The first part of this interview was published last Sunday. Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola of Lagos State spoke with Sam Omatseye, Mobolaji Sanusi and Femi Macaulay on a wide range of issues:
I HOPE you can provide clarification concerning the controversial Sunborn Yacht Hotel. I think in March, it suddenly disappeared and nobody seems to know anything about its whereabouts. I remember that when the project was announced, it was said to have involved about N4.5 billion; with an investment of that scale, I think somebody should be able to explain what happened to the yacht.
There was no investment by me or by Lagos state government, I have made that clarification.
I know that Sen Afikuyomi who was the commissioner for tourism then, strongly associated with the project?
The mandate that Sen. Afikunyomi had as a Commissioner for Tourism here was to supervised the implementation for the proposal. At that time, there were not enough hotel rooms in Lagos, that was what we responded to. People must understand why we act. We were a Mega city, we wanted to compete with other Mega cities, we must have visitors. Where are they going to stay? Not in government house! We looked at our hotels and we saw that we were underprovided for. When some people now came with the idea that there was this yacht, they wanted to bring it, can we find space for them to put it, we said pronto, that gives us more rooms before other hotels start springing up. we knew that The Radison was coming, we knew that the Eko hotel was planning to expand. We knew that the Oriental was under construction but they hadn’t matured and Ghana is my competitor. So I said let’s look for land for them. The deal was that we would provide a ….place which we did and we would provide land close to it where they can build a reception. No sooner had we provided that and we are going to the next phase after identifying the site to say let’s sign agreement, are you going to give us equity for this land, we heard that they were in courts. The financiers of the projects and the proposal of the projects, bankers and the owners of the projects had started fighting. The mandate that Sen. Afikunyomi had from this government contained in our council minutes was go and implement that proposal to this extent. One kobo of Lagos state money was never put there, if we put any money at all, it was the time we spent (because time is money) to debate it. So if the boat has disappeared, Lagos state money is not lost. I am not the owner of the boat, so why should I be looking for something that doesn’t belong to me. I think it was Diamond bank who financed it; they should be able to tell you where the boat is. I have no reason to look for it.
How you have handled destitution in in Lagos after the Anambra destitution?
What would you like me to address there?
How has it affected your handling of people of such challenge in Lagos in the aftermath of what happened, have you done some kind of administrative checks?
As I have said, the Anambra issue was a political issue. As I have said during this interview, the focus of our responsibility is people of different strata. As I have said, we had a Maji….camp, built in the early 19, in fact the history of that camp was Festac. We were hosting the world and the military said we have to clear all the destitutes out of this place and they quickly built that place. What we are doing first is to understand how we have progressed. Lagos state has no state owned mental institution; the only one in Lagos is federal at Yaba so we decided that that would be our model mental institution. That is what is behind our livability conference that we just had. People who are destitute are people who are also vulnerable living with disabilities, they levels of people who are also vulnerable across board. Many of them that we dealt with were people who either who either got to unto a bus, they were victims or something. They have been either sex slaves, human trafficking who probably escaped, people with mental diseases that you and I don’t want to associate with on the street but it is our responsibility to take them off the street. Oftentimes what has happened is that when they recover they begin to say I wished I had money to go home. Where is home? Those who said they were from Anambra, we wrote to the government, they replied. We wrote back and then nothing happened. We were torn between being faced with the allegation of illegal detention and oftentimes we also saw that we have tried many policies, so we will continue to innovate, that’s my answer. We tried policies like, okay let’s give them money to go, they don’t go. We pick them back. The money only fuels the next purchase of drugs and this is not a problem unique to us. As I have said, Akwa-Ibom sent people here, Anamabra itself has sent people away, so have Imo and even in the city of London, in Canada, in Mexico so it is a human problem. Governance is getting more complex for leaders and my disposition to it is that we can’t stop trying new things; if they don’t work we would start again, but we would find solutions, we won’t give up.
The financing in Lagos in a shrinking economy, looking at it in the context of what we are hearing from NNPC where the CBN governor .writes a letter president saying about 15 billion has not been accounted for and states are not getting their allocation, how do you think all of these impacts on the pressures to really implement projects especially when you have so many things fighting for your attention?
When I look at our efforts, when I look at our roles, I look at the choices we had made to make trailers and tankers a preferred model for evacuating hundreds of millions of tons out of our ports instead of rebuilding the rail, and then when I hear all this sloganizing about transformation that the rail is now working. I wonder to myself whether we are talking about the same economy. Truth be told, whoever is right in this $49 billion thing, the truth is that Nigeria has not gained. If the CBN governor is right, it means that we have that much money unaccounted for. If as they say, he does not know how they account for oil proceeds, we have an even greater problem that the banker to the federation does not know how the biggest resource of the state is accounted for. When I listen to these responses, I just ask myself are we dealing with people who understand what the issue is. If a CBN governor says money is missing, the simple answer is that we sold this much, we received this much, we paid into ABCDE accounts and that if you look at A-D, you will see this number. It is only after that is done that the issue of who authorized payments can start. Did you have appropriation? For the first answer it is that no, the money is not lost, it is with sanusi, it is with Akeem Belllo, that must be the answer before we now asked them how did you give it to them(laughter). When you look at our infrastructure deficits; you know we are six hours away from Europe, from South Africa, South America-Brazil. We are 7 hours away from Dubai and five hours away for most part of the Middle East and we are not their measure up. of What did it take to build Dubai airport? We don’t have to invent, just try and get somebody to do the design and pay and build. If some people want to go abroad, they fly from Lagos to Dubai to go to London and not on a Nigerian carrier. Whether it is 40 billion or 1 billion, what did we do with the money? What has brought Dubai to our consciousness? Dubai has not anything; they just build very defining architecture using the same oil money. Dubai has not invented a telephone; they have just bought service. So why can’t we just buy service with our money? Why are we not aspirational? We built the Lekki link bridge, saved money-29 billion naira and in that same economy, we frittered away almost 3 trillion naira. If you do the maths, how many 29 million will you find in 3 trillion naira? Almost a million. So it meant that if we sat down and decided that we wanted to give each state of the federation a bridge, each state would have collected two- 72 bridges out of that 3 trillion naira. Now I don’t know how many trillion this $47billion dollar is. I can’t even calculate it. When you look at it that way, that’s what we threw away and then we are still promising that we will build second Niger Bridge. I ask myself are we on the same page because I don’t know how long the second Niger bridge is but that Lekki bridge is 1.3 kilometers. We don’t have rail, we again borrowing, we are spending, we have built 8 kilometers of rail inside the city.
That was supposed to be launched since July?
I never said it would be launched in July, I said that section would be completed in July. There is still a lot of work to do: we still have to build signals, we have to electrify. We can’t bring diesel engines again. You can’t electrify in sections, it is possible but it is not cost effective. It is a work in progress, at least we have started, again we have showed that we dare to talk difficult decisions. The day we started, somebody told me, ‘we can’t do it’. I said go and tell somebody else, not me, I am going to start. When we started, it was estimated to cost about $2 billion dollars. All the money we had was about 3 billion naira so I called the contractor go and start. We would build it inch by inch. They said the money is not complete, the finance is not complete, I said I know. The longer we wait, the more it will not be complete. What is there in brick and mortal is an asset for Lagos.
CONCLUDED
