Just less than three weeks as the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu already kick-started the process of tackling the high level of traffic gridlock in the state.

Lagos, being the commercial capital of Africa’s most populous nation has been a subject of ridicule over the years as its residents pass through difficult moments arriving at their destination within an expected time-frame.

To put simply, 15 minutes drive could take up to hours because residents are usually stuck in Lagos traffic. This is the usual phenomenon. Arguably, one of the reasons a few Lagosians decided to relocate to other nearby cities.

The implications of Lagos traffic on the health state of residents are colossal. On a daily basis, week-in-week-out, many Lagosians suffer from stress emanating from this ugly development. Unfortunately, the larger majority are not able to detect the long term implications of being on the road for many hours.

Ask any average worker in Lagos ’what is the biggest challenge working in Lagos,’ you are most likely to hear its traffic jam. In as much as people try to wake up early enough to avoid being caught by Lagos traffic, they are eventually caught up by it. It’s simply inescapable.

However, the good news is that the newly elected Lagos State Governor is already making strategic moves to clean up the Lagos traffic mess.

Even before Sanwo-Olu won the election he had made his intentions known concerning the ugly development. In other words, traffic management is a critical aspect of his agenda to achieving a greater Lagos.

First, Sanwo-Olu has made an official visit to LASTMA Office to dialogue on the way forward to end traffic gridlock in the state. During the visit, Sanwo-Olu increased their allowances by 100%. Obviously,  that was the first action-step by the Governor towards improving travel time in the state.

Sanwo-Olu being is a surveyor who understands the importance of taking a proper measurement and managing space, of which, they are critical to traffic mamanagement, but he started by motivating the LASTMA officials. That seems to be a good move even though their reputation has been dented over the years.

LASTMAN officials, arguably, have been part of the Lagos traffic problem in many ways than one. The incessant stopping of vehicles on the slightest mistake by Lagos drivers is appalling. At this point, when drivers are caught, they are taken to their office and are expected to pay huge fines.

From this beginning, Sanwo-Olu must fish-out scrupulous LASTMA officials who have enriched themselves at the expense of drivers, if he must achieve this agenda.

They break the law at ease and rewrite the codes in their various checkpoints and offices. That group must be properly sanitized as it would play a significant role.

Further, it now imperative to start doing real homework, increasing allowances is scratching the surface. Now, Sanwo-Olu must start digging the surface.

Although, prior to his assumption, Sanwo-Olu had suggested that one of the solutions is, ”when the road is blocked, extend this one to be six lanes and the other free one two lanes to ease the traffic.”

“You can solve all these problems without even building some of those things that can take you one or two years to build,” Sanwo Olu said.

According to Sanwo-Olu, he had consulted with experts who have identified major areas peculiar with traffic gridlocks in the mega city and plans had already been put in place to design quick fixes in the affected areas.

“It is not that this will solve all the traffic problems but we can design quick fixes, which is similar to the model that we use in some of the toll plazas.

It is going to take a lot of patience and enforcement because you know people also don’t obey things, we don’t have enough road signs and signage, all of those ones will come, but we can design things quickly.

“We have identified major gridlock areas and what kind of interventions we are going to have. These are some of our quick ways, high on impact in our views and we are going to push it in the first six months.It is going to take patience and a lot of enforcement. 

We are also going to look at how to have a good mass transit system but it is not going to happen overnight,” Sanwo-Olu said.

The collaboration with LASTMA significant and commendable, however, unscrupulous elements in the system must be left out. The Governor has started well in this regard and hopefully, Lagosians will start to shuttle the state without so much stress. 

Debt Management Office (DMO) report shows that Imo has domestic debt stock of N85bn plus foreign debt of $62.2m as @ 2018 Half Year.

Imo State’s IGR averaged N6.8bn annually.

It receives average of N85bn from Federation Accounts  (FAAC)a year.

This puts its consolidated Debt/Gross Revenue @ 292.82%, or 369.65% Debt/Net Revenue. Either way, the journey is long, tough, rough and the future not far from being bleak. 

With estimated population of 5 million growing @ 3%p.a, and 60% being youth, 

Imo governor-elect, Emeka Ihedioha, should know that the problem at hand is as real.

Interestingly, the in-coming Governor has admitted that “Rebuilding Imo after Okorocha’s misrule a tough job”.

He said rebuilding the state from its current degree of rot under Governor Rochas Okorocha’s alleged misgovernance will not be easy.

He charged those who would make his government immediately he is sworn in on May 29, to roll up their sleeves because they would hit the ground running.

Ihedioha said these at Dukes Aldridge Academy, Turlock Road, Tottenham, London, yesterday, when he addressed Imo indigenes living in the United Kingdom.

He urged members-elect of the House of Assembly to quickly acquaint themselves with the existing rules as he would inundate them with executive bills once the House is inaugurated.

“I know it’s going to be a bit difficult because in the last eight years, our people have been used to misgovernance; we’re used to doing things the wrong way.

“We’ve not been used to getting things done the way they should.

“So, getting us to go back to how things should be won’t be an easy thing. It’ll be a bit difficult; it’ll be challenging but I’m sure we shall prevail.

“I’ve charged the members-elect to get themselves acquainted with the existing rules of the House to understand what the legislature should be, what it’s all about because, from day one, upon their inauguration, I would challenge them with certain executive bills to keep them together cracking,” the governor-elect said.

He regretted that the legislature was practically dead in the state in the past eight years because of Governor Rochas Okorocha’s governance approach that detested separation of power.

By: Sonala Olumhense [Punch Newspapers]

In six days, Nigerians of voting age will clarify not only whom they are, but whom they wish to be.

