Former Lagos State Commissioner for Transport and member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Governor’s Advisory Council (GAC) Chief Lanre Rasak, spoke with reporters on the Sanwo-Olu administration, efforts being made by the Federal Government to reposition the country and the controversy over presidential zoning. Excerpts
WHAT is your assessment of the Sanwo-Olu administration in the last six months?
One would look at a six months old child, what can that child perform? A six months old government, you don’t expect much. That is a period studying, planning and then, you now move ahead to execute. But that is different from this government, Sanwoolu had prepared his mind that he wanted to be a governor and he hit the ground running. If you look at what has happened within this six months, by the time he came, last year was a wonderful year when it comes to rain, you attribute it to climate change and it rained like there will be no more water in the sky again. And the roads were bad, and within these six months, you can travel around Lagos and see what Sanwoolu government has done. Go through Western Avenue, Iddo, Ikorodu road and several other roads in Lagos state. Go through Badagry, the no go area that you will not want to ply for five years, go through it again today and you will see progressive development on the road. Between now and March, you may not have any road that is left unattended to in Lagos State. That is fantastic. He set up a special committee to look at schools in Lagos so that the standard in the public schools can be measured with the private schools. That is his commitment. On health, it is the same thing. He had assured that water transportation will be given priority. We have a lot of aquatic opportunities for us to move on the water. He is also working hard on the rail aspect for the movement of the people. In actual fact, he is synchronising the rail, water and road transportation in Lagos to give effect to a perfect situation. On the traffic management, he has been working well, that even the second and the last roundabout in Lekki axis that is still causing a lot of holdups is being attended to within this short period. And this is not something that happened by accident. It happens through good planning. It happens through effective execution of the projects and plans and it happens through effective monitoring, which the gentleman has been doing. And on infrastructure, technology and communication, on energy, he is working on the way we can improve the supply of energy as far as light is concerned to Lagos. So, all I need to appeal to Lagosians is to pray for him, to support the government and those who are eligible to pay taxes should pay it so that the government can have more at hand to do better things for Lagos.
People don’t see the APC administration at the national level as a performing government…
In Lagos, we are talking of minimum wage. Lagos State government has gone beyond the 30,000 minimum wage to 35,000. Not only that, it has paid three months arrears. So those are the good things we are doing as a party and as a government in Lagos. When you go to the federal, you don’t need to tell a blind man who stands in the open air that it is raining, he will be drenched. You don’t need to bother about those armchair critics who see nothing good in what the Federal Government is doing. Consider our railway lines. Look at Kaduna-Abuja rail that was started by the PDP. For 16 years, they could not do it. Under the four years of Buhari, it was done and that saved Nigerians a lot of things,. There are a lot of bandits on the road from Abuja to Kaduna and they attack cars easily. But, when people chose to go by train, it saves a lot of lives and property. That is an achievement. Most trunk A roads in this country have never been attended to in the last 16 years before Buhari came. Today, you can mention a lot of our highways that are being attended to. The Lagos-Ibadan express road that could not be done for 16 years, they have a target of finishing it and they are going to finish it. The Lagos-Ibadan train services, the standard gauge, is completed now and on trial services. On agriculture, the government has concentrated on rice production. In actual fact, all-cash crops, all crops that take poverty and eliminate food insecurity are being seriously attended to. That is the development people should appreciate. He is a listening president and it is not the president. And let me tell you, by the time he completes his second term, the foundation of good governance would have been laid that will be difficult for any coming administration to truncate. Because it will become a standard and a practice for all of us. Throughout his tenure we didn’t have the crisis of fuel, it never happened. And we didn’t have to go to the petrol stations to sleep waiting to buy fuel. You can give a lot of instances of good things this man is doing. On Boko Haram, it is easy to fight a conventional war, but when it becomes a kind of guerrilla warfare, you don’t know their barracks, you don’t know their house, they only come from nowhere, hit and run away. It becomes difficult; very difficult to fight such a war. Because if care is not taken ,innocent people will be killed and that will be terrible. In a choice system if fighting this war, he has been very scientific. To me and to right-thinking Nigerians, he has been winning the war. There is more room for improvement and I know the gentleman will do that. But when he deserves credit, let’s give him the credit.
Foreign debt is soaring under the Buhari administration. Does that mean that he will now leave the office for the incoming government to be settling the debt?
What is he using the loan for? Is it not meeting the needs of the future generations? If it is borrowed and wasted, that could be a different thing. Tomorrow, you will need a fourth mainland bridge or fifth mainland bridge. By the next two-three years, if we are doing the same bridge, it may cost us, may be, N 600 billion. But, if we do it today, we may finish doing it for N 300 billion. Is it not reasonable for us to get a loan today and get the job to do and start using the services. And we will not wait until we have money in the next four years to five years before we can do the job because we are not wasting anything and we are not missing anything. In actual fact, we are getting good services and meeting the needs of the people with such a loan brought in to meet and provide services for Nigerians. I support the idea of getting a loan to do infrastructure. We are all crying, shouting and making a lot of noise that we don’t have the money. And the only option open, if we want to get it done, is to take a loan. The only thing I will appeal to Nigerians is that once that loan is granted and the project is going on, shine your eyes. If you see anything that is not good enough in the process of getting the job done, make a noise and that is patriotism. It will be an advantage, it will place the future generation on a sound footing.
