It's only liars or the gullible who will agree that things are going on fine in this country. Insecurity of lives and property, massive unemployment, bleak future for coming generations, terrible looting of the commonwealth, mismanagement of the economy, suppression & distortion of the truth about the indices of national well being.

The whole is a sum of its parts and an objective analysis of Nigeria cannot be undertaken without taking a closer look at the components as there is nothing strictly called Nigeria if not the aggregation of the regions making up the federation.

A closer inspection of these parts should allow us to narrow down the maladies affecting the country.

What better example can we use than Lagos State, the melting pot, the so-called 'no man's land', the pride of many columnists & government propagandists. From the mainstream media, Lagos is an El Dorado where everything is working & the government officials are the best in Africa!

A paradox which is glaring is the fact that if Lagos is part and parcel of Nigeria, can it be factual that Nigeria is fraying & collapsing right in front of our eyes while Lagos is going in the opposite direction.

This is an anomaly & illogical.

It either means that Lagos is fluke, a contradiction in the natural order of things or Nigeria is not as bad as we often get drummed into our ears. Or Nigeria is truly on a greased shuttle into perdition & Lagos is merely a media creation, maintained and sustained on a cleverly packaged illusion of lies and chicanery. It's an either/or proposition, it can't be the two.

The artificial creation of Federal, State and Local governments is merely for administrative convenience. The impacts on our peoples lives go beyond these fine distinctions. I'm yet to see a federal market, or state fuel station or a local government bank. We deceive ourselves if we choose to encourage such mirages.

We know there are keyboard warriors out there in the employ of Lagos State. We equally know those with the 40 laptops saddled (and well remunerated, of course) with the job of countering anything suggestive that the Jonathan administration has lost focus long time ago.

Poverty is raging & this is getting worse every passing day. The government is getting desperate & we, the people, are at the receiving end of these misgoverning. Token infrastructure developments are being over-hyped to pull the wool over our eyes. It's not working.

But really, are we doing ourselves any good by bickering over inanities while we can face the truth and quickly act to arrest the drift into destruction?

My humble submission is: Nigeria is not working, Lagos is not working.

Lagos is working .
The best thing that can ever happen to Lagos is for other cities to rise up to the challenge .
Try accommodating 30 people in a 2 bedroom apartment. .
What changed is the rural -urban migration which has turned into a flood.
While migration is not bad in itself especially when you talk about people with professional qualifications and useful skill ,it is something else when uneducated farmers dump their hoes and head for the city just because his okada riding village man came back in December with a swagger.
As big as New York City is,the entire population is less than 10 million ,mostly educated and law abiding citizens.
Lagos is being overrun .

silly thread.is it not possible to have a very clean room in a very dirty house? Does it not depend on who owns that particular room?

bloggernaija: Lagos is working .
The best thing that can ever happen to Lagos is for other cities to rise up to the challenge .
Try accommodating 30 people in a 2 bedroom apartment. .
What changed is the rural -urban migration which has turned into a flood.
While migration is not bad in itself especially when you talk about people with professional qualifications and useful skill ,it is something else when uneducated farmers dump their hoes and head for the city just because his okada riding village man came back in December with a swagger.
As big as New York City is,the entire population is less than 10 million ,mostly educated and law abiding citizens.
Lagos is being overrun .

@bloggernaija, Much as I appreciate your sensible comment, I disagree that the wave of people coming into Lagos is responsible for the infrastructural deficiencies we witness, the helplessness in efficient traffic management, the abject lack of vision in productive citizenry engagement, the bloated, incompetent & corrupt civil service, the lack of transparency in funding, concessioning et.c

All these maladies are also present in the federal government but that's no excuse. Most of the current administration's claim to success are artificial except you don't live in Lagos. The window dressing that we're constantly been bombarded with are not seen and felt at the grassroots compared with the gusto with which an aggressive revenue generation is embarked upon.

Take for an instance, by now Lagos State should have a state of the art, world class, first in class health care facility. Between Bola Tinubu & Tunde Fashola (who is rightly considered to be an extension of Tinubu) 12 years is long enough to make this a reality but a visit to the State Teaching Hospital reveals otherwise.

Pensioners also protested recently over their unpaid allowances. These are often glossed over by the 'free' press (many with their head offices located in Lagos) in a suspicious filtering of news that would likely embarrass the government of the day as a kind of self-censorship.

Even in the US, rural-urban migration is normal. The reason why New York remains what it is (not to say that the Big Apple doesn't have its share of serious challenges) can be attributed to an efficient system of governance in place, an impartial system of justice with law and order enforcement as humanly possible & a robust check and balance architecture with 'local government' empowerment.

