good and visionary leaders are not too difficult to identify. Kudos to FASH.

Next person to be invited is below. wetin he go talk 

He is the true breath of fresh air in Nigeria. He makes you proud doesn't he?

Yeah Aigbofa, he is

Wow, this is major.

Yes, all Nigerians are truly proud of the job Fashola is doing.

It is sad that some people would try to separate Fashola's accomplishments from ACN and Tinubu's strenous efforts - imperfect & whatever else he may be Tinubu accomplished something no one else has done in Nigeria's dangerous political environment to date. He not only survived OBJ & PDP he took Lagos to a greater height.

This is what fools like Beaf do not realize. [size=14pt]Tinubu & OBJ had the same decision to make in 2007[/size] (the latter's decision was much more important as it affected 150 rather 15 million lifes directly). Let's see how they did:

1. OBJ first tried to keep on governing, contrary to the constitution. When that failed, he reached his hand out and hand-picked two of the most unqualified people to put inside Aso Rock. This is despite being surrounded by young, willing & able leaders like Okonjoiwealla, Bayo, Rufai and Ribadu, among others. We all know the rest of the story - we are stuck with the clueless second half of that pair for another 3 years.

2. Tinubu could have chosen a do-no-gooder that would answer to his every whim & caprices. No, instead he found perhaps the most able, young and dynamic person in Fashola and presented him to the people of Lagos State. Well, we know the rest of the story.

The likes of Beaf & Point B are on an official assignment from OBJ & "baby" OBJ to make Fashola fall by flattery and destroy the rest of ACN. They will fail woefully, and their efforts will continue to solidify the conviction that led the SW to vote massively for ACN.

Aigbofa:

He is the true breath of fresh air in Nigeria. He makes you proud doesn't he?

While some beer bele governors are sitting somewhere feasting of isi ewu and pamy or folding hand behind their backs like houseboy in front of foreign leaders, SMH

I can see one Nairalander in that 4th picture with Fashola

But I wont mention the name

That's good.
But let him come reduce the fees in LASU.
How can the state government hike the fees by over 500%? Abi dem want massive dropout ni?
Haba.

Fashola no dey hia word! E just dey give dem 'gamale 20' drink. kilode!?

^^^Deso babieeee

Demdem:

good and visionary leaders are not too difficult to identify. Kudos to FASH.

Next person to be invited is below. wetin he go talk

nice pix of Ayatollah Udubaba. i think beaf will like it

I dont get it.
This is Fashola's report card.
Ant the best place to present it is abroad, to the "colonial masters"?

Kx:

I dont get it.
This is Fashola's report card.
Ant the best place to present it is abroad, to the "colonial masters"?

na original colo mentality. Listen here from the master:

Fela Kuti

The 18m Lagosians he serves are not worthy of such gesture as they do not request any accountability from him or the legislators and LG councillors.
Meanwhile no Nigerian university including LASU is in the first 400 ranked worldwide!!! Anyway were the lecturers not on strike for many months?
Misplaced priority.

so bleeping what if fashola went oxford cabin biscuit or oxford digestive?, una too dey mek dis guy feel lyk sey he too gud.

And what have picture got to do with the development of lagos? People are just childish this days

Eko Ile:

Fashola At Oxford University Lecture

the Governor further declared, "Our Government in Lagos State has the record of being the most efficient in the country today because of the quality of personnel it keeps and continues to attract from within and outside the country".

such as the ones recruited for LG elections on Saturday:

In Oshodi Local Council, people also protested alleged imposition of candidates by a top official of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in the state, who was said to be very close to a top party leader.

“When he picked the candidates and gave his list to them, party chieftains in the area were unhappy that one man could wield such powers as to hand-pick candidates for the chairmanship and councillorship positions.

“They went to the party secretariat in protest but to their dismay, they were asked to go back and resolve the issue with the union official,” a party member told The Guardian

Was this not what Alao-Akala was very good at doing in Oyo State?

^^^ Dnt blame fashola for that,blame tinubu

i love fashola'a humble personality

favouredjb:

^^^ Dnt blame fashola for that,blame tinubu

i love fashola'a humble personality

sorry ma'am but it was not Tinubu who said this:

"Our Government in Lagos State has the record of being the most efficient in the country today because of the quality of personnel it keeps and continues to attract from within and outside the country".

