Category: Segun Ayobolu

Barely a month after a fictive hack writer utilizing the pages of a national newspaper, to unleash a barrage of lies, wild concoctions and unsubstantiated fantasies against one of the pre-eminent leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC),   Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu,  the same newspaper has without respect for facts or logic been on the onslaught against Tinibu. This time around, the newspaper claims without the slightest respect for facts or empirical facts that Asiwaju Tinubu has been placed under security surveillance because of his perceived opposition to the ministerial submitted to the Senate by President Muhammadu Buhari. Of course, the presidency has since denied the utterly unfounded fabrication. Yet, there are issues about the strategic Buhari-Tinubu political partnership that are germane to the present and future politics of Nigeria.  Students of politics may be quick to accuse this columnist of individualistic reductionism when group or organisational analyses are required.  But the role of individuals in organisational dynamics cannot be underscored.

There can be no doubt that the strategic political partnership between President MuhammauduBuhari (PMB) and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has turned out to be one of the most efficacious, effective and productive in Nigeria’s political history.   Although each time he contested for Nigeria’s presidency in 2003, 2007 and 2011, Buhrai garnered more than 12 million votes in the north, where he has a cult following, this could not translate into the pan- Nigerian victory that Buhari needed to emerge as Nige1ria’s President.

In the same vein, despite throwing formidable and logistical weight particularly in the South West behind AtikuAbubakar in 2007 and MallamNuhuRibadu in 2011, Tinubu’s now defunct Action Congress (AC) and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), could not lead the progressives to victory at the national level. The 2015 unprecedented electoral victory that swept Buhari to power on the platform of the APC was thus a function of the combination of Buhrai’s mass grassroots following in the north and the mass appeal of the Tinubu tendency in the South West and the tendency’s strong network with political elites across the country that had hitherto been scared of Buhari’s puritan and inflexible approach to politics.

Any skilled political tactician who wants to cripple and render Buhrai’s administration ineffective from inception will, therefore aim to sunder and tear apart the partnership between the two men, One of the astute strategists being deployed by the anti Buhari-Tinubu partnership in a  section of the medias  is to recycle and dredge up all kinds of spurious and nefarious allegations against Tinubu that had become stale over the years and all which have been thoroughly investigated by relevant security and other agencies within and outside Nigeria. That plan of action has obviously gained no traction in relevant quarters. Hence the new line that                 Tinubu is under security surveillance for being allegedly opposed to President Buhari’s ministerial list. The APC national leader, according to the fictional report, jetted out of the country because he is many of his nominees did not make the president’s ministerial list.

Of course, there are established protocols, processes and procedures that must be adhered to before anyone, no matter how highly placed, can travel out of the country. Did Tinubu violate anyone of these? In any case, the security sources quoted by the newspaper in question claimed they could not be placed on record because the purported investigation against Tinubu’s alleged plot against Buhari are still at the preliminary stages. This suggests that no in depth investigations have been carried out and any talk of a plot at point in time is tentative, premature and lacking in substance.

Now, for what rational or logical reasons will Buhari’s ministerial list instigate Tinubu to begin to plot against PMB whatever that means? In the globalised world of today, can a national leader of a political party travel to any of the advanced global democracies to plot the destabilisation and truncation of his country’s democracy? What magical wand does Tinubu wave that he will convince Senators to plot against Buhari simply because the President has exercised his right to pick men and women he can work with as Ministers? Is that an impeachable offence? The Presidential system of government gives wide latitude to chief Executives to appoint Ministers they can work with within or outside their parties. This is unlike the parliamentary system where the Prime Minister is bound to nominate his cabinet from members of his party in the legislature.

A number of commentators have cited the presence of Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) and Dr Kayode Fayemi as reasons for Tinubu’s alleged disagreement with Buhari’s ministerial list. This is childish. No matter what political intrigues may be currently at play, the presence of the two eminent gentlemen in Buhari’s cabinet testifies to Tinubu’s attributes as a talent hunter, discoverer and builder of leaders. Let us nurture not savage the productive Buhari-Tinubu partnership.