These are absent in Lagos & in Nigeria. So, how can one work in the absence of these?

phantom: silly thread.is it not possible to have a very clean room in a very dirty house? Does it not depend on who owns that particular room?

@phantom, I would not have bothered with dignifying your pedestrian retort with a response, but I reconsidered that you would actually be in need of enlightenment.

This is a matured topic seeking a robust debate on how could it be possible to have a paradox existing, as it were, by the oft-repeated mantra that 'Lagos is Working'.

Students of propaganda know that once you repeat a lie so many times, it sinks to a level in the psyche of the targeted populace that it starts to be like the truth.

To the discerning, a lie is still a lie, no matter how well you garnished it. For all I know, you're an employee or beneficiary of Lagos State government and you feel you must rise to the occasion by comparing oranges with apples. How is the thread 'silly'? if I may ask.

Is it reasonable to have a clean room in a dirty house? What makes a house? Can you differentiate an acorn from the oak it sprouted from?

If you live in a dirty environment or neighbourhood but your own room is well cleaned as your flawed logic would have us believe, then it doesn't matter that eventually, the risks & exposure to deadly diseases and infections would soon make nonsense of your clinically pure room? Does that even make sense to you?

I can give you a list of areas where Lagos State is deficient in despite the creative use of the mass media to paint a pleasant picture. This intellectual dishonesty is why I made this thread. If you feel otherwise, come with facts and figures and we can have a nice and respectful debate not resorting to ad hominem insults.

mojeer678: It's only liars or the gullible who will agree that things are going on fine in this country. Insecurity of lives and property, massive unemployment, bleak future for coming generations, terrible looting of the commonwealth, mismanagement of the economy, suppression & distortion of the truth about the indices of national well being.
.

To help people like @phantom who're in a state of denial as to what everyone else is seeing in Lagos, this satirical but critical study of Lagos under the present administration is highly recommended:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/171828536/Metro-Lagos-Upgrade

mojeer678:

@bloggernaija, Much as I appreciate your sensible comment, I disagree that the wave of people coming into Lagos is responsible for the infrastructural deficiencies we witness, the helplessness in efficient traffic management, the abject lack of vision in productive citizenry engagement, the bloated, incompetent & corrupt civil service, the lack of transparency in funding, concessioning et.c

All these maladies are also present in the federal government but that's no excuse. Most of the current administration's claim to success are artificial except you don't live in Lagos. The window dressing that we're constantly been bombarded with are not seen and felt at the grassroots compared with the gusto with which an aggressive revenue generation is embarked upon.

Take for an instance, by now Lagos State should have a state of the art, world class, first in class health care facility. Between Bola Tinubu & Tunde Fashola (who is rightly considered to be an extension of Tinubu) 12 years is long enough to make this a reality but a visit to the State Teaching Hospital reveals otherwise.

Pensioners also protested recently over their unpaid allowances. These are often glossed over by the 'free' press (many with their head offices located in Lagos) in a suspicious filtering of news that would likely embarrass the government of the day as a kind of self-censorship.

Even in the US, rural-urban migration is normal. The reason why New York remains what it is (not to say that the Big Apple doesn't have its share of serious challenges) can be attributed to an efficient system of governance in place, an impartial system of justice with law and order enforcement as humanly possible & a robust check and balance architecture with 'local government' empowerment.

These are absent in Lagos & in Nigeria. So, how can one work in the absence of these?

Pensioners protested unpaid benefit-
1 i hope you are not ignorant of the fact that the federal government has not paid the states their allocation.the money has been factored into the budget of Lagos state .this mismanagement by Abuja is mostly responsible has disrupted the plans of the states

In the USA , there are many cities and booming towns.right now , the Dakotas are booming because of the Shale gas revolution .the rural -urban migration of the illiterate type happened early in the century when rural poor moved to urban areas to fill a demand in the manufacturing sector.there was another wave in the 1940's to fill the booming armament industry because of WW2.

A first class health facility does not come cheap .
Skilled manpower is the single most important component of medicine.
an experienced nigerian Medical professional earns £70,000 in the uk and $200,000 per annum.
That is between 15million naira and 30 million .
Employing just 100 will cost Lagos state ,over 1 billion naira monthly.
Despite this, it is still a long way from taking care of over 22 million inhabitants
Lagos gets less than 10 billion monthly.
We are not even talking about the building,maintenance,equipment ,generators and diesel etc.
NOW TO COME TO THE MAIN ISSUE.
THE RESONSIBILTY FOR THE HEALTHCARE OF THE NATION LIES WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
THE STATES ARE SIMPLY SUPPOSE TO COMPLEMENT AND NOT DUPLICATE THE FED'S EFFORT.

bloggernaija:

Pensioners protested unpaid benefit-
1 i hope you are not ignorant of the fact that the federal government has not paid the states their allocation.