Btw is this Tinubu's government or Fashola's

I can see one Nairalander in that 4th picture with Fashola

But I wont mention the name

that is my bro eko-ile

Eko Ile:

While some beer bele governors are sitting somewhere feasting of isi ewu and pamy or folding hand behind their backs like houseboy in front of foreign leaders, SMH

good article from a couple of years ago. it stayed in my memory banks.




The man who would tame Nigeria’s megacity

By Matthew Green

Published: August 7 2009 15:25 | Last updated: August 7 2009 15:25






One Sunday afternoon in Lagos, a man leapt out into Akin Adesola, the main street on Victoria Island, and flagged down my car. He yanked open the door, swung into the front passenger seat and barked “drive”.

Anger radiated from him like heat. He wore no uniform and carried no gun, but desperation imbued him with an iron authority. All the pent-up frustrations of the megacity seemed to flow through him like an electric current.

He whipped out a tattered paper and jabbed his finger at a list of violations – I had failed to stop at a white line. He said I had better pay the fine now or go to the station where his superior would be less inclined to leniency.

“What makes you think you can come to my country and break our laws?” he spat. His eyes bulged and beads of sweat glistened on his shaven head. He stared through the windshield at the passing cars. “I should not be out here directing traffic,” he said. “I am a graduate.”

A hostage in my own car, I groped for the most obvious response to this piece of news.

“What subject?” I asked.

“Psychology.”

“So you know Freud?”

“Yes!” he said. “The founding father!” My captor had cracked a smile. The mask slipped. We talked for another 20 minutes and I learnt his name was Olabode – Ola for short. He let me go, gave me his mobile number and waved me on, smiling. As I pulled away, he resumed his vigil from a kiosk on the central reservation, waiting for another chance.

Such encounters are the stuff of everyday life in Lagos, a city defined by hustle. You can see it in the traffic cops shaking down drivers for bribes, in the legions of youths braving the fumes of the “go-slow” traffic jams to sell scratch cards for mobile phones, and in the armies of motorbike taxis careering through the streets. The fabric of the city seems to defy order. A seemingly infinite low-rise checkerboard of mottled concrete, rusted tin roofs and bus-choked, cratered streets, the city of perhaps 18 million ­people – the biggest conurbation in sub-Saharan Africa – appears to have ­succumbed to the early stages of a virulent urban disease. The vast ­majority of people in the city lack access to adequate housing, sanitation or jobs. Travelling relatively short distances can be a teeth-grinding, hours-long ordeal. One Nigerian blogger put the case in eloquent, if extreme, terms in a January post: “A landing in Lagos … is an entrance into Dante’s city of Woe.”

The slumscapes of Lagos are a powerful portent of the extremes of ­poverty and overcrowding to come as the trend for rapid urbanisation continues across the developing world. Nigeria’s commercial capital will be the third-largest city on the planet by 2015 after Tokyo and Mumbai, according to UN projections. Already, half of humanity lives in cities, and within two decades, it will be almost 60 per cent. Millions of people may find that their home towns start to look more like Lagos, before Lagos looks more like the rest of the world.

Yet it is this beast that Babatunde Fashola, the new governor of Lagos State, has made it his mission to transform. Since coming to power in May 2007, the soft-spoken lawyer has launched a programme to build new highways, clear chaotic markets and encourage multi-billion-dollar investments in real estate. A swelling army of floppy-hatted sweepers is ­sprucing up the streets. Former street toughs have been given jobs as traffic wardens. Fashola wants to turn Lagos from an urban dystopia into a model of civic pride. He hopes that even its notoriously frenetic inhabitants will start to feel a little, well, calmer.

Lagosians have heard such plans before. What is remarkable this time is that many people – rich and poor – believe that Fashola could really take the city’s destiny in hand.

. . .

A few months after meeting Olabode, I gave him a call. Most ­foreigners in Lagos live among the enclaves of privilege at the tips of irregularly shaped peninsulas abutting the Atlantic shore – the Victoria Island business district and the colonial-era suburb of Ikoyi. Ola lives in Oshodi, one of the hundreds of interlocking neighbourhoods that sprawl across the Nigerian mainland. Fashola has chosen his area as one of the first targets in his plan to bring the megacity to heel.