After what seemed an eternity, President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) and a smattering of state governors, namely Mr Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos, Mallam Abulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State and Senator Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State have sent their lists of Executive Council members to their appropriate legislative arms of government for screening and confirmation. Some would argue that over three months was simply too long a period to constitute their respective Executive Councils. But it is certainly better late than never. This column had previously submitted that the Executive Councils are not ornamental decorations.  They have critical roles to play in achieving good, responsive and responsible governance. It is thus in the spirit of the constitution that they be set up as urgently as possible following the election of the Chief Executive even if the letters of the constitution do not give an explicit time frame to do so.  However, given the quality of nominees by PMB and Governor Akinwunmi Ambode in particular, the wait has been well worth it.

Some analysts have suggested that PMB took his time in unveiling members of his Federal Executive Council (FEC) because he wanted only the best in terms of competence and character in his government and there are very few of these available. But it is also not impossible that he was faced with a surfeit of capable and qualified hands and had to take his time picking only the very best. PMB’s body language has often strongly suggested a strong distrust and aversion for politicians. He openly said in an interview during his recent visit to France that politicians as Ministers only make a lot of noise while it is the technocrats that do the job.  Of course, this is a rather simplistic and exaggerated view of the so-called technocrat/politician dichotomy. In modern politics, many outstanding technocrats are astute politicians and many accomplished politicians are respected technocrats in their spheres of specialisation.

One can understand PMB’s aversion to politicians and their antics given his own background and experiences. For one, he is himself the product of a highly bureaucratised organisation, the military, with its emphasis on unquestioning obedience and rigid hierarchical control. Again, in his first coming as military Head of State in December 1983, it was his challenge to help clean up the utter political, moral and economic mess in which the politicians of the Second Republic had left the nation. Again, as elected President today, he is confronting the mess and decay the politicians had created over the last 16 years since 1999. However, it would be naïve and misleading to put all the blames for failed governance during civilian democratic dispensations at the doorsteps of politicians alone. The civil service technocrats are no less implicated in the gross misrule, monumental graft and utter incompetence that have left the country perpetually punching below its weight.

In any case, the competence, seriousness, sense of purpose, focus and integrity of the council of Ministers will only be as good as the leadership qualities and moral integrity of the Chief Executive that appointed them especially in a presidential system of government. This is why the recent assertion by former President Goodluck Jonathan that the appointments of two of his former key aides, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina and Ms Arumah Oteh to prestigious international positions testify to the quality of his Executive Council is so totally misplaced. Yes, there were men and women of the highest intellectual and administrative competence in Dr Jonathan’s Cabinet but his own leadership deficiencies prevented the nation from benefitting maximally from their potentials.

Again, PMB must be careful not to fall into the error of the PDP years. Lacking a coherent ideological world view and well thought out manifesto, successive PDP administrations between 1999 and May 29, 2015, simply surrendered the country’s policy direction to an assortment of local and foreign ‘technocrats’ particularly IMF/World Bank super star mandarins. They had absolutely no clue to the country’s deep seated problems beyond the age-long and ineffectual palliatives of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs). Indeed, one of them, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, could hardly hide her disdain for the political class in her arrogantly titled book, ‘Reforming the Unreformable”.  Thus, the PDP had the National Economic and Employment Strategy (NEEDS) under Obasanjo, the 7-poimt agenda under the late Umaru Yar’Adua and the Jonathan administration’s magical ‘Transformation Agenda all leading the country nowhere.

One good thing about PMB’s taking his time in constituting his Federal Executive Council (FEC) is that he has been able to set an example of the exceedingly high moral standards he expects of his team. No one who falls below the bar can complain he or she was not forewarned. Again the process of his forming his Cabinet shows the character of the President’s mind and the quality of his decision-making process.  He has effectively and admirably balanced his commitment to party loyalty and supremacy with the fierce independence of mind needed by the Chief Executive in a presidential system of government. He has also sent a strong signal that the buck stops at his table as President. His Ministers must thus first and foremost be loyal to him and the constitution rather than extraneous influences.

I disagree completely with those who contend that PMB must have 36 Ministers, one from each of the states of the federation. It is this column’s view that in as much as all geo-political zones in the country have already been represented in the list he has sent to the Senate, the Federal Character principle has been effectively met. There are thousands of appointments yet to be made at the centre, which can take care of states not represented in the Federal Executive Council.  In any case, the President shortly after assuming office obtained the authorisation of the Senate to appoint 13 Special Advisers. He can simply go on to appoint suitable persons to these positions and get ahead with the business of governance.

