BY AYO OLADELE PETERS

Given the rave reviews it has received and the tremendous impact it has made in reminding Nigerians of and reinforcing in the public consciousness the path-breaking and revolutionary paradigm-shifting governance that the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, offered Lagos State as governor of the Centre of Excellence between 1999 and 2007, it would have been surprising if Tinubu’s adversaries and opponents would not go all out to seek to discredit the 30-minute documentary titled ‘Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu: The Pathfinder of New Lagos’ by all means and at all costs.

The most desperate, intellectually shallow and dishonest as well as most comical attempt to debunk the indisputable facts presented in the documentary has been by one Mr. Tunde Bank-Anthony, who featuring in a morning programme on Channels Television claimed to be an APC member as well as the spokesman of some undefined ‘concerned Lagosians’ who he claims are dissatisfied with what he alleges to be falsehoods and exaggerations in the documentary. Unfortunately, Bank-Anthony came across as being fundamentally morally and intellectually bankrupt in his outing on the programme.

First and foremost, he based the entirety of his arguments in the live interview on the fraudulent premise that the documentary claimed that Tinubu was the father and founder of Lagos. He was unable to cite any instance in the entire documentary where any such claim was made. It is amazing that his interviewers on the programme who are supposed to be balanced, dispassionate and objective umpires and professionals made no attempt to get their guest to prove his assertion by concrete reference to the documentary which had been aired at least twice on their station. In the words of Bank-Anthony on the programme, “Our candidate now everything he is campaigning on is Lagos. As if in the last 100 years, Lagos has seen nothing like him but we are Lagosians whether indigenes or non-indigenes, we need to set the record straight. I am almost 60 years old. I grew up on the Island. I don’t remember a road that was not tarred on Lagos-Island before 1999. Is it Tokunboh, is it Bambgose, is it Olusi, is it Glover, is it Tinubu? Tell me the road in Lagos that was not tarred”.

This demonstrates mental laziness, intellectual lethargy and what can only be described as educational deficiency. The documentary in question had its focus as Tinubu’s tenure in Lagos as governor between 1999 and 2007. It presented visual evidence of the chaotic and decayed state of the environment, roads, drainages, anarchic traffic situation, high crime rate including daylight car snatching and bank robberies, destructive flooding, collapsed schools, decrepit healthcare facilities, eroded bar beach on Victoria Island when Tinubu assumed office in 1999 and the indisputable foundation he laid for the globally acknowledged transformation and accelerated progress being witnessed in Lagos Today.

The documentary in question explicitly paid tribute to governors that preceded Tinubu such as Colonel Mobolaji Johnson, the first military governor, Alhaji Lateef Jakande in the Second Republic between 1979 and 1983 as well as General Mohammed Buba Marwa who was Military Administrator for about two years before handing over to Tinubu in 1999. Some of the other military administrators who ruled the state between 1984 and 1999 were on military posting and could not stay sufficiently long enough in office to make an impact before being posted out. Some others were outright incompetent and inept. But the documentary gave credit to these three deserving eminent governors of Lagos before Tinubu. No truthful, genuine and accurate account of the development of Lagos can be written without these governors’ contributions mentioned and the documentary did just that.

However, Tunde Bank-Anthony utterly ridiculed and made a mockery of himself when he claimed that Lagos was not in a state of total deterioration, decay and decline as at 1999. He was probably living on the moon. Even President Olusegun Obasanjo in Y2000 derogatorily described Lagos as a jungle. Mountains of refuse were all over both rural and urban areas of Lagos. The city used to be routinely ranked among the dirtiest cities in the world. Decomposing and dead bodies littered the streets in many areas. School children could be seen carrying benches and chairs to and from school every day. Men, women and children could be seen all over Lagos with buckets and basins looking for water all over the place. Bank-Anthony is old enough to know this. He was thus only deliberately being fraudulent and mischievous.

The commendable achievements that Jakande recorded in Lagos between 1979 and 1983 had, unfortunately, been allowed to degenerate, decline and decay in the 16 years of military rule between 1983 and 1999. The Housing Estates that Jakande built, for instance, were not maintained and upgraded as should have been the case. Bank-Anthony lied that it was Jakande that started the Metroline rail project. But as is well known to the public, the Metroline conceived by the Jakande administration was truncated by the military regime in 1983. A completely new, remodeled, redesigned and upgraded mass light rail project was conceptualized for Lagos by the Tinubu administration in 1999.