To get to Oshodi from Ikoyi, you must cross the Third Mainland Bridge, a 12km concrete serpent that swerves around the edge of the city and over Lagos lagoon. On weekends, when traffic is light, riding this stretch of road is like plunging on to a rollercoaster; the sudden expanse of sea and sky feels almost sublime after the crush of the city. From its crest, you can see Makoko, a slum-on-stilts, spilling into the water. On the bridge above the smoke-shrouded rooftops, a trio of Fashola’s cleaners swept the gutters.

My taxi reached the other side and swerved around three tyres placed in the road to stop cars running over a body – a dead man was curled into a foetal position on the tarmac, and was naked. Unfazed by the sight – not uncommon in a city where environmental services are, to say the least, overstretched – the driver, named Jimoh, extolled Fashola’s achievements. ­“Fashola, good-oh!” he said. (Lagosians often add an “oh” sound at the end of a word for emphasis, a spillover from the Yoruba language.) “Lagos is now changing-oh, because of Fashola. Everywhere is clean. Before, road is not good at all. Now, no hold-up from the main road, no hold-up at all!”

We turned into the labyrinth of Oshodi. For years, the area was famous as a hang-out for thugs, hustlers and thieves. Battered yellow buses, ­hawkers, motorbike-taxi drivers and thousands of people would crowd on to the highway in a scene resembling a slow-motion riot. Ola lived in a two-storey block located a few minutes’ walk from the maelstrom, sharing two rooms with his wife and two children. To enter, you crossed a plank over an open drain and climbed a dank staircase.

Ola was relaxed although seemed a little embarrassed by the circumstances of our first encounter. His eyes still looked weary, but he was a different man from the enraged official I’d confronted during my brief abduction. He led me from his home to the highway.

The Oshodi of old had vanished. Gone were the market stalls that once crowded the central reservation, leaving a scar of bare earth. Traffic flowed freely. Ola pointed at a stream of people walking in an orderly line over a pedestrian bridge where once they would have hurled themselves pell-mell across the road. On the flyover above, passengers waited by special lanes that ensured the shiny new buses avoided the “go slows”. Blasts from horns still rent the air, but the once-permanent jam had cleared.

“Before, very dirty, stinking!” Ola said, sweeping his arms on either side of the expressway as the buses and cars roared past. “You see it is very neat now!”

The faster flow had some unfortunate side-effects. A crowd gathered around a man who sat panting on the ground after being knocked down by a motorbike taxi. Further along, youths were manhandling an old woman into a bus commandeered to take her to hospital after a similar spill. Ola was disappointed with the casualties. “They failed to realise that this place is now an express,” he tutted.

Oshodi’s transformation was not due to some spontaneous outburst of civic duty. As we watched, a convoy of nine new Toyota Hilux pick-ups swept up the road, executed a U-turn, and parked under the bridge with military precision. The words “Lagos Clean Up” were painted on their sides. Police bearing AK-47 rifles – and some wearing battlefield-style webbing – jumped out. One officer carried a long cane. They would ensure that none of the stallholders crept back.

Out of sight of the police, a trader named Austin Igbegbu described how the security forces had arrived before dawn to raze the market. Some ­hawkers had found space in a newly built precinct, but he was now selling shirts from a sack. “I’ve been in Lagos for 31 years, we’ve seen both military regimes and civilian regimes; people in Lagos never experienced such hardship,” he said. Obi Ifedinma, a woman trader, agreed: “Fashola has ­forgotten the people that voted for him.” Then a group of men, suspicious of my note taking, began to walk towards us and Ola hustled me away.


Fashola likes to tour his city. He conducts frequent inspections of the sites where bulldozers and mechanical diggers are busy bending Lagos State to his will. Given the level of brute force required to realise this vision in places such as Oshodi, I was curious to see what kind of reception he would receive. I fell in at the back of the governor’s motorcade for one of his excursions.

Fashola has banned the use of the sirens that the high-rollers in ­Nigerian business and politics often employed to push their way through traffic jams. His convoy of some 19 vehicles, including pick-ups full of police in bulletproof vests and helmets, sped through the city in silence. He rode in a black Range Rover with the plate “LasGo-1.”