@bloggernaija, Thank you very much, this is the matured response I'm looking forward to on this thread, with verifiable facts and figures.

So you agree that if the Federal government isn't working, it's impossible for Lagos State to work! Exactly my point.

I disagree with you that a good qualitative health care is the business of only the FG. Is that under the Exclusive List in the Constitution? Methinks not.

Lagos State has already boasted that it's internally generated revenue is close to #40billion which has become the envy of other states. So where's this money going to if the critical facilities we mentioned earlier are still moribund either as a result of brain drain (mind you, a state in the North recently invited lecturers from the Philippines and India to shore up its lack of qualified hands in its State university).

If Medicare is a priority to the Alausa Overlords, that shouldn't be a challenge that's insurmountable with the revenues the State is having in its kitty.

You can't surely argue that the people of Lagos shouldn't have access to the best medical care available because other sectors are crying for attention. If billions could be spent to ensure that the government is not penalized for breach of a concession contract entered into under a very questionable circumstance or the rail project that's starting to look like a white elephant project, why not improve on the vital needs of the people as a priority?

Many areas are yet to see the dividends of democracy, pardon the cliche simply because they are out of sight. Plenty of them have been identified & listed in the work of satire embedded for @phantom. Yet, we continue to be persuaded that Lagos is working, when facts on ground suggest otherwise.

And that's just in the health sector, don't let us open the page on education using LASU as a case study.

We know that these challenges are all over. Why not face the tasks squarely than back slapping prematurely?

bloggernaija:

Pensioners protested unpaid benefit-
1 i hope you are not ignorant of the fact that the federal government has not paid the states their allocation.the money has been factored into the budget of Lagos state .this mismanagement by Abuja is mostly responsible has disrupted the plans of the states

In the USA , there are many cities and booming towns.right now , the Dakotas are booming because of the Shale gas revolution .the rural -urban migration of the illiterate type happened early in the century when rural poor moved to urban areas to fill a demand in the manufacturing sector.there was another wave in the 1940's to fill the booming armament industry because of WW2.

A first class health facility does not come cheap .
Skilled manpower is the single most important component of medicine.
an experienced nigerian Medical professional earns £70,000 in the uk and $200,000 per annum.
That is between 15million naira and 30 million .
Employing just 100 will cost Lagos state ,over 1 billion naira monthly.
Despite this, it is still a long way from taking care of over 22 million inhabitants
Lagos gets less than 10 billion monthly.
We are not even talking about the building,maintenance,equipment ,generators and diesel etc.
NOW TO COME TO THE MAIN ISSUE.
THE RESONSIBILTY FOR THE HEALTHCARE OF THE NATION LIES WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
THE STATES ARE SIMPLY SUPPOSE TO COMPLEMENT AND NOT DUPLICATE THE FED'S EFFORT.

What you are saying in a nutshell is that Lagos is not working because making a city work doesn't come cheap. I totally agree with you for stating the obvious truth. That is, the Lagos state Government can't afford paying Doctors 70,000 pounds/annum hence the failure to build state of the art medical facilities.Very interesting!
In a nutshell, Lagos state which has all 25 bank headquarters as well as all Oil Company headquarters and telecom company headquarters and the likes is too poor to function effectively despite all the taxable income these companies generate. I get it. Lagos state should be pitied. It has 16 million people to cater for with just N497billion in budgets in a landmass of barely 1000sqkm with fully built infrastructure dating back in the days of the FEDs. Now compare with the FEDs with just 10 times the size of Lagos budget and 1000 times the landmass and 12 times the population with multiple times over in responsibility. If Lagos should be pities, the FEDs should be even more pitied. Or vice versa.

Now since when did the responsibility for the healthcare of the state become solely or mainly a function of the FEDs? The states are to complement? So running a general hospital which is the function of the state is meant to complement running an Mental institution like Yaba Psychiatric?? Like are you serious?? Obviosly, you aren't aware at all about the responsibilities of your state and local government, exactly why you are easily deceived that the FEDs are responsible for all the failures around you.


Truth be told, Lagos is punching way below its belt. This same team/party in 14 years hasn't been able to deliver the state from the shackles of extreme poverty and squalid living conditions and it has nothing to do with population growth as cities like Abuja, PH and a good number of others have experience greater percentage growth in population than Lagos and minus Abuja, haven't had the kind of infrastructural priviledge that the FEDs bequeathed on Lagos.

Fact is Lagos is working excellently only in the minds of the gullible. Fashola is a good administrator but one lacking in vision that is capable of disruptive transformation. At the pace Lagos is working, in another 50 years, the changes would only be very minimal.

mojeer678:

@phantom, I would not have bothered with dignifying your pedestrian retort with a response, but I reconsidered that you would actually be in need of enlightenment.