It is difficult to fault the President’s proposed team. Alhaji Lai Mohammed has been the indefatigable spokesperson of the party during its opposition years in the wilderness. So lucid, stinging, pungent, perspicacious and consistent were his daily engagements with the PDP that the party promptly labelled him ‘Lie Mohammed’. In the last election, the vast majority of the electorate demonstrated that they didn’t consider Lai a liar.  Chief Audu Ogbe has a track record of cerebral discourse, moral integrity and administrative competence. Despite his catastrophic loss to the erratic and combustible Ayo Fayose in the last Ekiti governorship election, no one doubts the high intellect and managerial acumen of Dr Kayode Fayemi. Mr Babatunde RajiFashola (SAN) is an established icon of the party given the exemplary way he built on the foundation laid by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as governor of Lagos State. Rotimi Amaechi may be often rambunctious and brash but he perhaps needed these qualities to contain the Dr Jonathan rampaging forces of impunity in Rivers State.  This column is highly optimistic that this team will perform creditably in assisting PMB to lead Nigeria in a new direction of positive change.

No less impressive is Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s team made up of at least seven members with experience in the BRF Executive Council and others ranging between ages 39 and 47 from varied backgrounds including local government administration, the legislature, media, as well as legal practice and the private sector.  There is certainly hope for Nigeria as public office is gradually being conceived not as an end in itself but avenues for conceptualising and implementing policies towards enhancing the public good.

President MuhammaduBuhari has faced an avalanche of criticisms as regards the appointments he has made thus far.  Apart from the perceived lethargy in the constitution of his cabinet, the President has been accused of regional bias in the appointments he has made. Most of his key personnel, it is argued are from the north. This is indisputable. But does that detract from the possibility of good governance? I don’t think so. For me, it is the calibre and integrity of those appointed to public office that matters more than their region, ethnic or religious orientation. There appears to me to be some tension between the need to balance appointments ethnically and regionally and the utilisation of public office as a means of primitive accumulation.

It would appear that the quest for public office is more due to the benefits that accrue to the office than the desire for public service. Yes, the 1999 constitution has its limitations. But it has its merits. For instance, it requires that the President must have a nationally valid vote that cuts across ethno-regional demarcations. The President is the custodian of a national mandate. Any appointment that he makes is subject to this rule.  This is why the hue and cry about PMB’s appointments is in my view completely misplaced. , Under the 1999 constitution, the President wields a national mandate. All his appointments are supposed to be in the national interest. Is the president, in this regard, obliged to pick Cabinet members from the 36 states? I don’t think so. Every member of the Federal executive Council is meant to serve the country’s national interest and not that of the state he or she is from.

The unhealthy preoccupation with appointments at the federal level is a function of a more fundamental problem. This is due essentially to the over-centralisation of the Nigerian state and our current Unitarism that masquerades as federalism.  Ideally, our constitutional federalism should solve the problem of every ethnic/nationality group wanting to be represented at the national level. For, the people have also been represented at local government   and state levels.

It does appear that the excessive concern with appointments at the federal level is fundamentally a function of the excessive concentration of powers and responsibilities and powers at the centre. Thus, everyone wants to have his or her own person appointed to one office or the other at the federal level. This is not unconnected with what the late Claude Ake described as the utilisation of state office as a means of primitive accumulation.

Ideally, the federal constitution should ensure that everybody is adequately represented at various levels of governance from the local government through the states to the federal government. If that is so, then the pressure for appointments at the federal level will be grossly reduced. Again, what does membership of the Federal Executive Council mean? Are ministers representing their states of origin or are they meant to pursue the national interest?

It is my view that the preoccupation with PMB’s timing and ethno-regional composition of his appointees is a function of the prebendal character of the Nigerian state. Yes, every component group of a complex federal polity like ours must be adequately represented in governance. But when public office is perceived and utilised as a means of primitive accumulation, it negates the essence of good governance in the overall national interest. I agree that any president’s appointees must reflect the ethno-regional composition of the nation. However, that must be secondary to the factors of merit and integrity’. There is, of course, merit in the view that talents abound in every nook and cranny of Nigeria. But every President has the prerogative of choosing the men and women to work with based on his antecedents, values, associations and experiences.

