Press Releases

Make Lagos Your Investment Destination, Fashola Tells Foreign Investors

Mar 26, 2009 - Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), Thursday commissioned 195 air-conditioned high capacity Daewoo buses for LAGBUS urging foreign investors, especially motor manufacturing and assembly companies, to make Lagos their investment destination.

The 195 additional air-conditioned buses brings to 534 the total number of buses owned by LAGBUS thereby increasing substantially the area of coverage as 19 new routes are added to the routes being covered by the company.

Addressing a capacity audience at the LAGBUS Terminal at Ojota, Governor Fashola declared, “As the Economy of Europe is shaking; the Economy of Africa, the economy of Lagos and Nigeria is waiting to explode”, adding, “We require bus assembly plants, we require car manufacturing plants, we require so many services and I tell our partners and investors, if you have not booked a flight to Lagos, you better do so quickly”.

According to the Governor, “We are not yet a Credit Economy, we do not have credit crunch. We are a Cash Economy that requires service”, adding, “This is a home to 40, 000 buses, so if your plant in Europe or Asia is threatened with a shut-down, bring that plant to Lagos, the market is waiting to take it”.

“Of course, as we make this certain steps of progress, something else are happening, jobs are being created. Europe is losing jobs, Lagos is creating jobs”, Governor Fashola said, giving assurance that the Economy of Lagos would be feasibly for the next two decades.

Describing Transportation as the pivot around which the wheel of every modern economy revolves, Governor Fashola further declared, “In a Mega-city like Lagos, the role of transportation is as vital as the blood circulatory system to the human body”, adding, “Whether it is by air, whether it is by sea or by land, without transportation the economy will slow down and eventually grind to a halt”.

The Governor pointed out that the efficiency with which people, goods and services can move from one point to the other largely determines the quality of life of a society, adding that the launch of the new buses was a major step in the on-going modernization of the State’s public transportation system,

“Therefore, when we say we want to improve the quality of life of Lagosians, we cannot afford to neglect public transportation because it has an immediate and transformational quality”, Governor Fashola said, adding, “When we build roads, we do not do so for the lack of something else to do. We do so to improve road transportation”.

The Governor urged Lagosians to endeavour to embrace the opportunities afforded by new technologies to help government in the effort to solve the problem of traffic congestion in the metropolis, pointing out that people could make use of mobile phones and text messages to transact either businesses or pass messages to relations, especially at peak periods of the day, instead of everyone putting their vehicles on the road at the same time.

He recalled that before the Nigerian Civil War, night life thrived and people held parties at nights while workers and school children use the roads during the day resulting in less traffic problem adding that today, everything is being done in the day resulting in traffic congestion.

“We must, therefore, share the infrastructure that supports all of us so that we can use it at different times. That is why we continue to call that as technology races towards us, we must embrace it”, the Governor said.

Thanking all the stakeholders in the venture, particularly the bankers for their continued support and confidence in the Economy of Lagos State, the Governor called on the bus captains, and other officers to make the buses the model of safe driving as well as keep them clean at all times.

In his remarks earlier, the Commissioner for Transportation, Professor Bamidele Badejo said the establishment of LAGBUS was a critical step in achieving the goal of raising the quality of life of the people through the establishment of a transportation system that would make the movement of people, goods and services in the state both easy and efficient.

He expressed joy that “25 months after commencement of operations LAGBUS is arguably the intra-state bus company operator in West Africa, creating jobs for over 1, 500 personnel, either directly or indirectly”.

Earlier in his welcome address the Managing Director of LAGBUS Asset Management Limited, Mr. Babatunde Disu, commended the Lagos State Government whom, according to him, “gave us the challenge of acting as catalyst for change in the Transport Sector through the standardization of bus services”, adding, “We recognize the importance of partnering with the major transport unions (both the NURTW and RTEAN) in achieving this”.

Thanking the Governor and the State Government for the support to the company in the LAGBUS operation, Disu also solicited for the continued cooperation of LATSMA and the military formation in the State to enable the LAGBUS function efficiently.

Also present at the occasion are Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Rotimi Oyekan, Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Mr. Ben Akabueze among other members of the State Executive Council as well as other top government functionaries and representatives of the financing banks.