As the documentary clearly stated, “The idea of a light rail project was originally conceived by the first governor of the state, Alhaji Lateef Jakande. However, the project could not be consummated before the civilian administration was terminated by the military in 1983. When he took over as the governor of Lagos State, Tinubu revived, reviewed and expanded the idea to not one but seven light rail projects in Lagos State to reduce overdependence on road transportation and traffic congestion”. Although the PDP-controlled federal government obstructed and delayed the rapid take off and completion of the project during Tinubu’s tenure, work continued steadily on the light rail project by Tinubu’s successors – Babatunde Fashola, Akinwumi Ambode and now Babajide Sanwo-olu and the Blue Line from Okokomako to Marina as well as Red Line from Agbado to Marina will commence operations in the first quarter of next year. Where is the falsehood or exaggeration that Bank-Anthony is talking about?

According to Bank-Anthony on the programme, “You have been in Lagos for at least more than 25 years. You call New York, you call London, you call Paris, you call Lagos. Lagos has been there”. This is laughable illiteracy. Despite the giant strides made by Lagos since Tinubu laid the foundation of the ongoing transformational revolution being built on and improved upon by his successors, Lagos has still not yet reached the standard of modernization attained by the global cities Bank-Anthony so carelessly and cavalierly mentions. In his usual trivial and lazy manner, Bank-Anthony mentions the names of some streets on Lagos Island, which he claims were already tarred by 1999. That shows his pedestrian notion of development. What was the state of roads in the Lagos Island Central Business District (CBD) as at 1999?

According to a report, “A study conducted by Transpoconsult in 1975 showed that at peak hour no fewer than 4,500 vehicles plies Nnamdi Azikiwe Street. Thirty two years after, due to heavy human traffic and unprecedented trading activities within and around the district, the present situation is that the road cannot withstand that high volume of vehicles per hour. Over the years, as a result of the factors highlighted above, investors have found the CBD unattractive and this has brought about adverse effect on commerce and business investments in the State. Other factors that compounded the problem are epileptic supply of electricity, water and inadequate transportation system”.

It was this situation that motivated the Tinubu administration to execute the construction/upgrading of seventeen roads into High Streets Standard in the Lagos Island CBD. These roads are Nnmadi Azikiwe Street, Broad Street, Odunlami Street, Ereko Street, Martins Street, Bambgose Street, Alli-Balogun Street, Old Marina Street, Idumagbo Avenue, Customs Street, Kakawa Street, Tinubu Street, Breadfruit Street, Campos Street, Brook Street and Adeniji Adele Street (Docemo Street end to loop joining Eko Bridge).

Now, what was the scope of work done on these roads and the entire Lagos Island CBD? These included Beautification of Tinubu Square; Upgrading, improvement and restructuring of the roads and adjoining road junctions to enhance free flow of traffic; Widening of roads to accommodate standard widths, kerbstones and street lighting system; Provision of foot-paths between edge of roads and existing buildings, bus-lay-buys and parking lots where possible; Provision of covered drains with appropriate numbers of service openings; Rehabilitation of main drainage outfalls and Relocation of public utility/provision of Single Arm Street Lighting System and Traffic Lights. The total length of the road network upgraded and modernized was 12km (dual carriageway); the contract sum was N14.35 billion and the project was commissioned by Tinubu on Tuesday, 24th of May, 2007.

Unable to deny that the Financial engineering of the Tinubu administration phenomenally increased the IGR of the state from N600 million monthly in 1999 to over N7 Billion monthly when Tinubu left office in 2007 and that building on this template, his successors had enhanced the state’s IGR to over N50 billion today, Bank-Anthony claimed that there is nothing to show for this huge revenues in Lagos State. This man surely deserves pity. He cannot see the revolutionary Bus Rapid Transpit (BRT) conceived and started by Tinubu and systematically extended across the state by his successors. He cannot see operatives of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) created by the Tinubu administration maintaining traffic all over Lagos.

For him, the upgraded, expanded and modernized roads by Tinubu such as Agege-Motor Road; Kudirat Abiola Road, Oregun; Ajah-Badore Road, Eti-Osa; LASU-Iba Road, Ojoo; Lawanson-Itire-Yaba-Ojuelegba Road; Awolowo Road, Ikoyi; Akin Adesola Road, Victoria Island; Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island; Adeola Odeku Road, Victoria, Island among several others do not exist. These roads all have drainage channels, street lights, traffic signs and lights, pedestrian walkways and other amenities and remain solid and durable over 20 years after construction.

Bank-Anthony is ignorant of the phenomenal transformation going on along the Lekki Corridor including the Lekki Free Trade and Export Zone; the restoration of the Ahmadu Bello Way, stopping of the erosion of the Bar Beach and ongoing emergence of the landscape-defining Eko Atlantic City from what was formerly a liability of a perennially flooding ocean. All these are courtesy of the Tinubu vision continued and improved on by his successors.

