“Fashola’s Administration uninformed n lazy, will reproduce Jakande’s magic In Lagos” -Gbadamosi

In this interview Mr. Babatunde Olalere Gbadamosi, popularly called BOG is a governorship aspirant reviews the affairs of the outgoing All Progressives Congress, APC administration and puts forward his ideas on how government can be better run. 
Excerpts: 

What inspired you to enter the PDP governorship contest in Lagos State?

I am motivated, first of all, by the level of desperation that I see around me, by the degree of deprivation that is obvious to most Lagosians and by the fact that we have enough in terms of human resources, enough in terms of financial resources to engender massive improvement in the way we live our lives these days in Lagos State as well as the expectations of our people from government . 

Even while at the same time not making government to manages every aspect of our people’s lives and to use the weapon of tax destruction to overburden our people with what I would consider these days to be impunity of taxes; tax on prosperity, tax on wealth, tax on success.

Discouraging of investments

If you are successful you can expect the Lagos State government, currently under the APC, to come after you with its plethora of taxes whose next effect is to discourage investment in the state; to discourage enterprise among the people of Lagos State.

And there is no better example of this than the sustained attacks on the last link in the distribution chain: the retailers, the street traders, the roadside hawkers by the government’s agencies like KAI and the multitude of uniforms. 

I am motivated to throw my hat in the ring because I believe that I have the ability to resolve a lot of the issues that are setting the people against one another. 

What do you think are the major problems of Lagos and how do you intend to handle them?

I think one thing fundamental in terms of the character of this administration and its personnel seems to be one of inordinate accumulation of wealth.  They seem to be fixed on the need to become exceedingly wealthy at the expense of everybody else, so that funds that are supposed to have been channelled into public services end up in the pockets of public officials. 

Now, if funds that are meant to provide schools for the children of the poor across the state end up in the pockets of those who want to own every hotel and airline in sight, that, in my opinion, is at the root of the constant state of crisis in which the people of Lagos seem to find themselves or are seen to find themselves in the last fifteen years. 

Given that you are a major player in the housing market, how would you approach the housing crisis in Lagos?

When we solve the housing problem, we will not be doing anything unique.  I mean we will not be doing anything that has not been done before.  The Alhaji Lateef Jakande’s administration, in a period of four years, built 20,000 housing units in addition to building more schools, in addition to adding to the number roads that we had, repairing the existing roads and upgrading previous bush paths into properly tarred roads in addition to building several waterworks across Lagos State. 

So you can see that they did all that in four years and they were very, very busy.  They were very focused and they were very determined to achieve as much as possible within the space of time that they had.  They did not waste time studying the final point of government as it were and that was especially interesting considering the fact that Alhaji Jakande had never been in government prior to the time that he got elected as governor of Lagos State.  He had no previous experience of government whatsoever! 

If Alhaji Jakande was able to achieve 20,000 housing units in four years, 30 years ago, you have to agree that today, 30 years later with the several technological advancements in the construction industry would have made it possible to achieve at least double of that within the same period of time.  Now I say to you that I will achieve ten times of that within the same period of time and I am saying this because of my knowledge and cognate experience of the construction industry. Not only that I can achieve that, but also at much cheaper than the current administration is offering. 

Achieving provision of housing units at cheaper than the current prices?

Yes.  I hear Fashola’s administration say that there is no such thing as affordable land and all that, which I find very, very uncharitable on the part of the governor. 

I find it to be quite uninformed and I find it to be quite lazy considering the fact that, in general, the government does not pay full value for land.  Note that I did not say government does not pay for land.  I said they do not pay full commercial market value for land.  And many examples abound in Lagos State of forcible government acquisition of land belonging to the indigenes of Lagos, which have been left fallow or handed over to estate developers, who, because they do not have the funds, put fence, put a few roads in and then wait for buyers to come and buy. 

So, my intention as governor is to make homes for as many Lagosians as possible within the first four years of our administration.

So to that end, we will be pursuing a very focused, affordable housing policy and you will see a large amount of affordable housing estates springing up across the state.  And from my experience and in a very sustainable manner, those houses will be built with time in mind, with longevity in mind and the infrastructures provided to such estates will be of much higher standard than we are seeing now. That I must assure you.