Ambode needs two terms to do more for Lagosians —Rasaq

Chief Lanre Rasaq, a chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC) is a former Commissioner for Transport and governorship candidate of defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in Lagos State. He speaks with BOLA BADMUS and TUNDE ALAO on the administration of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and national issues. Excerpts:

WHAT  is your perception of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration in the last two and a half years.

You cannot finish talking about Ambode’s government, because it is wonderful, scientific and one which knows what it is doing. The choice projects are targeted at the need of the people. Look at what the governor is doing at Iyana-Oworo. When you are coming from the Third Mainland Bridge and going into Lagos, it used to be a journey you don’t feel like going through in those days. But when he did the wonderful layby in that Oworo and there are some escape routes he provided, the traffic logjam was removed. When he knew that at Alapere the situation was not all that good, he did a road that went into Alapere and that one too removed the bottleneck. Go to Ojodu- Berger, see what he did there and that is it. Go to Iyana- Ipaja, you may not believe it’s only two years he has spent in government and has been able to deliver that kind of bridge.

And then, we come to our own Epe, where he has done wonderfully well and he did the projects in a way that nobody could accuse him of concentrating in Epe. There is no area in Lagos State that Ambode is not touching. He is fair and just and that’s why we are very happy and proud to beat our chest that Ambode is from Epe and we are happy for that.

The governor has planned to revolutionalise the transportation system in Lagos State by bringing thousands of buses but the transport unions are already talking about job loss for their members. Do you also see it that way as former Commissioner for Transport in the state?

You see those raising the fear that he is going to chase them out of business do not consider certain things. The inefficiency of our transport system in Lagos State has been making us to lose billions of money. And those who claim he is going to chase them out of business are drivers, bus owners and others.  It is the fear of the unknown and they don’t have the details and how can you start attacking what you don’t have the details about in your hand? We have seen it work, Blue Line Buses have been introduced. People will park their cars and join the buses because they know it’s less expensive to them. It is economically reasonable for them to do that. By the time the 5,000 buses arrive, those saying bad thing about it would embrace it. Look at the damage the dilapidated buses are doing to our properties and lives. Can’t we consider the value of lives, can’t we consider the value of time? The more good buses we have on the road plying the BRT Lanes, the better for us. It will save us a lot of manhour, the turn-around would be much. Let them go to the interior, they need them there, let them take to some other routes.

In London, not every bus go to London City, not every taxi. You will discover that if we have a better public transport system, it’s better for you to drop your car and join public transport service. You don’t do that in advanced countries and we cannot continue to clamour for advancement and improvement and yet we ignore things that will take us to the level of advancement. My appeal to Lagosians and those who live and work in Lagos is to embrace all these good programmes being introduced by Governor Ambode.

Every state has challenges, so what are the peculiar challenges Lagos State is facing and how do you think those challenges can be addressed?

One of the major challenges we have in Lagos State is that Lagos was the Federal Capital and now they (Federal Capital Authority) had a lot of infrastructure in Lagos State they left before going to Abuja. They are looking back to take care of those projects, namely the Third Mainland Bridge, the Western Avenue and Apapa- Oworo, especially the ports are here and you can imagine the suffering of Lagosians in the last three weeks because of the roads in Apapa that should ordinarily serve the ports got destroyed and people had to go there to load their goods and petroleum products from there. That is why the queue had to stress through Western Avenue, through Apapa Road and some spill up to Clifford Road in Ebute-Meta and Oyingbo. Those are the challenges and that is why we are appealing to the National Assembly to consider Lagos for a special treatment.

For instance, out of the VAT being paid into the Federation Account, Lagos State alone is responsible for about 70per cent, while oil-producing states have a certain percentage of fund being allocated to them as derivation, which is 13 per cent of money coming into Federation Account. That should be considered in terms of VAT, 13per cent of whatever is collected from Lagos State as VAT should be given to us in the state and should give special fund to the Lagos State to enable it maintain the infratructure provided in Lagos as a former Federal Capital city.

It appears you are one of those throwing weight behind the call for the restructuring of the country…

I have said it several times that we must restructure, but we should not under any circumstances, break up the great country. The fear of the people is that the Federal Government does not need the quantum of money at its disposal and that’s why people are just packing, stealing Federal Government’s money as no man’s business. If you look at revelations coming out from EFCC, ICPC, you’ll agree that the Federal Government does not need the kind of money at its disposal and that is the reason why everybody is rushing to the centre. Instead of giving the Federal Government about 56 per cent of national revenue, let them get 40 per cent, and 60 per cent should be shared between the states and local governments. With that, people will concentrate on the development of their areas.

And one thing I want to appeal is that we should stop concentrating on revenue from oil. In the past, we had cocoa, we had palm kernel, we had the Groundnut Pyramid, we had cotton, we should go back to farm.

There has been clamour for local government autonomy which is part of restructuring. What is your take on that?

Financial autonomy is what I think they are advocating. They are saying just give us autonomy and let us run our affairs separately and develop our areas. Something close to that was in existence before. The Civil Service Commission for Local Government was in place before it was eradicated. At that time, they were allowed to employ and train their staff. Unfortunately, it got to a point that the whole thing was messed up. Most of them couldn’t even pay salary of primary school teachers. A lot of teachers were owed 3-4 years of salary arrears. In fact, it got to a point that state government had to take over some of their basic responsibilities. I think that is part of what they are asking for that those responsibilities should be restored to them so that they can be more effective and relevant.

This is the same thing that states are saying to the Federal Government. They are saying what does Federal Government have to do with primary schools? It’s not its business. Let them concentrate on tertiary institutions like the universities and polytechnics. Similarly, states also have nothing to do with primary schools. Let them concentrate on secondary schools and technical colleges. The kind of people we have at the local government levels failed to get it right, and when you fails to get it right at the primary level which is the foundation, who are our tomorrow leaders? And that is why there must be devolution of power. It’s bad, all the money Federal Government is spending on Tetfund, and other similar interventions on primary education, what is the result? We are not getting it right. The money is not getting to the right quarters. So, there should be proper devolution of power and proper representation. We should discontinue a structure by which the centre is too attractive. Let people concentrate and develop their states like it was during the regional government. We know what happened in the Western Region, the Northern and Eastern Regions, when there were Crown Agents with a lot of money in the overseas and a lot of good things happening then. We need to go back to that era, where health system and other sectors were working very well.