Four years ago, I helped bring to the leadership of Nigeria a man I had equally endorsed at the 2011 election: General Muhammadu Buhari, as President.  In 2015, there really wasn’t much of a choice.

This year, there is: Anybody Else.  Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo unintentionally captured the situation a few days ago during a campaign stop in Owerri.

Reaching down to his evangelical side, the pastor told the crowd: “The most important thing is that when the righteous are in power, the people rejoice.”

Then he asked, “Are you rejoicing now?”

The crowd erupted: “NOOOO!!!”

The vice-president seemed to think that he might have been misheard, or that his audience had perhaps got its cue wrong.

He tried again: “Under this government…are you rejoicing?” Louder came a thunderous tumult, as if the crowd thought Osinbajo was hard of hearing: “NOOOO!!!”

But here is the punchline, and I am going to quote the vice-president comma by comma in a statement he made as if it were 2015 and he was waxing delirious about the Goodluck Jonathan administration his APC presidential ticket was trying to defeat:

“Very good. The reason, the reason, the reason why we cannot rejoice under this government is because the Scripture says, ‘when the righteous are in power, the people rejoice.’”

I don’t know who wrote the screenplay of Osinbajo’s Nollywood appearance at that Owerri rally. Clearly, the answer to his question was supposed to have been a resounding “YES!”

In which case his conclusion, something about righteousness and political power, was supposed to be that Nigerians are happy today because the right people are in power and should be re-elected.

The louder rejection of his proposal the second time appeared to have thrown the vice-president out of his tradermoni heart and the law professor adlibbed into a verdict against his very purpose.

Now, I believe that Osinbajo, speaking before an audience he understood to be mainly Christians, had hoped to take advantage of their faith.  In which case it is wise to look at the segment of the Holy Book he unwisely—but incompletely—drew from: Proverbs 29:2.

“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn,” it says.

It is not surprising that the vice-president avoided that second part, but his conclusion was unavoidable: Nigerians are suffering because its rulers—whatever they think of themselves—are wicked.

Osinbajo’s testimony against his own cause says almost everything anyone would like to know about where Nigerians find themselves this week as they vote.

Buhari himself continued the effort to market the same theme three days ago, calling on the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria to stand for righteousness and truth, and preach against all forms of corruption, as “only righteousness” can elevate Nigeria.

Mercifully, he was not standing before an incredulous crowd to preach righteousness.  But before Osinbajo spoke, Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai had inflicted a different kind of righteousness.

I have praised el-Rufai in this column for what seemed to be his clarity of vision, notably in March 2017 when the second of two powerful memos he sent to Buhari, leaked.  The first was in April 2015, before Buhari took his oath of office, and the other in September 2016.

Citing “the progress of our party, our president, our government and our country,” the governor offered Buhari a 30-page, well-reasoned strategic plan in which he challenged the president to revamp the entire apparatus of government so that APC would not leave Nigeria worse than it had met it.

Stressing that the Buhari administration had so far failed to manage the “change” expectations of Nigerians or ‘to deliver even mundane matters of governance’ outside of fighting Boko Haram and corruption, he urged him to “act decisively.”

“Overall, the feeling even among our supporters today is that the APC government is not doing well,” the governor observed. He encouraged Buhari to consider communicating actively and directly with the Nigerian public to enunciate the government’s plans, strategy and road map to take Nigeria out of her economic mess.

For that purpose, he suggested that Buhari use a mechanism “akin to a State of the Union address…preferably in a joint session of the National Assembly,” during which he would explain some perceptions and lay out his vision.

Among others, he pointed out that APC could shape Nigeria’s political culture in (Buhari’s) image through active stakeholders and process engagement, saying, “We are not engaging at all, and (are) taking things and important matters for granted.”

El-Rufai counselled that the institutional weaknesses that enabled corruption to thrive under Jonathan and the persons involved, were still very much in control, “and many are around you.”

He wanted stronger hands and minds closer to the president, describing (former SGF Babachir Lawal) as “inexperienced, lacking in humility, (and) insensitive and rude to most VIPs,” and Chief of Staff Abba Kyari as “totally clueless.”

El-Rufai then spelled to Buhari the time: “You have both a crisis and opportunity in your hands to turn around our country in the right direction.”

But APC and Buhari’s ineptitude were just fermenting.  They ignored all progressive voices inside and outside the party, and rotted in ambition, focus and performance. Buhari, for his part, never read any of el-Rufai’s memos: he handed them to the same key officials the governor had criticised, who shredded them and demonised him.

Last week, with days before the election, a key measure of the depth of the Buhari rot emerged: the same el-Rufai appearing on television to threaten the massacre of foreigners who “intervene” to disrupt Buhari’s desperation to remain in office.

“Those that are calling for anyone to come and intervene in Nigeria, we are waiting for the person that will come and intervene,” he said, threatening: “They will go back in body bags.”

It was a strange response to international expressions of concern about the elections being free and fair.  Ambition and power clearly overrunning good judgement, el-Rufai threw away every benefit of the doubt.

But he illustrates what faces voters in Saturday’s ballot: the mind-boggling reality that a government that was enthroned with such overwhelming support is baying for blood for re-election.

Sadly, Buhari has been fully exposed as fickle of conviction, frail of body and fragile of mind.  To say that he will rise beyond himself to inspire and elevate Nigeria is to bathe our children in sewage.

The truth is that the very deficiencies identified by el-Rufai in 2016 were not symptoms but chronic diseases that have now mutated, with APC politicians now contradicting everything they said in 2015. 

This has nothing to do with PDP, but everything to do with Buhari’s character and poverty as a man.

In the real world, when there is an infectious disease, you flee.  This week, Nigerians should free themselves by voting for Nigeria.

*Note: This editorial was first published by the Punch Newspapers