Mr Gbenga Omotosho is the Commissioner of Information and Strategy in Lagos State. In this interactive session with the media during the Citizens’ Engagement Forum organized by the ministry, he provided answers to some the questions raised on the activities of the state government to create conducive, liveable and sustainable environment for all residents and visitors. DAYO AYEYEMI, reports.
What is government doing about the water challenge in the state?
There are challenges. Let’s look at rust pipes, the water that is being produced, being wasted in some areas, sabotage, and so many other things. So, about 30 percent of what we should be doing is what we are doing now. And for a growing city like Lagos, there is no way 30 percent or 100 percent can be enough. It’s just like a drop in the ocean. But what we are doing. is to see some of the mini waterworks that we can rehabilitate. But those ones are not really solving the problem.
So, we are thinking the idea of Adiyan 11, which is having capacity to produce about 70 million gallons per day. If that comes up, we will have been able to solve the water problem to a larger extent. But I will not deceive you, this requires a lot of money. So, we are working on it. Recently, Governor Sanwo-Olu signed a cheque of N600 million for Ogun State.
This is just to clear the right-of-way for all the things we need to do, for us to be able to pipe water all the way from Adiyan down to the heart of Lagos. Now, some of the communities in this area said they didn’t want money. They didn’t want any compensation, but once this project is ready, let us have water in our communities. So, we are working with Ogun State Government to make sure that we realise 70 million gallons daily we can get from Adiyan. I do not want to give any deadline, but I know that we will reach a substantial level this year. By the time some of the mini-waterworks are working, and this starts to come on board, we will have been able to see if we can do something very comfortable with the water challenge.
On the challenge of streetlights.
I agree with you that we also have a challenge in the area of the streetlights. By the time Governor Sanwo-Olu came on board, we were spending about N600 million a month to light all those streetlights, buying diesel too.
But with high cost, this is not sustainable. It doesn’t make any financial sense, neither does it make any economic sense to spend N600 million a month on diesel to power streetlights.
So, we decided to use gas to power some of them. Then, as many as possible, let us put them under the public power system, so that whenever you have lights, the streetlights can come on. However, this is not working as it should be, because several times, we hear about grid collapse, we hear about vandalism in so many places.
So, the public system is not serving the streetlights very well. What do we do? We now said, let us use solar. And to use solar, you must have seen so many of them all over the place. Some few solar lights are nice, but very many of them are very weak. So, the government now sat down and invited experts to come and look at all the systems that people have brought together to see what we can do. Very soon, we are beginning the installation of about 2,000 solar lamps all over Lagos. And I believe with the research that has been done about that, it’s going to work and it’s going to satisfy us. The advantage is that you have a clean energy, and you are no longer running your business as you used to. The advantages are that it’s also cheaper to maintain and easy to regulate.
On the challenge of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)
It also boils down to what I said about the traffic situation. If the government put a plan in place, you have to consider the fact that the human element is something that is very difficult to deal with. People always ask me, why is it that we don’t enforce our laws? It’s not that we don’t enforce our laws, but the way many of our people behave, many of those who are visitors. There are so many things that true Lagosians will not do. But there are times you find visitors or people who just want to sabotage the system, misbehaving. Part of those people are those who go onto those bridges to remove railings, to remove lamps, to dig holes on roads so that there could be traffic jam. These are very terrible human behaviors that shouldn’t be found among true Lagosians.
Since Governor Sanwo-Olu mounted the saddle, we’ve done over 1,000 new buses. We’ve seen Lagrides. We did over 500 rides, and so many other things like that.
If you feel that it’s time for us to overhaul it and look at it, well, I would disclose the information that they should look at it. Some of the buses, you know, it’s not something that government should look at and do. That is why we invited the private sector to invest in that sector because it is very large, it is very huge, and everything that we do, most of the time depends on transportation. There is no system that doesn’t have its own problems. The problem of the buses is that it also attracts negative comments, it also attracts negative actions.
What is government doing to revamp the dilapidated Jakande Estates in Lagos?
There’s a plan to get them renovated. We started in some areas, but one thing is that before you do this kind of thing, you need to think about relocation for the people who are occupying the estates now. You can see that those estates when they were built were able to serve the purposes for which they were built at that time. But the kind of houses the government is building now is quite different, more comfortable
And I think that to bring those estates to the level of what we have today, anywhere in the world, people need to move.
The Lagos State Government through the Ministry Housing, and Physical Planning are taking steps to ensure that all of them are renovated so that they can become new again. Like I said, talking to people to move is a very big assignment. In this place, people don’t want to leave their places at all unless they see clear and present danger.
Even at that, you still find people staying in houses that have been mapped for demolition. Then you can see that in so many parts of Lagos, we’ve been able to move people who used to occupy Okobaba Sawmill, we’ve been able to move people in Pelewura and so many other places for urban regeneration that we are doing.
So people in that estates that I’m talking about.must be relocated. The estates will become new by the time the government finishes what it has prepared.
What is the government doing to curtail the excesses of estate agents who will give out house on the annual rent of 400,000 and still ask you to pay 350,000 for agency, agreement, commission, damages fees?
So many people are talking about this, and on Tuesday, we had a specific discussion. The main thing that we were discussing on that day was this topic. But I was surprised that even as we were discussing it, people were diverting to other things, nobody was talking about this again. So I believe that it’s a very serious problem. I believe that it’s just the management that has to continue.
If all of us agree not to pay all those fees, nobody will pay. There is an agency of government, the Lagos State Real Estate Regulation Agency, where all developers, agencies, contractors, everybody in this sector is supposed to be registered. When you have a complaint, the kind of thing that we are talking about, you can take the complaint there. And I know the agency has solved so many problems between landlords and tenants, between developers and landowners, between tenant to tenant. It’s an area that is well regulated, but the problem is that people are not taking advantage of this agency. When people have this kind of problem, they should not just keep it to themselves. The agency is there for everyone.
On shortage of doctors and Japa syndrome
One thing that you have not brought to this is that there is also what we now call Japada. Some of our doctors and personnel who left for overseas, some of them are back. We are not waiting for that, because the government is pushing to set up its own University of Medical Science. The LASUCOM that we have, we are turning it to a full-fledged university. And what this means is that instead of a few hundreds of doctors being turned up every year, because the government will also have the capacity, put in everything that is possible in terms of resources, in terms of personnel to train doctors, so that we can have thousands of them that are coming up every year.
We have the talents, we have the human resources, we have the giants in that sector who can produce as many doctors as possible, as many nurses as possible, as many laboratory assistants as possible. They are going to be skilled and comfortable.
On the issue of Okada on highway
Okada is a very controversial matter. The government keeps taking them off the road.
I wonder where the new ones are coming from. Don’t forget, Okada is not banned all over Lagos. They are banned on major highways, on bridges, and in some local governments.
So where they are not banned, they are free to operate. But where they are banned, like all these highways, every time the cops go over there, we collect Okada from them. But it’s unfortunate that some human rights organisations, still feel Okada is a kind of human rights’ symbol, that Okada should be allowed to move freely.
The government, before pronouncing any ban on Okada, simply laid out all of the disadvantages of having this mode of transportation and said categorically that Okada does not belong to the greater Lagos region on which we have been mapped.
Talking about libraries in rural areas?
I know that since Mr Sanwo-Olu became governor, we have renovated about 80 libraries in Lagos. But this one that we are talking about, the kind of libraries that we can put in rural areas with internet, with instructors, and so many other things that we make the people in the rural areas have a sense of belonging and to feel that the government knows what they deserve and government is giving it to them.
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