Press Releases

Good Governance Can Be Re-Enacted If We Go Back To The Basics - Fashola

May 20, 2009 - Lagos State Governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola (SAN) on Wednesday affirmed that good governance has existed in Nigeria before now and can be re-enacted in greater measure if everyone goes back to the basics.

Governor Fashola disclosed this at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru near Jos where he delivered a lecture titled “Essential Ingredients of Good Governance: Lessons from Nigerian Best Practices”, to participants of Senior Executive Course N0 31 (2009).

He identified the presence of a credible political process especially the conduct of elections where the votes count thereby conferring legitimacy on leaders and the utilization of the moral platform to levy and impose taxes to engender effective representation as one of the most essential ingredients of good governance.

The Governor also identified the harnessing of the diversity of the nation under a truly fiscal and political federal arrangement as it obtained during the period of the nation’s greatest prosperity and true federalism in the early sixties as some of the useful lessons from Nigerian best practices as ingredients of good governance.

Governor Fashola added that ideas of rotation and all practices which limit the emergence of the best human assets must be dispensed with and recommended an optimal utilization of the combined resources of the public and private sector for efficient service delivery by evolving and promoting a mutually beneficial partnership

He explained that Lagos as an example has gone back to the basics, using the best practice of the limited federal arrangement that it has , while agitating for more federalism fiscally and politically and using the instrumentality of law and order as the surest safeguards for protecting democracy.

Said he: “If you see any success in Lagos, these partnership, civic engagement, the legitimacy of the government that enables us to tax the people and respond to their quest for representation have been the building blocks of that democracy”.

Governor Fashola said part of the lessons to be learnt from Nigeria’s best practices as essential ingredients of good governance requires that there must be a credible political process especially with the conduct of elections in which the votes of the people count as a basis for empowering government with the critical tool of legitimacy that it requires to discharge responsibilities.

The Governor also called for a useful partnership with the private sector in almost all spheres of responsibility from transportation to security, healthcare delivery, education, environment, agriculture, housing, tax collection, waste management and more just as it been experienced in Lagos currently.

He added: “The public sector must recognize that it owes its existence to the private sector, which comprises corporations and individuals, rich and poor alike, and tat it exists only to solve their problems.

He urged the authorities of the Institute to as a matter of necessity develop opportunities and programmes that allow policy formulators and decision makers in the private sector to receive that same training in the institution so that they can speak the same language, adding that whereas the private sector is the engine of growth, policies and programmes,the private sector are the fuel that drives those engines.

Governor Fashola emphasized that one of the lessons of the past that must be get back is that the very best must lead, by serving in the public sector.

He identified the period when names like Sir Ahmadu Bello, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo dominated the political scene as the period of the nation’s greatest prosperity when it had true federalism and the best democratic practice, saying the period sadly seems a very distant past.

The Lagos State Governor added that one significant feature of that period was that there was a democratic government in place, adding that it was a process where the majority of the people participate in choosing their leaders.

While emphasizing that a government that lacks legitimacy from the people for whom it exists will not get the followership it requires to operate, he added that the first lesson from the past therefore is that government must evolve from the people, the tax payers’ vote must count.

“Our recent social and economic challenges have not been unconnected with the lack of legitimacy of Governments, whether the military or civilian through questionable elections.

In both instances, the lack of legitimacy has deprived Governments of the moral authority to enforce collection of taxes, when the y have been levied, it has deprived them of the authority to enforce laws that have been made, as they seek to be popular, they have been unwilling and sometimes unable to enforce laws, lest they be seen to be “high handed” or lacking in “human face”, Governor Fashola reiterated.

He asserted that what has followed has been a gradual but progressive erosion of the operation of the rule of law, and the abdication of law and order, adding that judicial inquiries in the 1960s were a sign that something serious was wrong and the reports were usually implemented instead of suddenly disappearing as seen in recent past.

In his words: “People did not violate building plans, sanitation laws were enforced. Corrupt practices and fraud were sanctioned and a culture of shame pervaded the air, where offenders were subject to communal ostracism. This is what has departed from us. That is what we must get back”.

He identified the practice of true federalism as another lesson from the period of great prosperity of the nation.

Governor Fashola asserted that historically, politically and culturally, no form of government can better suit the country that a federal system.

“A true federal arrangement as it was with the regions, recognizes that the regions(states) or federating units are equal and that by their distinct national ,ethnic and cultural differences, they have their own powers and are not subservient to any other government, not even the Federal Government”, the Governor maintained.

“In that period of great prosperity, the resources of the regions were generated and kept by them, with token contribution made to the centre, to fund the responsibilities ceded by the states. Any power not expressly ceded by the states belongs to the states and is always within their residual right to use as they deem fit”, Governor Fashola also said.

He reiterated that a true federalism must recognize that the federating units, the states are the ordinary Government of the people as they represent the first contact of government which the people have.

He advised that a critical lesson from Nigeria’s best practices of the past is the enthronement of true federalism that enables the states compete and drive the national economy.

The people at that time, Governor Fashola said were provided with leadership of a visionary nature, characterized by courage, high intellect, a willingness to dare and to compete.

Governor Fashola asserted that at that time when most of Europe had no television service, the Western region had developed its own, set up a University, built the tallest building in West Africa which spurred other regions to compete and ensure a healthy rivalry.

He lamented that “we have not been able to extract our own oil and have been content to act as middle men, collecting levies for oil blocks and selling them or entering into Joint Ventures with people like us, who have blood also flowing through their veins, who studied the same mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and science that we learnt”.

“While other economies are looking for alternatives to hydro carbon fuel with the ultimate goal of reducing their demand for oil, we are lamenting the falling prices of a commodity that is faced by a greater risk of not being in any useful demand in the next decade of shortly thereafter

Instead of harnessing the wealth of human and mineral deposits that abound here, we have waited for donor agencies to give us grants to build boreholes or install hand held pumps to supply something as basic as portable water to the people”, the Lagos helmsman said.

The well received lecture also elicited a robust question and answer session from participants who were drawn from the high echelon of the military and the public service.

The lecture was also attended by the South African High Commissioner in Nigeria and the Tanzania Ambassador who had earlier delivered their lectures.