How we built Lagos’ 3rd Mainland Bridge with less than N1bn —IBB

In an interview granted the maiden edition of a specialised publication, Matters of Heritage, dedicated to 50 years of Lagos State, which was released on Friday, former military president, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, speaks of a rare singular event that prodded him to recommence and complete the construction of the 11.8 kilometre-long Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos (one of the longest bridges in Africa). He spoke on other issues, including why he considers himself a Lagosian. Excerpts:

We know you were not born in Lagos but when was your first time in Lagos? And what is your personal history with the state?

The first contact I had with Lagos was through an assignment earlier in 1967 and I was there for a very short period. Then I went on a training, came back in 1971 to Nigeria Defence Academy, where I was a teacher under the late General Adeyinka Adebayo. He was my commandant, a very brilliant gentleman. By 1973, I was due for posting and the military authorities posted me to Lagos. I remained in Lagos for a long while. I was in Ikeja Cantonment. From Ikeja, I went to Epe, where I had my troops and later, Badagry. That was how my visit to Lagos started. I was there until 1991 when I moved to Abuja. I was in Lagos for 18 years, so I can claim to be a Lagosian any day, anytime.

You will recall that when you were leaving for Abuja as Head of State, you wanted to board the plane when journalists rushed at you for a word or something and you said in the midst of a conversation that, ‘Oh! I will miss Obalende’. Exactly what were you going to miss about Obalende?

I once lived there. Dodan Barracks was there, not far from the ever-busy Obalende park. I had a lot of friends. We met during prayers and so on. I made a lot of friends there.

Lagos is doing well today with marked infrastructural development, but one of the most outstanding infrastructure in Lagos is the 3rd Mainland Bridge which was completed and commissioned by your regime as the military president domiciled in Lagos. It has remained strong ever since and of quality service to Lagosians. How were you able to achieve the feat? What informed your decision to see the construction through?

If I remember very well, in 1982 or 83, yeah, I saw a programme, “The Squandering of Riches”, on an American television channel. They were reporting on some of the white elephant projects that African governments embarked upon. I watched as the lead presenter climbed the abandoned 3rd Mainland Bridge and as he talked, he gave it as an example of how African governments embarked on projects and never completed them. And when he got to the point where the construction stopped then, he said nobody could tell where the construction was leading at that time and that he was of the opinion that it could well lead to oblivion. That struck me and informed my desire to change that narrative. I saw it then as an insult, a foreigner talking about my country in that manner. I also saw it as something I needed to do something about if given the opportunity.

That was what happened. And fortunately, as God would have it, in 1985, I was appointed the military president. I remember the thing very well. It is in my head. I told myself I was going to ensure the completion of the project. So, I called Raji Rasaki who was the military governor of Lagos State at the time. We sat down and had a good chat about it. As usual, he said, ‘Well, this is a state government. We probably don’t have the money to complete it’. And I said, ‘No, let’s put our resources together and see what we can do’.

Both federal and state governments?

Yes, but it had to be the contractors who started the work.

There was Julius Berger. There were PGH and Bank Anthony, an Italian contractor and one or two others, and then Lagos State government itself. So, I brought them all together and said, look, this is my intention, is it doable? They all looked at me and said yes, it was doable provided I was going to provide the money. And I said money won’t be a problem, because the state government, Federal Government and PGH were going to provide the money. So, the engineers and everybody said yes, it could be done. It happened to be my birthday, when we had that meeting.

So, I said, ‘I will have to commission this bridge on any of my birthday’. That was a challenge I gave the engineers and they took it very seriously. So, Colonel Raji Rasaki and I put our heads together and, sure, the money was made available so that when the work started, there wouldn’t be any delay due to lack of funds. We got the money ready and the engineers were mobilized to site. That was how the completion of the 3rd Mainland Bridge restarted. By God’s grace, they fulfilled their promise and on my next birthday, I commissioned that bridge. I was very happy, very proud of it. The engineers were good. They were serious. They were patriots. They worked their heads off.

It was the longest bridge in Africa at that time and mostly built by Africans. So, this is the story behind that bridge. I am happy. I did not spend up to N1 billion on that bridge. Today, you have to spend about N1 trillion to build that bridge. You see the bridge still standing strong. It will continue to stand strong because the government is doing well with it; they are maintaining it.

