Speeches

800 Days In Office

Aug 6, 2009 - This 800 day account of our stewardship, the eighth in the series of our periodic 100 day account rendering and stakeholder interactive meetings is perhaps likely to be the most important one we will hold.

I feel particularly honoured to see you all here in response to our invitation.

Many developments have taken place in the last 100 days after we had the 700 day event, which have added to the stock of deliverables as evidence of our social contract with the people of Lagos who put us here.

We have been busy in diverse sections of life such as transportation, where we have added 1,255 new taxis to the growing fleet in Lagos. This has meant 1,255 new owners who are self employed and 1,255 who will operate the taxis.

In the area of Education we had a very successful Education Summit, whose recommendations we are in the process of implementing, and the House of Assembly has been active in passing the Vocation and Technical Education Institutions Law to help accelerate the development of Technical and Vocational Education and the Model City Law which will help stem the incidence of illegal constructions that usually end up collapsing and causing death, and the Lagos Court of Arbitration Law, and the Magistrates Court Law which are aimed at enhancing the quality of our justice delivery to ensure that we all get the best possible protection from the law.

One of the many innovative features of the Magistrate’s Court Law is that for the first time in Nigeria, Magistrates will now sit on Saturdays and in the hope that this will end the practice where people are kept in remand over the weekend simply because Courts are not in operation.

Specifically as it relates to young people, we have decided to do more this year and in the years to come, by focusing more directly on those things that affect you directly, even as we deal with those that affect your parents and guardians directly and from which you indirectly benefit.

In the last one hundred days we have undertaken our second quarter budget review and apart from recording a 68% performance, we are pleased to report that this budget has had a direct impact on you because its implementation has led to the creation of 156,779 jobs in this year alone.

We have been busy with sports through the hosting of the Federations Cup Final in which many of you turned out in large numbers and we have delivered another park and sporting facility at Kernel Street in Surulere, while we are almost completing the sports facilities in Agege and Campos Square.

We have aggressively through the law enforcement agents tried to protect you from those who try to corrupt you by arresting and prosecuting those who have taken advantage of your innocence to display pornographic materials.

We have provided 5,000 vacation job opportunities again this year for students on vacation within the public service to keep you busy, mentor you, and provide some extra cash and pocket money to enable you address those needs that young persons have.

I think that I could go on, but that is not the only reason why we are here. All of these progress we quickly put behind us, so that we do not dwell in the past and remain focused to continue to address problems and convert them to success stories.

As I said earlier, this will probably be the most important 100 days report because it will help us connect with you, the generation behind us.

It will help us explain to you why things are the way they are, and why we do what we do and why you must get involved.

Someone recently asked me what plans we were putting in place to ensure that whatever we have done is sustainable, after we leave office.

If this person is still looking for an answer, he should not look further. I see the answer here today in the faces of these new breed of Lagosians and Nigerians in this gathering.

I believe that this country’s problems can be effectively solved by the people I see here. The responsibility of our government and our generation is simply to provide the platform and environment that will unleash the power and potential of the Lagos and Nigerian Youth.

We have become the continental leaders in many fields like sports, music, fashion and business to mention a few; and that convinces me that we can be leaders in all fields.

What has kept us back is that we have been engaged for too long in fighting for the political survival of our country and development has not taken place at the necessary pace to match the growth in population.

Our State had a population of only about 5 million people in the 1970’s but this has exceeded 18 million in 2009, a growth of about 260% but in those almost 30 years, water supply has not grown in that size, neither have new roads been constructed at the pace of growth or new schools built at the same pace and therefore the growing population has struggled to share the existing assets of roads, hospitals, schools, power, water, markets, entertainment centres, sports facilities and much more.

This is why life now seems difficult, this is why new jobs are not emerging; this is a 30 year deficit which we are determined to reverse and this is why you must understand why we do what we do.

We are building at an aggressive pace to provide more roads and create choices to ease traffic congestion, we are rebuilding and repairing classrooms and schools, new hospitals, new stadia, water works as well as markets to expand opportunities for as many of you as we can. We are clearing canals and drainages that in some cases have not been attended to in 15 years or more.

In doing all of these, we use people, and in so doing we create jobs for builders, we create businesses for suppliers of building materials, food for workers, jobs for accountants, engineers, transporters, and so much more in order to keep the economy going, to keep your parents at work so that they can support you.

We started this process with our first full Budget in 2008, The Budget of Great Leap, which was our stimulus package, before the whole world was shocked into action by the economy and evolved all other types of stimulus packages. We intend to sustain it for as long as we remain in office through a diligent and passionate implementation of our annual budgets.

Let me say that from these efforts, the wheel of progress is turning in Lagos State and in the last 100 days these efforts have received local and international recognition.

First, the Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Environment, adjudged Lagos to be the cleanest State capital in the Federation.

Secondly a few weeks ago, at the African Business Awards for 2009 sponsored by the Commonwealth Business Council in London, Lagos State won the Award for Good Governance.

In the Judges’ Citation, they said: “Lagos State has shown exemplary leadership in the way business is conducted in all its activities, ensuring results, transparency and accountability, changing procedures and setting standards which need to be adhered to from its suppliers and in the running of its activities.”

On July 14, LAMATA, the regulator of the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRT) received an Award in London as Transport Planner of the Year 2009 from the Transport Planning Society of United Kingdom.

These recognitions confirm to us that Lagos is on the right path and we will spare no effort to keep her there.

I know that you want to ask me when the ASUU strike will end and you can resume school.

I know that you want to ask me if there will be a job for you after school.

Without prejudging your questions let me say that the ASUU strike is only a manifestation of our imperfect federation which neglects or fails to recognize the autonomy of states as federating units who should be competent to take decisions in their areas of constitutional authority without any adverse consequences from decisions taken by the Federal Government.

If states own and run universities like the Federal Government as the Constitution allows, why should a disagreement between employees of the Federal Government in a Federal University paralyse the activities in all State Universities where there is no labour dispute.

Why should every university lecturer whether employed by the state or Federal University earn the same wage? What happened to freedoms of contract? What happened to the principles of competitive advantage in economics?

Can we and must we continue to fund tertiary education in the way we currently do and still attract the best lecturers or should we develop a process of guaranteed scholarships for indigent students while those who can afford to do so pay a fair fee in order to guarantee autonomy to universities and to provide funding for them?

How does the frequency of strikes in our education system and the uncertain academic calendar affect proper planning and what are its impacts on the job creation capacities of the public and private sectors?

Can we guarantee employment for people or provide employment for them if we do not know how many we are? How successful can a budget based on wrong population assumptions be?

Is it not time to re-define the concept of jobs from job seekers to aspiring entrepreneurs? In an economy where growth is not assured on a sustainable basis should young graduates look to be employed or should they begin to think about being self employed? Are our School Curriculum limiting job opportunities, by producing graduates that the economy needs.

I know that there are many questions burning in your hearts and I will soon yield the podium to enable you ventilate them.

However let me assure you, that the primary commitment of our government is to prepare for you, a future that is more secured than what we inherited.

We do not blame or judge our predecessors, as I said, they were involved in a struggle for the political stability of our country, but we recognize that from their struggles, an opportunity has been presented to us.

Our response to that opportunity will be to seize it firmly, and to use it judiciously in a way that will enable every young person, the true giants of our continent to rise to the tallest and dizzying heights of their capabilities.

This is a solemn promise which we will faithfully fulfill.

Thank you.

BABATUNDE RAJI FASHOLA (SAN)
GOVERNOR OF LAGOS STATE