By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Lagos has set up a team of bankers and other affluent private sector players to help rebuild infrastructure damaged during the #EndSARS protest last month which saw the destruction of both public and private properties.
Citibank Chairman Yemi Cardoso chairs the team of eight members drawn from the Bankers’ Committee and others to raise billions of naira to restore hundreds of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) buses, traffic lights, shops, and other properties valandised.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who made the announcement on the state’s Twitter handle, said Cardoso will lead the effort to raise a trust fund and coordinate the recovery.
He also issued a statement after a meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and other stakeholders saying the devastation cause by hoodlums who hijacked the peaceful protests is unprecedented.
Sanwo-Olu had on November 6 presented to President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja a report on the damage caused during the protest.
Lagos, which garners N50 billion Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) monthly, is the fifth largest economy in Africa, but Sanwo-Olu stressed that the coordinated violence set the Lagos economy back by hundreds of billions of naira.
He said a consultative forum had set the stage for a public-private partnership and collaboration required to rebuild and restore damaged infrastructure.
His words: “The violence we witnessed last October is the most widespread carnage the state has seen in decades. Every aspect of life and livelihood in Lagos was affected – government buildings, offices, public monuments and historical archives, public infrastructure and very sadly too, private property and investments.
“The violence has, no doubt, set our economy back by hundreds of billions of naira, and impacted our confidence.
“We have, however, found hope and great strength in the offers of assistance from far and wide, which culminated in the constitution of the Lagos Rebuild Committee to coordinate our efforts to rebuild and upgrade our state.
“We seek to restore the infrastructure that was destroyed, to revive the energy and confidence of everyone who has been affected by these losses, to help restore the confidence of the people of Lagos in the infinite potentials of Lagos.
“The state government cannot do this alone. We need all the help that we can get.”
Sanwo-Olu said the state government will earmark some money as collateral in the recovery, and the Cardoso team coordinating the trust fund will be given legislative backing through a bill soon to be transmitted to the House of Assembly.
“Money that will be donated into the trust fund would go into rebuilding and re-tooling security infrastructure, strengthening public transportation systems, restoring judicial and local government operations, rebuilding damaged public monuments.”
He stressed that transparency and accountability will be foundational elements in the implementation of the mandate of the rebuilding committee, with the fund-raising and disbursement supervised by FBN Trustees Limited.