Sweeping through a typical Lagos landscape of ramshackle homes and smouldering rubbish, the entourage reached the site of the new Agboroko-Igboelerin road. Diggers had ripped the façades from breeze-block houses, exposing living rooms to the sky as they cleared the way for the new highway. Dressed in a white kaftan and a cap, Fashola stepped on to the dirt to meet dozens of waiting locals. Waving their arms, the crowd chanted “Baba Oh, Baba-Oh”. One man wore a T-shirt bearing the words: “Fashola – Mega Governor”. Surrounded by a gaggle of reporters and photographers, the governor made a show of rapidly consulting a chart proffered by his commissioner in charge of roads. Minutes later, the convoy rolled away.

A pair of young men squeezed on to the back of a motorbike-taxi to provide a makeshift escort. “We like him very well,” said Raman Akibu, who was among those giving the most vigorous cheers. “He constructs a lot of things for us.”

Fashola’s popularity is directly proportional to the amount of concrete his workmen have poured. His very visible achievements in terms of ­starting roads and bridges have created a sense among many Lagosians that – finally – they have a leader who is capable of delivering lasting, positive change. This is a novelty in a city with a sometimes difficult ­history. A staging post for the transatlantic slave trade, contemporary accounts described the original settlement as a festering, malarial heap plagued by intrigue, fetish worship and human sacrifice. Captain John Adams, in his Sketches Taken During Ten Voyages to Africa Between the Years 1786 and 1800, wrote of one “horrid custom” in particular: impaling a young woman on a stake – alive – to placate the rain goddess.

. . .

I met Fashola in his office in Ikeja on the mainland. A wall-mounted plasma TV screen was tuned to CNN. Piles of documents crowded his desk, as well as a recent copy of the journal, Foreign Affairs. Unlike many Lagosians – whose rapid-fire pidgin English itself seems to reflect the city’s helter-skelter pace – Fashola speaks in measured, lawyerly tones. He eschews the kind of flamboyant hand gestures employed by many more boisterous politicians, yet is publicity-conscious: a government camera crew filmed the interview.

“The dream would be that it will be a much more functional city, a more business-friendly city, a safer city, and where people can find not only work, but also leisure,” he said, when I asked him what he hoped to achieve in Lagos. “The philosophy that guides this government now [is] how to make the infrastructure catch up.”

The roots of Lagos’s problems are easy to diagnose: explosive ­population growth has far outstripped the city’s ability to cope. Post-independence political turmoil and long periods of military rule stymied effective planning. The oil boom of the 1970s, which flooded Nigeria with petrodollars, spurred a temporary surge in public works, but the pace soon slowed. A magnet for migrants from across Nigeria and west Africa, Lagos ­developed organically, oblivious to planning.

Counting population in Nigeria is a controversial and often highly subjective exercise, but Fashola believes the city was home in the mid-1970s to about 2.5 million people. Figures vary widely, but the UN says that by next year the headcount could hit 20 million. ­Fashola dropped the following bombshell so calmly it would have been easy to miss: he believes the city’s optimum population is 40 million.

For an outsider, it can be hard to grasp why so many Lagosians have so much faith in their governor’s ability to transform the city given the manifest depths of its problems. The answer lies in a confluence of personal and political factors that perhaps reveals as much about the way Nigeria works – or doesn’t – as it does about whether Fashola can succeed. The son of a prominent family from the Yoruba community that dominates Lagos, ­Fashola has acquired a reputation that embodies the very qualities ­Nigerians often complain have been lacking in their leaders: technocratic ­competence, commitment to results and, above all, integrity. While no administration in Nigeria is immune from allegations of ­cronyism and subterranean deal-making, Fashola has managed to avoid the whiff of grand-scale corruption that has tainted many of Nigeria’s former state governors.

His personal appeal should not, however, obscure the fact that the general elections that brought the current crop of state governors to power in 2007 were among the least credible ever conducted in Nigeria, with many voters choosing to stay at home rather than risk violence at polling ­stations. Contests in many parts of Nigeria were essentially rigging competitions held between rival groups of thugs. There were fewer reports of abuses on polling day in Lagos, which is dominated by Fashola’s opposition Action Congress party. Yet as in other states, powerful political ­figures tend to play a prominent role in ensuring the emergence of their successors. After being anointed by his predecessor, Bola Tinubu, for whom he served as chief of staff, Fashola’s ­victory seemed assured.

