By Ishaya Ibrahim
In 1998, at age 35, and while the military was holding sway in the governance of Nigeria, Akinwunmi Ambode, then a civil servant, filled out an application form to participate in the Fulbright Program scholarship of the Hubert Humphries Fellowship.
In the application form, Ambode explained that his motivation for the programme was borne out of his desire to be Lagos state governor. He was given the scholarship. Seventeen years later, he became Lagos governor.
After Ambode’s inauguration as Governor, it was clear that he came into office with a plan, especially on how to decongest the traffic jam on Lagos roads.
He began by making the roads expansive, building flyover bridges, pedestrian walkways, and networks of roads, including bus stops.
He says he wants to phase out all the yellow buses on Lagos roads and replace them with Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), a masterstroke in resolving the state’s traffic situation.
He has imported 5,000 of such mass transits which he says will be released on various routes in the city before the end of the year.
Perhaps, this may be the reason no serious contender has indicated interest to challenge Ambode for the Lagos top job as 2019 beckons.
In 2015, the PDP fielded Jimi Agbaje as their governorship candidate. Agbaje, a well-respected pharmacist, polled 659,788 votes to come behind Ambode who got 811,994.
The 2015 election was Agbaje’s second attempt at becoming Lagos governor. He ran in 2007 as the candidate of Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA), a party not so known before the poll, but because he was believed to have run the best campaign, he got the attention of many Lagos residents in the election which Babatunde Fashola won.
After losing the 2015 election with a margin of more than 150,000 votes, Agbaje told Channels television that it was going to be his last. “I have tried once. This is the second one and the last one. I am not going to run again,” he said.
Analysts say with Agbaje out of the race for 2019, the Lagos PDP may have some difficulty getting a man of his stature to contend against Ambode.
Ambode is already known to be the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in the 2019 election. He has not been chosen though.
But in the PDP, the aspirants seemed to be jittery even when its primary is slated for Friday, September 28.
At the state’s owned hospitals, the laboratories can’t carry out malaria test. At Ifako Ijaiye general hospital, patients are referred to Health Point, a private laboratory, to do medical exams.
The State’s owned teaching hospital, LASUTH, is not better off. Patients at the emergency ward who are requiring surgical intervention could as well wait for several weeks without being attended to.
At the Primary Health Centres (PHC) in the state, attending to pregnant women has been turned to business transactions where the women are asked to provide a long list of requirements before they are allowed to give birth there.
Some of the items that the women must provide include the biggest sizes of detergent, disinfectant, insecticide, methylated spirit, shawl, room freshener, handwash, nightingale, surgical kits and cotton wool. The PHC keeps the items, even when the women spend less than 48 hours in their care.
His urban renewal policy in the area of upgrading the bus stops has also attracted accolades to him, but many are quick to say that many of the roads that lead Lagosians to the bus stops are completely broken down.
They worry that Ambode may not have firm grip over his local government chairmen who are supposed to be held to account for the poor state of the roads and streets that are in very bad state.
One Lagosian who gave his name as Jerome and that he retired as a civil servant last two years told TheNiche: “Take a trip from Ogba bus stop to any part of Okeira in the same Ogba axis. Or from Ogba to Agege or Oba Akran or even nearby Ojodu. All the streets and roads, though short in distance, have given way. You will think there are no government in place to supervise these roads and streets, but there are council chairmen who report to Ambode everyday and create the impression all is well.
“Again, how can then government not get interested in the quality of jobs it gives to contractors to do in parts of Lagos? Have you not noticed that the Oba Akran road is awarded to a contractor every year for repairs? Lagosians do not expect that Ambode should sacrifice the comfort of the people on the alter of political patronage because most of the people who get the contracts to fix these roads and streets that are bad are members of the party nobody bothers to ask how they executed the contracts.”
Corroborating what Jerome said, Tunde, a motor mechanic in Ikeja said that Ambode does not bother about what the council chairmen and councilors are do in the state, noting that most of them are simply occupying spaces.
For instance, he said it is a pity that the councils cannot even fill pot holes that have taken over all the roads and streets in Lagos, making life more difficult for Lagosians who are already suffering.
The Lagos governor is also accused of dismantling hitherto policies of the previous government that are working.
He seems to have abandoned the policy on motorcycle riders requiring them to operate with crash helmets and carry regulated number of persons on their motorcycles.
Even though the government recently said the police will emback on the clampdown on Okada riders in some places, that policy statement seems to be more in theroy than in practice as the okada riders are found virtually at every corner of the state.
For instance, the government’s decision to abandon erstwhile Private Sector Participation (PSP) in the collection and disposal of waste in the state and engaging a new company for the task is believed to be unnecessary.
His policy of land use charge which increased the rate by 500 percent is also being challenged in court.
Many say Ambode is simply playing politics with most of his policies as 2019 draws closer.
But despite these issues, Ambode may still return as governor as the opposition has left the field wide open for him.