Professor Isaac Adewole’s clarrifications on Unibadan vc race

I received a call from the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Professor Issac Adewole last Saturday. The distinguished academic and administrator was ever so courteous and gracious. He betrayed no irritation or anger at my critique of the UNIBADAN VC selection process. He offered to make available to me the files on the VC selection process if I desired. Contrary to my contention, he said that Professor Adigun Agbaje was indeed interviewed like all the 13 applicants for the position of VC. He raised other issues which I would have liked to contend with. However, I appreciate the gesture of the distinguished professor and will let matters rest as they are. This column wishes Professor Olayinka a successful tenure as VC of Nigeria’s premier university.

It is amazing. He has admittedly not done much in three months and could not have been expected to even if he had not inherited the depth of rot left behind by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) after 16 years of the ravaging locusts. But President Muhammadu Buhari, has performed a veritable miracle in just a little over a 100 days in office. He has managed to convert us all into anti-corruption revolutionaries of sorts.

We are all born again Nigerians now. Astonishingly, PMB, our emergent political Messiah, is himself no revolutionary in any meaningful sense of the word. Yes, he is ascetic. He makes no distinction between corruption and stealing. He hates graft with a passion. But PMB has always been a stout defender of the system. A revolutionary is fervently committed to overthrowing the status quo and fundamentally changing a society’s inequitable class relations.

Paradoxically, both in his first coming as military Head of State and now elected President PMB seeks to change the system only in order to save, stabilise and preserve it. Thus, neither PMB nor his party the All Progressives Congress (APC) is, at least for now, ardently pursuing the real revolution Nigeria needs – drastically and surgically restructuring the country’s defective and deformed federal structure. The anti-corruption war is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for achieving the desired Nigerian revolution. But that is a matter for another day.

The most astounding converts of PMB’s anti-corruption evangelism are Nigeria’s labour leaders. Like Saul’s (later Saint Paul’s) dramatic conversion to Christianity on the road to Damascus, Nigeria’s Labour aristocracy, leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) as well as the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and their affiliates, have suddenly seen the light. They are quickly distancing themselves from the darkness of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s years of impunity in which they were firmly embedded. On Thursday, the labour unions organised massive rallies across several cities including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, supporting PMB’s anti-corruption crusade and even demanding death for treasury looters. Of course, this column is not taken in by the labour leaders’ theatrical anti-corruption razzmatazz.

Listen to Mr Bobbai Kagamo, President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) at one of the rallies: “We want everyone to turn a new leaf. We will henceforth expose corrupt persons. This is not the time to trade blames, but the time to support the institutions fighting corruption irrespective of party affiliations. We want people to account for their stewardship”. He was brilliantly playing to the gallery. Would these labour leaders have mobilised their members against corruption and irresponsible governance if Dr Jonathan had won re-election? Were they not mostly silent through the better part of the former administration’s unprecedented reign of impunity? Contrary to Mr Kagamo’s assertion, there is no better time than now to trade blames and the labour unions and other civil society groups carry a humongous share of the responsibility for the general laxity and lethargy that allowed the impunity of the last 16 years to fester.

When the shocking revelations was made that $20 billion due the country’s Federation Account was missing, there were only tame noises from labour – no demonstrations calling for immediate accountability for the money. What did labour do when the former Minister for Aviation, Ms Stella Oduah, was indicted for illegally authorising the importation of two luxury armoured jeeps at hugely inflated costs without appropriation at a time when millions of Nigerians particularly workers and peasants were reeling in poverty? It was the intense pressure from sections of the media and civil society that compelled Dr Jonathan to reluctantly ease her ‘honourably’ out of the Cabinet. Nothing has been done to bring her to justice till date.

What did the labour leaders do when former Minister for Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Allison Madueke, was accused of squandering over N10 billion from public funds on the chartering and maintenance of a private jet?  The same labour unions now threatening courts that protect corrupt persons were thunderously silent when Diezani rushed to court and obtained an injunction preventing a planned House of Representatives investigation of the allegation!

What about Abba Moro, former Minister of Internal Affairs under Jonathan? Under his watch, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) in 2014 organised fraudulent recruitment exercises in which 6.5 million applicants who paid N1000 each were crowded shoddily like cattle into recruitment centres across the country to write examinations for only 4000 vacant positions. At the end of the day 16 of the applicants were confirmed dead and scores injured as a result of stampede and exhaustion in some of the centres. Yet, it was all quiet on the labour front even as the private consultant that conducted the exercise smiled to the banks with hundreds of millions of Naira. Abba Moro remained in the Federal Executive Council (FEC) till the very end of Jonathan’s tenure.