And then there was a story – and you are the only one who can substantiate it – that you even planned the design of the 4th Mainland Bridge…

Yes, we thought about it but then we didn’t have enough time. There was no time to start it and I didn’t want to embark on it and leave a problem for the next administration so they won’t say we left an uncompleted project for them. We had the intention. We couldn’t start it but I understand now that the government wants to do it. And I know it is not going to be easy.

When considering your outstanding achievements, especially your commitment and the situation of the infrastructure in Lagos, one looks at the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) too. It is something that you pioneered, which has come to stay, which a lot of other African nations have adopted. How did you come about that?

This was thanks to Professor Wole Soyinka. It was his idea. It was he who was concerned about road accidents and came up with a programme which they started in Ibadan. I can’t remember what it was.

It was Wole Soyinka’s brainchild. We were very good friends, so when he sold this idea to us, we called him and sat with him to know how to replicate the programme he was already doing so well in Ibadan. He said it was doable; that we could do it nationwide. As a government in those days, we were very receptive to bright ideas. Anybody who came with a very bright idea and was capable of doing it, we gave them support. So, we gave Professor Wole Soyinka all the support and I am glad that till today it is still working.

Looking at your style of leadership while in power, especially with regard to deliberately and actively engaging academia for the design of programmes for government and policy formulation, one wonders what gave you this idea. Was it native intelligence or what?

When I was growing up, I was very highly mobile, in the sense that I mixed easily with people, intellectuals, businessmen, captains of industry. I made a lot of friends and I was attending a lot of seminars, too, in those days. I was also going on courses, so as we moved around, our horizons were broadened. One developed ideas about how government works and how government should work. You had a lot of ideas about development and how development could be done but don’t forget that at that time, the military was the in-thing in Africa and Nigeria was not an exception to that. So, we all knew these things but the way I looked at it is, a leader should be able to know what is good for his people. If you are able to know that, then you go ahead and invite people with ideas of what you want. This is what I did in my administration. We knew what the people wanted and came up with ideas on how best to deliver those things to them.

In 1989, you advocated a two-party system, part-time legislature and many other things that many thought, “Well, is IBB just talking? What does he know about politics? How did you come about your theories?

Nothing mysterious; I was just being realistic. Having gone through this, having seen other countries, one needed to keep thinking about what was best for my country. We commissioned studies about formation of political parties in this country. We had the histories. We knew the things that happened and why they happened and so on. Even immediately after Independence, you know, the idea of two parties started manifesting. You had in those days UPGA, and then you had Nigerian National Alliance (NNA). These were two political parties made up of various other political organisations forming themselves into one. So, when the Second Republic came, it was the same thing that we wanted. Although we had five political parties, you could easily say that we had two parties. Then we came up with the two parties, in accordance with happenings the world over. Even in Britain, you are either Labour or Conservative. And what we discovered about democracy is that it gives you a choice and if you have two choices, you still have a choice; you either go to this one or you go to the other one. So, the opportunity for a choice is still provided for you because out of the two, you could choose one and live comfortably with it. That is number one.

Number two, you know Nigeria very well. Very soon, what we were doing, people started talking and I knew they were going to talk. They will demand for people to achieve ethnic balancing or religious balancing. So, you do your best to meet the expectation of the people. For example, in the Second Republic, the leader of NPN was Adisa Akinloye. Adisa Akinloye came from Ibadan, in the South West. The President (Alhaji Shehu Shagari) was from Sokoto, in the North. That was the type of balancing Nigerians will always want in the executive and legislative arms of government, people from various parts of the country.  So, if you are talking of unity, this two-party system thing is what I would recommend for this country anytime.

Looking at the agitations by some ethnic nationalities, which suggest that Nigeria should be divided along the lines of its major ethnic composition, what is your take on this?

They should look back at history to see what happened when we were trying to develop, when we were trying to grow as a nation and went into all sorts of problems which culminated, unfortunately and tragically, in a war that caused the death of so many good people in this country. I believe that this country must remain one and united. The major problem I find plaguing our country right now is that of nationhood. We must first of all have a country, redefine Nigeria and Nigerians. The citizenry must be knowledgeable about what is expected of their leaders and make a demand of them. Enough of being president in favour of an ethnic group, anybody occupying the office of the President of Nigeria is a father to all ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria. This idea of ‘it is our turn too’ must be taken out of our national psyche. We should look for the best and the brightest among us to steer the affairs of our nation from time to time. I think the Lagos story is a good example of that.