This is a matured topic seeking a robust debate on how could it be possible to have a paradox existing, as it were, by the oft-repeated mantra that 'Lagos is Working'.

Students of propaganda know that once you repeat a lie so many times, it sinks to a level in the psyche of the targeted populace that it starts to be like the truth.

To the discerning, a lie is still a lie, no matter how well you garnished it. For all I know, you're an employee or beneficiary of Lagos State government and you feel you must rise to the occasion by comparing oranges with apples. How is the thread 'silly'? if I may ask.

Is it reasonable to have a clean room in a dirty house? What makes a house? Can you differentiate an acorn from the oak it sprouted from?

If you live in a dirty environment or neighbourhood but your own room is well cleaned as your flawed logic would have us believe, then it doesn't matter that eventually, the risks & exposure to deadly diseases and infections would soon make nonsense of your clinically pure room? Does that even make sense to you?

I can give you a list of areas where Lagos State is deficient in despite the creative use of the mass media to paint a pleasant picture. This intellectual dishonesty is why I made this thread. If you feel otherwise, come with facts and figures and we can have a nice and respectful debate not resorting to ad hominem insults.

i am sorry you feel insulted.didnt mean to.it came out wrong.i understand you.but it is indeed possible to have a paradox.why are people like BRF , amaechi,akpabio or chime the talk of the nation as regards governance? Why are they outstanding? Its because they are creating a PARADOX. the rot of the larger nation WILL DEFINITELY be visible BUT TO AN EXTENT.i am sorry once again for the insults.didnt mean to.

4 me some state r tryin lyk lagos,akwa ibom etc.but the problem is dat d country has bin in dark ages 4 so long during d military era,which maks it seems nting is hapening.

there is no state in Nigeria that is working lets not fool our selves......what are the in dices that makes up a "working" state?? we only congratulate the Lagos state government because he has taken the step of trying to restructure the decayed facilities of the state......Lagos as a case study is not a country within a country......it is part of a state called Nigeria......and Lagos cannot move ahead or faster than the root which is the federal government........as far as am concerned,beautification alone does not make a state in Nigeria to be working...it goes beyond that. what are those government policies that are enacted to alleviate or make the lives of an ordinary Lagosian to be affected in the positive direction? as far as am concerned,a state that enact laws to the detriment of the masses isn't doing anything at all...because that is the major reason why they are in power......sentiments aside,these governors are trying,but they are far from being a working state...........

Lagos is working slogan doesn't have anything to do with the real practicalities of developing a real modern , livable city like we experience in developed and developing countries world wide....

But it has everything to do with ethnic supremacy......the whole of nigeria is backward, even the most advanced ABuja, a simple trip to a place like Cairo, Jo'burg etc will show any serious minded person that we are just joking here.....

But it doesn't matter to the ethnic chauvinist drumming the lagos propaganda into our ears, as long as they are seen as the best by the gullible ones

meccuno: there is no state in Nigeria that is working lets not fool our selves......what are the in dices that makes up a "working" state?? we only congratulate the Lagos state government because he has taken the step of trying to restructure the decayed facilities of the state......Lagos as a case study is not a country within a country......it is part of a state called Nigeria......and Lagos cannot move ahead or faster than the root which is the federal government........as far as am concerned,beautification alone does not make a state in Nigeria to be working...it goes beyond that. what are those government policies that are enacted to alleviate or make the lives of an ordinary Lagosian to be affected in the positive direction? as far as am concerned,a state that enact laws to the detriment of the masses isn't doing anything at all...because that is the major reason why they are in power......sentiments aside,these governors are trying,but they are far from being a working state...........

You're absolutely correct, when I realised something was not right was when the Tenancy Law was signed into law by this administration and discriminated against other locations in Lagos favouring elitist areas like Ikoyi, Apapa, Ikeja GRA, totally an affront and insult to all right thinking people everywhere.

The greatest shock is the deafening silence that greeted the passage & signing of the law by our so-called activists, press and labour. That's when I knew that this country/state is a joke.

Gani Fawehinmi would have spoken out but Ebun Adegboruwa is carrying the torch with his staunch opposition to the toll gates and suspension bridge.

Maybe there's still hope for us.

phantom: i am sorry you feel insulted.didnt mean to.it came out wrong.i understand you.but it is indeed possible to have a paradox.why are ;Dpeople like BRF , amaechi,akpabio or chime the talk of the nation as regards governance? Why are they outstanding? Its because they are creating a PARADOX. the rot of the larger nation WILL DEFINITELY be visible BUT TO AN EXTENT.i am sorry once again for the insults.didnt mean to.

It's alright my brother. We can't fight each other, that's always their agenda, while they continue robbing us blind.