On January 1st, 2012, Nigerians woke up to the shocking announcement of the removal of the purported fuel subsidy by the Jonathan administration and an approximately 100% increase in the pump price of fuel from N65 to N141. In collaboration with other civil society organisations, the NLC and TUC led massive rallies against the increase in several Nigerian cities including Abuja and Lagos. Yet, the labour leaders did not consult with their allies when they abruptly called off the strike following the Jonathan administration’s reduction of the fuel price to N97 per litre.

Subsequent investigations by the House of Representatives revealed that the whole fuel subsidy saga was an elaborate scam in which a few unscrupulous persons were defrauding Nigerians of billions of Naira in fuel subsidy claims without importing any fuel. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has since been pursuing farcical trials of the indicted persons, most with links to the PDP, without progress. Yet, the labour leaders are now commending the EFCC’s new found activism when they were so eloquently silent on the anti-graft agency’s somnolence in the Jonathan years.

Of course, an affiliate of the NLC like the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has been commendably consistent in holding governments to account right from the period of military dictatorship through the squandered years of the PDP feral beasts of impunity to the present. The ASUU, currently led by Dr Nasir Fagge, is likely to continue to hold PMB and the APC to their word and promise of change and that is how it should be. We can only hope that the anti-corruption rallies organised by the trade unions will mark a re-discovery by organised labour of its essence and a re-dedication to its role in holding power accountable as a key component of civil society.

It will be recalled that organised labour played an active role in the struggle both for Nigeria’s freedom from colonial rule as well as post-colonial Nigeria’s liberation from various military dictatorships. With the democratic restoration of 1999, however, labour and other critical elements of civil society including student unions, religious organisations, formerly vibrant Non- Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and professional associations relapsed into complacency. Many became incorporated as arms of the ruling party and became elaborately implicated in the reigning regime of roguery under the PDP.

A key component of PMB’s anti-corruption agenda should be to facilitate the reconstitution and strengthening of civil society to regain its vibrancy and capacity to hold the state in check. It is only if he bequeaths to the nation such a resurgent and resilient civil society will PMB’s anti-corruption legacy endure beyond his tenure.

It was just a few days after he was sworn into office on May 29. He was in Abuja for the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting when there were tanker fire explosions at the Idimu petrol station as well as a serious fire incident at Iyana Ipaja. He immediately took the next flight back to his state and headed for the scenes of the tragedies to personally empathise and share in the pain of the people. He gave instructions to provide immediate succour for the victims while he convened a meeting of petrol marketers to map out strategies to avoid future tanker explosions. This kind of decisive responsiveness has been a hallmark of Lagos State governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode’s governance style ever since his assumption of office 100 days ago.

Let us take another example. Mrs Ruth Uche, an Igbo resident of Lagos was in a dilemma. She had just given birth to her third set of twins. Her depressed and distressed husband had absconded obviously out of desperation and helplessness. The governor read about her plight in the newspapers. He did not adopt an indifferent stance. He directed his deputy, Mrs Oluranti Adebule, to cater to the needs of the mother and help re-settle the family. Today, Mrs Uche’s absconding husband is back. The family has been fully re-settled and are living a normal life. It is obvious that seemingly little things matter to governor Ambode.

But there is yet another example. Miss Oluwajomiloju Goodness Ogundimu is the Lagos State 2015 baby of the year. Yet, her future was imperilled, her life threatened by a heart defect requiring surgery. Again, governor Ambode intervened. Baby Goodness and her parents can today look to the future with hope and optimism. She is now hale and hearty after undergoing successful surgery in India courtesy the Ambode administration.

An abandoned, penurious retiree can be as helpless and vulnerable as a baby. The emotional wound of being cast aside and neglected after an active life of service to the state and society can be searing and numbing. This was the plight of thousands of retirees from the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the state prior to Ambode’s assumption of office. Today the story is different. Early in August, Mr Ambode approved N11 billion to offset arrears owed retirees including those from Local Governments and Parastatal organizations since 2010. The retirees can sing new songs of joy knowing their labour has not gone unrewarded and unappreciated.

