More than ever, I now cherish the Yoruba adage that admonishes thus: Be quick at listening but hesitant in responding. Truth has some inherent features. It is persevering, as it possesses the capacity to endure the characteristic lightening speed of falsehood and deceit. Still, on the long run, truth, courtesy of its snail speed, always overtakes falsehood. And, having become self-manifest, it can never be relegated or suppressed, as any attempt to conceal the truth can only succeed as much as any human effort to cover the sun can do.
Judging by the aggressive infrastructure revolution which Ambode has already launched across the Centre of Excellence, the virtue of patience that every judge or assessor of any reality requires and the danger of hasty conclusions have become self-manifest to Nigerians and mankind, in general.
As a wakaabout pen-pusher, what eventually overpowered my sense of restraint and caution, as manifest in this seemingly patronizing publication, were not just the sweet songs streaming daily forth the lips of multitudes about Governor Akinwunmi Ambode who, to a large number, is now the proverbial persona originally underrated as incapable of erecting a hut but who has, surprisingly, built multiple mansions. What did the magic on me was, partly, a recent personal experience of swift response of the governor and his team to some public criticism by an ‘unknown’ private voice.
I am compelled to refer to the swiftness with which the government swung into action on the problem raised in my recent piece. Ambode: Time to act on Lagos Apartheid Schools in The Nation (November 4). At least, journalism is necessarily a two-way evangelism of objectivity which must not only condemn to correct, but also necessarily commend to motivate and encourage perceived goodness.
Although that loathsome long stretch of fence has not been pulled down or, at least, opened by the state government, credible reports, however, indicate great hope for the down-trodden on this issue.
I mean that apartheid fence that was the crux of my piece may soon be fallen. That segregationist structure, erected by the privileged residents of Gbagada Estate, which unwittingly shut out the Idi Odo trio of primary schools from the reach of the relatively less-privileged Bariga residents that need its services. The fence that has reduced Ogo Oluwa Primary School, Idi Odo Primary School and Temidire Primary School to institutions for, mostly, housemaids, house-helps and other categories of child-slaves and child-labourers engaged by Gbagada residents, for whose biological offspring such public schools are no schools.
If there was anything that ever gave Ambode sleepless nights in his first few days on the hot seat, particularly within the first hundred days I am sure it was the hell called Lagos traffic. Then, insanity defied excellence, as it walked on all fours, swaggering on Lagos roads, almost forcing the most discerning to mourn the exit of law and order in company of ex-Governor Fashola. Commercial motorcycle (okada) riders went haywire, openly announcing seeming relapse of Lagos into the Hobbesian State of Nature.
Worse-still, the governor’s opening act of declaring zero tolerance against abuses by officers of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) was widely misconstrued to mean a mark of not just meekness but, essentially, weakness and lack of capacity to handle tough Lagos, particularly traffic and crime.
And, in less than two years, time, as it is wont to, has indeed thought Nigerians, particularly Lagosians a great lesson. If anything, the multi-dimensional benefits of ‘the Light Up Lagos Project’ courtesy of which night darkness is being practically expelled on the vast network of Lagos highways is, to many a discerning mind, a cautionary bell that rings the imperatives of patience into the ears of Nigerians, particularly with respect to the governance of a highly complex mega entity that Lagos State really is.
I can’t but give a personal testimony that I now feel safer and more comfortable driving on Lagos brightly illuminated roads at nights. Kudos to this government that has manifested what some of us have always craved for – emphasis on crime prevention mechanisms instead of crime-curing that the tradition of over-crowding our roads with policemen hunting from real and imagined criminals, day and night, represents.
On the stubborn problem of traffic congestion, the modest feat so far achieved through the installation of median barriers along the Ikorodu Road must have sent a signal to the governor himself that, with improved creativity, the greatest source of headache, sleeplessness, time and financial wastage can indeed be conquered within the statutory time left for him. All he need do is think and work like a jackal while assuming that a second term, for him, exists not.
I suspect that this vital assumption, which is a necessary condition for altruistic actions by political office holders generally, has been the secret beneath what I see as the predilections of Ambode to stepping on toes for the general good. The restoration of environmental peace and sanity to the various government low-cost housing estates across the state is a plain instance of apolitical and non-sentimental efforts. Only the All-knowing God can tell, with precision, the number of illegal structures that have, so far, been demolished within the boundaries of those vast estates built by the 2nd Republic administration of Alhaji Lateef Jakande.
To further amplify my stand on innovativeness as the antidote of traffic logjams, the resort to bus lay-bys by the Ambode administration, such as the newly constructed facility at the Ketu-Alapere junction on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway which has significantly eased traffic flow at that hitherto reputably notorious junction, is indeed a revolutionary departure from our one-eyed tradition of fly-over proliferation. Nevertheless, the currently emerging appearances of fly-over bridges where necessary, such as yet another point of perennial traffic brouhaha, Abule-Egba, underscore the imperatives of not just innovative but context-based choices in relation to traffic issues.
One can only wish that Governor Ambode would extend the same spirit of urgency and priority he has, so far, attached to the improvement of the Lagos road networks to the rail medium. Apart from the need to vigorously re-energize the on-going light rail project, he would successfully write his name in gold through the completion of this gigantic project, the entire Lagos-Badagry Expressway reconstruction project, and, possibly initiating yet other rail line projects in some other areas of the State requiring such.
To round off, the recently held Lagos State Food Security Summit, in my view, constitutes yet another indisputable reference point that empirically proves my take that, rather than spoiling, Lagos is improving under Ambode. It is instructive that the all-important issue of food security, which holds the most indispensable key to human existence, gained a space in Lagos State administration, for the first time in history, as soon as Ambode emerged. This, to me, soothes the discomfort and discontent usually expressed by Nigerians in most states, as they, justifiably and rhetorically, question the essence of new roads and bridges in a context of murderous hunger. Sincere implementation of the summit resolutions, to banish the currently biting widespread hunger in the land, would really confer common sense on all of Ambode’s infrastructure acts.
- Olokode writes vide solacemediaconsult@gmail.com