We should not be looking for a president who is from the South-South, or South-East, or North-West or North-East. The person we should always look for is a complete Nigerian who knows Nigeria, who understands Nigeria, who sees himself as not being from a geopolitical zone. Then it means we are already settled on our identity. Our greatest problem now is identity. Once we settle that, I think we will be fine. We need to change the idea that the president must come from here or there or that this particular region has not had it for this number of years, then it is the turn of that region…

Meaning, we should focus more on the profile and character of the person?

Yes. You know, that sort of thing has to change. You have a man, so the questions around our choice should be, is the man good? Does he have the qualities of a leader? Does he have experience in public service? Can he be trusted?

You once described Chief Obafemi Awolowo as the main issue in Nigeria politics and when he died, he was given a befitting state burial…

[cuts in] Awolowo was a political icon for Nigeria, not just for the South-West. It is a matter of history. You can easily go back and look at the whole idea about this country. There are people who, for our today, gave their yesterday, people who worked for this country because they wanted the country to succeed, people who spent their lives in such a way that they didn’t have time for their families or to attend to their businesses. They were solely focused on the well-being of this country and there are quite a few of them in Nigeria. Chief Obafemi Awolowo was one of them and I was very lucky because I happened to know him very well and interact with him.

Any personal relationship?

Yes, that was even before I became the military president. I knew him as a man who worked hard for this country, as one of the founding fathers of this country. This was a man who had what it takes to be a leader. He knew what his people wanted and he was able to get it for them. Whoever you are, Awolowo could identify with you, whether rich or poor, literate or illiterate. He felt at home when he was with farmers. He felt at home when he was with religious leaders. Many people believed him because he explained himself and they understood him. He also understood them, so they looked at the man and said okay, he will deliver. He knew, for example, that for us to develop as a nation, we must have quality education, so he started the whole programme of free education just to provide education free.  By so doing, he helped the ordinary persons who did not have money, who couldn’t afford education and so on and so forth. Today, there are lots of people who are products of Chief Awolowo’s free education formula. We ran a civil war for three years. The government under his watch, when he was Finance Minister, didn’t have to borrow a penny in order to prosecute that civil war. So, a person who did all these for his country, no amount of money thrown in a ceremony to celebrate his home-going could be too much.

In the midst of recession that hit the economy of Nigeria, what is your counsel to the government and the people?

They say it takes two to tango. Both the leadership and the followership should have one basic objective and that objective is the country. The leadership should be able to provide leadership to the people. This is what we need in this country. The current generation of leaders should do everything to provide the best for the people, while the followership should also provide the necessary support for the leadership. If you are able to put these together, then you will find that leadership at various levels is very simple. There have to be leaders and followers; they have to work together. They have to believe in one another.

You led Nigeria at a controversial time and somehow you broke records and set records. The popular one is the June 12, 1993 election results annulment that set this nation on fire. It is a pity the election results were cancelled but how was it possible for you to conduct such an election that is still referred to as the freest and fairest in the history of our nation, unlike today when ordinary local government primaries are marred by violence, bloodshed.

I have argued that with people. I said I don’t mind if you abuse me for annulling the election but give me credit for conducting that freest and fairest election. I thank you for saying that it was the freest and fairest election. It is not that we lack the knowledge. The knowledge is there but I think what we lack is the will power to plan and implement some of these ideal things.

How do you see Lagos State 50 years on?

Well, 50 years looks like just yesterday, but I want to seize this opportunity to congratulate Lagos State. For that period, they have succeeded in bearing the torch.  Lagos mirrors Nigeria in diversity; diversity in religion, diversity in tribe. It is a mini-Nigeria, all in one. The fact is that for 50 years, they have been able to live together, irrespective of religion or tribe. Everybody who goes to Lagos feels at home in Lagos. I myself didn’t want to leave Lagos and come back to Minna but I realized that I would get old someday and so needed to be back in Minna. The people of Lagos are generally very receptive, very kind and very friendly.

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