In the early days of the governor Ambode administration, there was an alarming bank robbery incident in Ikorodu during which the bandits operated freely for hours. This was in addition to complaints of an increase of robbery incidents in traffic as well as reports of the creeping return of area boys and other sundry hoodlums to Oshodi and some other parts of the state. Governor Ambode not only stepped up pressure on the security agencies to live up to their responsibility, he has taken proactive steps to enhance their capacity to do so. For instance, at a dinner organized by the Lagos State Security Trust Fund (LSSTF), the governor presented his plans to strengthen the security of the state to members of the Organized Private Sector and requested for their support in this regard. The result was the realization of donations of over N1 billion to the state’s security efforts – an indication of confidence in the integrity of the administration.

Over the last three months, the Ambode administration has acquired 100 new power bikes, 10 armoured tanks and a helicopter to strengthen the security of the state. This is in addition to the acquisition of 100 new squad cars for a new initiative tagged Special Operation Service (SOS), which will coordinate community policing in collaboration with the Rapid Response Squad (RRS). Of course, there is a link between free traffic flow and reduced crime as well as enhanced economic productivity. Thus, the question of traffic gridlock in Lagos particularly in the notorious Apapa axis has received the unceasing attention of the governor in the last 100 days.

Governor Ambode has not only personally inspected the traffic situation in Apapa and appealed to the Federal Government to expedite action on rehabilitating the network of roads in the area majority of which belongs to it. He set up a task force to ensure 24 hours surveillance of traffic flow while also holding a meeting with Tanker Drivers and other stakeholders to come up with strategies to free Apapa once and for all from the menace of Traffic gridlock. Equally of concern to governor Ambode has been the rehabilitation and modernisation of the road network in the state. In this regard, he has conducted inspection tours of roads in various areas including Ipaja, Mosan-Okunola, Oshodi-Isolo, Ikotun-Ejigbo and Somolu areas. On his directives, work has commenced on the more deplorable roads including Ejigbo-Ikotun as well as Brown road in Oshodi. From all indications, it seems there will be a conscious shift by the Ambode administration from the perceived elitist focus of his predecessor to the more neglected and less privileged areas of the state.

In the education sector, the governor approved the recruitment of 1,300 qualified teachers for the state’s public primary schools while in the health sector he commissioned 20 Mobile care Units Ambulances and 26 Transport Ambulances for the state’s General Hospitals and primary healthcare centres on Monday, August 31. Beyond this, he has approved the purchase of generators and x-ray machines for all general hospitals in the state as well as the recruitment of more paramedic staff and special medical coordinators to guarantee 24 hours service to the citizenry.

During the electoral campaigns, Mr Ambode urged the electorate to allow his experience in governance to work for them. His sterling track record as a seasoned civil servant who rose to the apex of the service over a period of 27 years as well as an accomplished Chartered Accountant, consultant and astute manager of men and resources were some of his key selling points. His sure footedness right from his first day in office vindicates the electorate’s decision to vote for experience and demonstrated competence. Thus, some of the institutional innovations he has engineered to ensure the achievement of his objectives include re-aligning the Ministry of Rural Development, Parastatals Monitoring Office as well as the Political and Legislative Powers Bureau.

Apart from scrapping the office of the Special Adviser on Taxation and Revenue and Debt Management Office, he merged the Office of Works and Office of Infrastructure in the Ministry of Works as well as the Office of Drainage Services and Office of Environmental Services in the Ministry of Environment. This is to enhance efficiency and cost effectiveness. He has also set up an Office of Overseas Affairs and Investment (Lagos Global) domiciled in his office to spearhead his administration’s aggressive drive for foreign investment. The governor’s appointment of 19 new Permanent Secretaries based strictly on merit, competence and track record has also invigorated the leadership of the service with the promise of greater dynamism and more qualitative service delivery.

Governor Ambode has also moved to enhance accountability and transparency in the management of the state’s finances by abolishing the multiple account system previously in operation and introducing from September 1 a Treasury Single Account (TSA), which ensures that all government revenues accrue to one consolidated account. If governor Ambode’s first 100 days in office offer glimpses of the shape of things to come in the governance of the Centre of Excellence in the next four years, we should expect more of responsiveness, proactive action, compassion, innovation and focus to elevate Lagos to a higher pedestal of excellence.

Of course, given his tremendous public service experience, the governor knows that his ultimate success will largely be a function of his ability to shun sycophants and cultivate alternative sources of authentic information to aid effective governance. Given his vast experience in Local Government administration, millions of Lagosians are optimistic that Governor Ambode will return governance to the people by ensuring more effective service delivery at the grassroots level of government widely perceived as grossly underperforming.