Babatunde Fashola, governor of Lagos, has transformed the
city - and helped halt the spread of Ebola in Nigeria

He famously claims to be "just doing his job". But in a land
where politicians are known for doing anything but, that alone
has been enough to make Babatunde Fashola, boss of the vast
Nigerian city of Lagos, a very popular man.
Confounding the image of Nigerian leaders as corrupt and
incompetent, the 51-year-old governor has won near-celebrity
status for transforming west Africa's biggest city, cleaing up
its crime-ridden slums and declaring war on corrupt police
and civil servants.
Next month, he will come to London to meet business leaders
and Mayor Boris Johnson's officials, wooing investors with
talk of how he has spent the last seven years building new
transport hubs and gleaming business parks.
Yet arguably his biggest achievement in office took place just
last week, and was done without a bulldozer in sight. That was
when his country was officially declared free of Ebola, which
first spread to Nigeria three months ago when Patrick Sawyer,
an infected Liberian diplomat, flew into Lagos airport.
Health officials had long feared that the outbreak, which has
already claimed nearly 5,000 lives elsewhere in west Africa,
would reach catastrophic proportions were it to spread through
Lagos. One of the largest cities in the world, it is home to an
estimated 17 million people, many of them living in sprawling
shanty towns that would have become vast reservoirs for
infection. To make matters worse, when the outbreak first
happened, medics were on strike.
Instead, Mr Fashola turned a looming disaster into a public
health and PR triumph. Breaking off from a trip overseas, he
took personal charge of the operation to track down and
quarantine nearly 1,000 people feared to have been infected
since Mr Sawyer's arrival.
Last week, what would have been a formidably complex
operation in any country came to a successful end, when the
World Health Organisation announced that since Nigeria had
had no new cases for six weeks, it was now officially rid of the
virus.
"This is a spectacular success story," said Rui Gama Vaz, a
WHO spokesman, who prompted an applause when he broke
the news at a press conference in Nigeria on Tuesday. "It
shows that Ebola can be contained.
The WHO announcement was a rare glimmer of hope in the
fight against Ebola, and even rarer vote of confidence in a
branch of the Nigerian government, which was heavily
criticised over its response to the abduction of more than 200
schoolgirls by the Boko Haram insurgent group in April. As a
columninst in Nigeria's Leadership newspaper put it last week:
"For once, we did not underachieve."
For Mr Fashola's many supporters, it is also yet more proof
that the 51-year-old ex-lawyer is a future president in the
making, a much-needed technocrat in a country dominated far
too long by ageing "Big Men" and ex-generals.
"He is the best governor we have ever had," said Odun
Babalola, a Lagos-based pension fund portfolio manager.
"He's made a lot of progress in schools, railways, and
infrastructure, and unlike a lot of politicians, who are corrupt,
he's a good administrator."
True, the successful tackling of the Ebola outbreak was not Mr
Fashola's doing alone. For a start, the doctor's strike that was
under way when Mr Sawyer collapsed at Lagos airport turned
out to be a blessing in disguise. Rather than being taken to one
of Lagos's vast public hospitals, where he might have
languished for hours and infected numerous fellow patients
and staff, he was instead admitted to a private clinic. There he
was seen by a sharp-eyed consultant, Stella Adadevoh, who
spotted that his symptoms were not malaria as had been first
thought.
She then alerted the Nigerian health ministry, and along with
other doctors physically restrained Sawyer when he became
aggressive and tried to leave the hospital to fly to another
Nigerian city. Her quick thinking help stop the virus being
spread more widely, but also cost her her life: she caught
Ebola herself while treating Mr Sawyer, and has now been
recommended for a national award.
But even by the time Mr Sawyer had been isolated, the virus
was already on the loose. Knowing that he had passed through
one of the busiest airports in west Africa, health officials had to
try to track down every single person who had potentially been
infected by him, including the other passengers on his flight.
The list started at 281 people and grew to nearly 1,000. as
eight others whom he turned out to have passed the virus to
subsequently died.
That was where Mr Fashola stepped in. He broke off from a
pilgrimage to Mecca, flew home and then helped set up an
Ebola Emergency Operations Centre, which spearheaded the
mammoth task of monitoring all those potentially infected. A
team of 2,000 officials were trained for the task, who ended up
knocking on 26,000 doors. At one point the governor was being
briefed up to ten times a day by disease control experts. He
