In the first part of this piece last week, we had surmised mainly that Lagos, like Nigeria, will not achieve the status of a modern mega city if it does not tinker with the current template. We said that unless the component parts (LGAs and LCDAs) are geared to work at optimum, there is nothing even a great governor can do to fast-track modernity.
We gave the example of the USA; zeroing it down to a random example of the state of Michigan, down to a county (Lake County) and to the village of Baldwin. The crucial point being made is that at every level there is a government that is responsible for every inch of space in its domain and every individual within that space.
Lake County and its smaller unit, Baldwin are both structured to function accountably and to take charge of every aspect of its socio-economic life i.e. revenues, security, law and order, judiciary, health, education, etc. The biggest revenues earner for Baldwin for instance is its well developed water and eco-tourism. But here, our water ways have been abandoned for militants and forests are breeding grounds for terrorists.
Our third and fourth tiers of government across the country are practically shutdown with no funds, no creativity and hardly any productive activity going on. Lagos must buck this trend and reactivate the LGAs and LCDAs lest all the troubles of insecurity, unemployment and filthy underdevelopment will get worse.
After putting the lower tiers of government on proper track, Lagos will have to rework other critical sectors not only to make them mega-city ready but to have them withstand the exponential growth of the city in the next decades. Some of the development indices that must be reframed include security, health, education, transportation, tourism and youth and sports, among others.
A vulnerable city: Happenings in recent times have proved beyond doubts that Lagos has increasingly become very vulnerable. Almost every night, pockets of the city are savaged by hoodlums. It happens so frequently that the news media don’t even bother to report them anymore. Perhaps government would like to take a sneak peek at police reports to have an idea.
Armed gangs have understood that the police and security agents are laughably under strength, they have become more emboldened. They hold out an entire estate for several hours coolly ransacking and damaging it. Most times they are gone before the police manage to answer any distress call. Sometimes when they manage to catch them in the act, they square up to the police and return fire.
The truth is that Lagos is being overwhelmed by crime and insecurity. It gets worse by the day. The state must redraw the security template with the federal government but being careful not to mention ‘restructure’. Lagos and Abuja must as a matter of urgency set up a joint committee on Lagos project.
The rationale is that Lagos remains a microcosm of the country and if Lagos works well, one third of the country would probably work. The committee will look at critical areas of intervention and recommend to the federal government.
Security is one such area. You cannot have the same security template in Lagos as obtains in other cities. Lagos must broaden her security architecture, building cyber networks and deploying more technology than the current ‘kick and pursue’ approach to policing. In an emerging mega city, emphasis must be on pre-empting, deterrence and punishment for criminals.
A local government area working properly would have a proper policing system anyway.
City on a slow lane: Transportation and attendant mass movement are yet again, a big city’s boldest signature or albatross. Consider that about 150 years ago, when rail lines became fully developed as the best mass transit man had, London central area was already fully built up. What to do? The authorities decided to tunnel under London city and passed the rail lines underground. That was how come we have the underground trains in London, US, Europe and other parts of the world.
If Lagos is already too built up, can we have the underground skirting it? Lagos waterways are the most undeveloped and underutilised one knows. Lagos has not even begun to scratch the riches of the bodies of water surrounding it in terms of transportation, tourism and sports. And the good news is that a big city that is gaining in immense importance like Lagos easily attracts international finance for big ticket projects. Unlike security, most projects in the transport sector would fend for themselves through PPP. A mega city is hardly built on taxpayers’ money.
A city without a soul: Lagos must be the only one of its kind without major tourism, culture and entertainment signatures. The type of places and monuments reckoned with all over the world. Accra and perhaps Dakar have managed to extract some vengeance from their slave history by making their sites into a panoply of educational, cultural and tourism enterprise. Lagos has a better potential in Badagry. Combine the sites with a stretch of beautiful beaches of the Atlantic – paradise.
The mouldy National Arts Theatre is the only cultural spot in this city; any major state museum? Where are the mini stadia, civic and recreation centres? Why can’t the city muster annual sports festival, big football league and annual film festival and so on? Big modern cities are made of stuff like these.
To cut the story short, every sector, every index of development deeds to be reinvented in a bigger and bolder way. Health, education, agriculture, industry, power, ethnic relations, etc.; the idea here is to begin today to envision Lagos of 10, 20 and 50 years ahead.
If we do not think in this wise, we shall merely be rolling from one crisis to another. CONCLUDED
No to Okorocha Formula
News emanating from Imo State right now is most laughable if not outright comical. Is it for real that the state government under Governor Rochas Okorocha has devised a formula of three days on and two days off for Imo civil servants?
If this were true, it should trouble any reasonable Imo man or woman. What this marks, in case some people do not see it, is the final destruction of the Imo civil service. What is a state without her bureaucracy; especially a well-primed one?
From the outset of Okorocha’s administration it had been apparent that he is anti-system. But the world is built on systems, institutions, processes, procedures and structures. Yes, Okorocha may have indeed built some monuments, but they would be standing in a vacuum without the requisite systems.
Finally, this column cannot accept that Imo cannot produce enough to maintain her workforce and indeed meet her needs. This ‘Okorocha Formula’ cannot stand; it lacks rigour and deep thought. In fact it is ridiculous and should be rescinded.