Pastor Tunde Bakare has advised Mr. president to pick his successor. How do you think the APC should arrive at its presidential candidate?
That gentleman is a pastor, and I think he should concentrate on his pastoral work. And I cannot see somebody becoming more catholic than the Pope and crying more than the bereaved. If he wants to do his pastor’s job, let him do it. If he wants to get involved in politics, let’s see his political party and let’s see what he can do. What he wants to do is to create a situation where people will label Buhari as undemocrat. Buhari is ensuring that he does whatever he is doing, based on the constitution of this country and the manifesto and the constitution of the APC. The constitution of this country says all Nigerians of a certain age and education are entitled to freely aspire to the office of the president. The constitution goes further to introduce national character. Does the pastor want the president to jettison all these constitutional provisions and just go and pick somebody? How will Nigerians react to that? Buhari has made it very clear, and I am sure he is still standing by it, that he belongs to everybody and belongs to nobody. Nigerians are the people that elected him to rule. Nigeria is the country he is elected to rule, and he will not go outside the constitutional provisions and start choosing and picking. Those who had intended to pick their favourite, you see the political storm that followed it and you know what happened to some of them. He wants to disgrace our president by suggesting such a dirty game. And I know the president is more reasonable and more committed to doing the right thing and upholding the constitution of this country, which he has sworn to. He will never listen to such sycophants and I don’t believe that is a reasonable and sound advice.
Your party is in crisis in Edo and Ondo states and governorship elections will hold in those two states. What are your expectations?
What you perceive as a crisis is not a crisis. Political parties and politics are not like a cemetery where it is quiet. It is about acquiring power. As soon as we are getting closer to the elections, the party has an effective crisis management mechanism that they will deploy and they have started by setting up a reconciliation committee at the national level. It will be our strength. It won’t be our weakness. That crisis you perceived shows that party members in Edo have strong believe in the party; that through the platform of the party they can win the election. So, the party will resolve it and there will be no problem for the party.
The Arewa Youth Association has endorsed somebody from the Southsouth for APC presidential candidate. How will this affect the Southwest, which is also angling for their position?
Well, the youths in their wisdom have flown a kit, but when political analysts sit down, they may consider that that suggestion is not strong enough for any reasonable political party to take as a serious matter. Jonathan has just left from the Southsouth, and Buhari came in. By the token of the national character and zoning that is entrenched in our constitution, how would that sound? He is just telling you that the Southsouth, Southwest should be considered. That is what the people are saying. Because in politics, at times, you may be going west and you turn your face to the east. It is just like this talking drum;they know where they are facing. They strongly believe that the West has contributed sufficiently enough now to have an opportunity to present a candidate that will do Nigeria proud. Obasanjo was a president from the Southwest. Immediately after him was Yar Adua. Immediately after Yar Adua was Ebele Jonathan and today, it is Buhari. And when you do your political calculations, you will know the best and the most qualified location is the Southwest. The cry and the shout of some people from the Southeast asking their members to come and join the APC so that they can get the ticket can be considered a belated move because a political party is the platform and those who build the party are still around. They must have absolute confidence in the person who wants to be the president of this country. In terms of output, and to ensure that this country remains a united nation, this country is on progressive line, the person that wants to be the president must have the ability to harness all our resources and human capital to get the best for Nigeria. If you look at the world today, Nigeria is key to world matters and we cannot afford to have a wrong person as a president in the most populous nation in Africa. Therefore, I have said it and I will say it again, and I want people to take a critical analysis and look at this thing, that the Southwest is the most qualified in the country to produce a president after Buhari. And when you come to the Southwest, who is the person? Who was able to put structure together to remove the PDP, which had been destroying this country and gave us hope? And that hope is from no other person than Ahmed Bola Tinubu, who had sacrificed a lot to ensure the unity of purpose. It has never happened that political parties will come together and they will get the job done as it was done. They threw away all their personal ambitions and they considered the nation first.
And that is why we have the opportunity of having democracy entrenched in this country in the last 20 years. We must not allow it to break for selfish interest, for parochial interest. The media has a role to play. Nigerians have a role. We must stop monetising our political process. We must seek and find who is good enough to rule us to a successful developmental nation. And that is why we are all saying what we are saying. The Arewa suggestion of Southeast or South-south, they know that cannot fly politically in this country because the votes are there for the party and if you neglect those who can give you the votes to win election and you go to where you don’t have strength, then, I think that is political suicide and I will not encourage my party to take such a decision.
