos is urban, suburban, and rural. It's called a mega-city for a reason. There are "face-me-I-face-yous", apartments, town-homes, single family homes, and mansions. There are streets, alleys, boulevards and avenues. There are creeks, rivers, dozens of fountains, and thousands of trees. All these are usually linked by beautiful flyovers and meandering streets. But two days ago, when the heavens wept, Lagos turned ugly. On Tuesday, the floods disgraced Governor Babatunde Fashola and his administration comprehensively. It unmasked the lie that we sipped hook, line and sinker that this government is taking care of the immediate problems of this mega-city called Lagos.

I was privileged to assess Lagos State's governance performance index under Fashola, the "hardworking" governor of the state, in the last one year. I went from one ministry to the other and witnessed how fastidious government officials seemed in their business. The chorus from all of them was that government is a continuum that looks like a rope without end, starting from May 29, 2007 when Fashola promised "a brighter, rewarding future to the people of Lagos."

However, while the future is beginning to look bleak the present does not reward anyone with a modicum of accountability. Lagos state, under Fashola, has made lack of accountability its book of faith. Prominent members of the cabinet explained that as a rule, "we do not say how much we are spending on any project." Under the state's oath of secrecy, they hear no evil, and speak no truth. In a democracy, that is a sacrilege as people's finances are usually a trust on account of which the masses must be aware at any given time. As several projects are still on-going, it is obvious that when a government refuses to give periodic account of its expenditure, the cost would ultimately outweigh the benefit of the projects to the people.

It is sad indeed that the government which supposedly began to look like it represented a departure from the old ways that we used to abhor is devising new ways that we'd come to abominate. The instruction not to divulge expenditure did not just incense, it infuriated me. And it should infuriate anyone living in Lagos who pays his taxes like the monk goes to worship. And here is why: Lagos State is targeting to take home a handsome N25billion as taxes by the time it raps its fists firmly around white and blue collars in the state. For a state that does not brook any nonsense when it collects taxes, it becomes incumbent on it not play hide and seek with the trust that the public reposes on it. Figure this out for yourself. If you paid all the dues expected of you and are left in the lurch about the cost of services, which turned out to be inadequate, you'd feel robbed. Lagosians are feeling robbed. In fact, they are being robbed, bare-facedly.

Lagos' political players have too many disturbing habits to count, but one of the most dangerous is a propensity to lord it over others, believing that they hold the monopoly of wisdom, or of superior argument. The regular use of violence as a means of public discourse in Lagos is another issue. The so-called "Kick against Indiscipline" which plagiarised General Buhari and Idiagbon's WAI has become an enemy of progress rather than a facilitator of order. It is a gendarme that exceeds a military at war in violence. People are getting a raw deal from it and its sister agencies, like LASTMA, LAWMA, EFAG, LAMATA etc. The same people who endorsed the governor to assume his exalted position have now become the ones at the end of his spear. His pro-order projects do not just kick against indiscipline but they kick traders and motorists, and other citizens, good or bad, in the teeth. To Fashola's credit, petty-trades and micro businesses are giving way to rubble and trees in Lagos and the human costs are closely behind.

Truth fears no trial. The general belief in the city is that this government is working. That, the Fashola administration has found a way of reconciling labour and capital as to reduce their fight to mere skirmishes. Certainly, it would have been splendid to assume there is now some grand consensus between markets and the freedom of the individual to the point where the battles between order and descent can be relegated to the dustbins of history. But that too has become another mirage in Lagos.

The tragic flood in Lagos this week was not an aberration. It was the predictable and even inevitable product of a political class that steadfastly refuses to abandon the failed ways of the past. Lagos must figure things out without much ado. It must be prepared to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If its game-plan is to hoodwink, it should also say so in clear text and not bicker about like an old midwife. It cannot continue to admonish people to be good citizens in early morning radio advertisements while it remains a hypocritical government that is saying one thing and doing another. An unmitigated source declared that it spent N6billion on the drainages in Lagos, but there were six million warts to be contacted from the dirty waters last Tuesday. But where were the drainages on Tuesday? This means that the money spent on the projects in Lagos is not commensurate to job done.

But every cloud has its silver lining. If you look on the map, you will find that Lagos should have been a diamond in the trough. Its good should outweigh its bad. It should harbour many people who truly care, share, and sacrifice money, and time because Lagosians dream. Their dreams cover such basic things as just having a job, to aspirations of becoming President. There are everyday heroes who overcome incredible odds. Sometimes, their contributions to society have been not to hurt others as they have been hurt; an incredible endowment!

Once Lagos was the centre of the nation's government, a place where many of the day-to-day affairs of state usually took place. Food courts of delicacies from around the corner to around the world littered the place. But Lagos, in spite of the heavy presence of media organisations in it, is not a very calm receiver of the news. Most of the time, people only hear the bad news of Lagos. Unfair as this may seem, Lagos was also rated among the most dangerous cities of the world. But, there is good news everyday as well, just as there are many good people whom I am glad to call my friends and neighbours.

Lagos should de-emphasise executing grand unproductive projects. Further beautifying the mega-city must be diverted to a network of smaller, contemporary and properly designed basic projects like farm to market roads, schools, health centres, utilities, communication and entertainment. It should provide access roads to far-flung areas. The travel time between certain places in Lagos and work places has been a major problem that compels workers to appear half-awake at their offices: which diminishes productivity by almost a third.

With the provision of these basic amenities and creation of decent job opportunities locally, the undesirable rural to urban exodus can be minimised releasing pressure on major cities and their roads and transforming these remote areas blessed with great natural beauty attractive for tourism and to live in. The representatives of these areas, who have been largely obscure and invisible, have a duty to assert themselves to make an impact side-by-side with the state governor who seems to be making a one-man-show of everything. Other politicians must be visible by presenting workable schemes to the government and be vigilant in ensuring proper utilisation of the allocations and speedy execution of the schemes. Lagos State has a duty to figure out how to engage in positive human resource management. The alleviation of poverty, economic upliftment of localities and removal of sense of deprivation are the only ways to progress and to bring order in Lagos. Only this can ensure that Eko does not rot.

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