He has never heard about or seen the over 6,000 housing units constructed by the Tinubu administration such as the Abraham Adesanya Estate, Ajah, Ibeshe low-income housing scheme, Oba Adeyinka Oyekan Estate, Lekki, Ayangburen Housing Estate, Phase II, Ikorodu, Ojokoro Millennium Housing Scheme or the Oke-Eletu and Oko Oba low-income housing schemes among others. All these estates have tarred inner roads, street lights and drainage channels, which was an improvement on the model adopted for Jakande’s housing estates.

Bank Anthony has never visited and so does not know of the revolutionary modernization of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) upgraded to world class grade by Tinubu and improved upon by his successors. He is unaware of the expansion and rehabilitation of old General Hospitals in Lagos, Gbagada, Isolo, Ikorodu, Badagry, Agege and the Island Maternity and the building by the Tinubu administration and building of new General Hospitals in Mushin, Shomolu, Ibeju-Lekki and Isheri-Iba or the upgrading of existing health centres to full-fledged hospitals at Ijede, Ketu, Agbowa and Agege between 1999 and 2007.

The bankrupt Bank-Anthony  fakes ignorance of the Tinubu administration’s indelible imprints in the areas of justice sector reforms including construction of new high courts, establishment of the Office of the Public Defender (OPD) to offer free legal services to the poor, establishment of the Citizen Mediation Centres (CMC) as alternative dispute resolution channels to decongest the courts and ensure rapid dispensation of justice or the introduction of radically improved welfare and remuneration for judicial officers. Bank-Anthony talks. He walks. He laughs. He eats. He drinks. He has every appearance of being alive but he dwells in the land of the living dead.

He claims that Tinubu in the documentary sought to appropriate the achievements of his successors – Fashola, Ambode and Sanwo-Olu. But these fine gentlemen were products of the Tinubu School of leadership and he supported them to get to power as governors. The documentary gave them ample credit for continuing with Tinubu’s legacies as well as building and improving on them within the framework of the 25-year development plan conceived for Lagos by that administration spanning 1999 – 2023. Indeed Fashola, Ambode and Sanwo-Olu were a critical part of the process of drawing up that plan as key members of the Tinubu administration – Fashola was Chief of Staff and Commissioner in the governor’s office under Tinubu; Ambode was a Permanent Secretary and Accountant-General of the State and Sanwo-Ola was Special Adviser, Corporate Affairs, as well as Commissioner of Economic Planning and Budget and of Pensions, Establishment and Training under Tinubu.

Indeed, Bank-Anthony even contended that the 25-year development plan does not exist and that it should be available online if it does. The man is not only illiterate, he is lazy. He should either visit the website of the Lagos State Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget for details of the plan or go physically to the Ministry to obtain a copy of the document. In 2015, the Fashola administration modified and updated the Plan in the light of new realities. And in June this year, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu announced that a new 30-year development for Lagos State (2022 – 2052) will be unveiled at the forthcoming 9th Ehingbeti Economic Summit in the state next month as the current 25-year plan ends next year.

Sanwo-Olu told members of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) that the four dimensions of the new plan for the state would be achieved through over 400 policy initiatives that would be implemented throughout the 30 year period. Let Bank-Anthony continue to dwell in his fantasy world of the living dead. Lagos continues its steady and unstoppable march to its manifest destiny with modernity with the Tinubu template as the guiding light.

One telling contradiction during the interview: asked if he was APC member, he replied yes. Then, ‘What is the purpose of your seeking to discredit your party’s candidate publicly?’ Bank-Anthony
started stammering ‘em … em …em’.
But only the uninitiated would have been deceived by this hustler. APC insiders know him too as a Prodigal Child who keeps coming back to blackmail after being rehabilitated several times in the past. Facts: he was one of Diasporans who returned with Jagaban in 1998 from exile following Abacha’s death. When Jagaban won Lagos governorship on AD platform, he was given a job. But true to type, he betrayed Jagaban’s confidence over the handling of campaign donations. Then, people came to ‘dobale’ (beg) Jagaban on his behalf. Characteristically, Jagaban forgave him. When his (Jagaban’s) tenure ended in 2007, the dude was accommodated under Fashola administration and became one of the most loquacious sycophants around BRF. Fast forward to 2015 when BRF left. Enter Ambode.

Of course, Ambode took off nursing personal grudges against BRF. Without shame, this hustler switched loyalty dramatically from BRF to Ambode, the new paymaster. So, he started waxing seeet, sweet albums all over town for Ambode. By 2019, his reputation as ‘Pay As You Go’ had become well known at Alausa that incumbent Sanwo-Olu refused to ‘bank-roll’ him. It was from that point he turned a ‘radical’ against Jagaban who refused to pressure Sanwo Olu to change his mind. See why the hustler went to Channels to disgrace himself, thinking he was de-marketing Jagaban.

* Peters is a public affairs analyst