made a point of visiting the country's Ebola treatment centre, a
way of communicating to the Nigerian public that they should
not panic needlessly.
"Command and control is very important in fighting disease
outbreaks, and he provided effective leadership," said Dr Ike
Anya, a London-based Nigerian public health expert. "He also
said exactly the right things, urging for the need to keep calm.
Regardless of whether you support his politics, he has been
very effective as a governor and I would be happy to see him
stand for leadership."
Born into a prominent Muslim family but married to a
Christian, Mr Fashola trained as a lawyer and went into
politics after being appointed chief of staff by the previous
Lagos governor, Asiwaju Tinubu, a powerful politician often
described as Mr Fashola's "Godfather". But while he has long
enjoyed the backing of a political "Big Man", is his role as a
rare defender of Nigeria's "Little Men" that has won him most
support.
Once, while driving through Lagos in his convoy, he famously
stopped an army colonel who was driving illegally in one of the
governor's newly-built bus lanes, berating him in front of
television cameras.
"The bus is for those who cannot afford to buy cars," he said.
"I want a zero tolerance of lawlesness, and those who don't
want to comply can leave our state."
It was one of the first times Nigerians had ever seen a civil
servant confronting a member of the security forces, whose
fondness for committing crime rather than fighting it has long
contributed to Lagos's legendary reputation for lawlessness.
Armed robberies - sometimes by moonlighting police - used to
be so common that few people ventured out after dark. Foreign
businessmen would routinely travel with armed escorts, and
the few willing to live there would stay mainly in a heavily-
guarded diplomatic area called Victoria Island, a rough
equivalent to Baghdad's Green Zone. Add to that the
suffocating smog, widespread squalor and regular three-hour
traffic jams, and it was no suprise that the city had a
reputation as one of the worst places in the world to live.
Today, much of the problems remain. But members of the vast
Nigerian diaspora say they now notice big changes whenever
they go back. "When you return you see an absolute difference
- things have improved 100 per cent," said Nels Abbey, a
London-based Nigerian journalist and businessman. "Traffic is
not what it used to be, bus lanes have been introduced, and it
feels a lot safer. Fashola has been like a Tory mayor for Lagos
- he is trying to make it attractive to the well-off."
Styling himself as Lagos's answer to Boris Johnson has not
endeared him to everyone. As well as laying plans for a vast
offshore business park intended as an "African Dubai", he has
accelerated programs to clear the ever-expanding shanty
towns, ordering their occupants to return to their homes in
Nigeria's poorest east and north. That has led to criticism from
human rights groups, although others say it is hard to see how
Lagos will ever improve otherwise. "Do I endorse it?" said Mr
Nels. "I am afraid it is a bit of a necessary evil."
Another big achievement has been increasing tax revenues,
vital in a city where the GDP of $43 billion makes it the fifth-
biggest economy in sub-Saharan Africa. Mr Fashola has tried
to sweeten the pill by putting up signs on all new infrasructure
projects, saying "paid for by your taxes". It is a rare
acknowledgement of gratitude in a country where a guaranteed
stream of state oil wealth has historically allowed rulers to
remain aloof from the ruled.
However, despite being relected with 80 per cent of the vote in
2011, the main hailed as Nigeria's brightest political hope in
years is far from guaranteed a life in office. Having served two
terms in office already, he is not allowed to run as Lagos
governor again. And as a member of a minority tribe and the
country's opposition All Progressives Congress, he currently
lacks the political backing to go head to head against Goodluck
Jonathan in next year's elections.
In the meantime, fresh from ridding Lagos of Ebola, he is
focusing on an arguably even tougher challenge, launching a
new initiative to stop motorists stuck in traffic jams from
blasting their horns all day. As he put it: "If we can overcome
Ebola, then we can overcome noise pollution."


SOURCE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/11184759/Meet-the-man-who-tamed-Nigerias-most-lawless-city.html?fb

Fashola For President!

Mr President won't be happy with dis o..All the praise and accolades that are sharing in UK diaris Goduo..#cleans face with ALWAYS to soak the tears.

About time due credit is given.

Really don't know what to say again about the unarguable the best Governor in Nigeria at the moment but I think it will be fair for some or as many Nigerians ( who resides in Lagos or have 'interest' there), to send a HAND-WRITTEN thank you note to this visionary leader.





May God continue to keep you, Gov Fashola