The continuity between the two administrations also helps explain why Fashola is making what appears to be such rapid progress. Much of the groundwork for the current programme was laid during Tinubu’s eight-year tenure. Many in Lagos believe Tinubu would have made faster progress had he not spent much of his time locked in political battles with Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president. In the two years since President Umaru Yar’Adua came to power, the dynamics have shifted. The fight between Lagos and Abuja, the capital, has faded. Instead, Tinubu is now playing an increasingly prominent role campaigning for Action Congress as it tries to wrest control of the entire southwest of Nigeria, not just its Lagos stronghold. Many in Lagos political circles believe that Fashola is serving the Action ­Congress’s wider agenda by ­showing what the party can deliver.

Nigeria’s electoral system is so broken that legitimacy tends to stem from the results leaders achieve once in power. To more cynical observers in Lagos, there is a large dose of populism in Fashola’s schemes to put thousands of youths in uniform as traffic wardens, plant lawns under underpasses where muggers once lurked, and sponsor radio jingles extolling the virtues of a cleaner Lagos. It is a measure of the vacuum of good governance that even these small steps can stir such excitement.


Perhaps more significant is Fashola’s success in tapping into the resources of the business community in Lagos, the commercial hub of the country. Lagos State has cleaned up its finances to the point where it can now convince investors to take up a series of bond offers designed to raise 275bn naira (£1.1bn) to fund infrastructure works. Nigeria’s fast-growing banks – keen to cement their relationships with the new man in power – snapped up the initial tranche of 50bn naira to pay for new bridges. Billboards advertise the scheme throughout the city with Fashola’s portrait and a promise – written in pidgin – to improve the city “quick quick”.
At the Sky Lounge, a flashy restaurant at the top of the Eko Hotel with a sweeping view of the city lights, a pair of banking executives who bought a slice of the Lagos State bond talked in excited terms about Fashola’s plans for partnerships with private investors to build a multi-billion-­dollar Atlantic shore development, housing estates, toll ferries and roads. Such ventures have tended to evolve achingly slowly in Nigeria, but the bankers believed in Fashola. “To repay this bond will be like child’s play in three years’ time,” one of them said. Twice he commented that the changes in Lagos would be “like magic”.

Not everyone is so enthusiastic about the redevelopment of Lagos. Sanni Kamoru, a 55-year-old welder, stands at the edge of the traffic-choked Badagry Expressway. It is here that Fashola wants to carry through one of the boldest projects in his master plan: creating a 10 lane super-highway that will become one of the biggest roads in Africa. Like a heart surgeon scraping sclerotic arteries to save a patient, the governor intends to revive the city’s circulation using bulldozers. The idea is that settlements will then spread further out from the city centre, easing congestion and overcrowding. To achieve this, Fashola will have to demolish Kamoru’s house.

“Fashola wants to kill me,” Kamoru said, tearing off his shoe and throwing it into the dirt. He pointed up at his single-storey tenement building with its corrugated iron lean-to: “I can hang myself, and I will die.”

The 10-lane redevelopment will require the demolition of thousands of structures on the verge of the road, which the state government says were built in violation of planning rules. Fashola’s men have daubed the letter X in red on the sides of the condemned buildings, including Kamoru’s tenement. Kamoru lives on the income he receives from renting out the rooms. Soon, he could be destitute.

The Social and Economic Rights Action Center (Serac), a Nigerian ­campaign group, is concerned that Fashola is failing to provide adequate compensation or alternative homes to residents standing in the path of his projects. Memories are still raw in Lagos of the demolition of the Maroko ­neighbourhood on Victoria Island in 1990, when Nigeria’s then military regime evicted 300,000 people. Felix Morka, a lawyer who runs Serac, estimates that another 300,000 people in various communities are likely to be affected by the demolitions for roads, drainage channels and other projects in ­Fashola’s face-lift. ­“Nigerians have been beaten almost to a pulp by bad governance,” he says. “This government is making an effort to put down some construction and some real investment and that’s to be commended. [But] the idea that this is a licence to be lawless, arbitrary, doesn’t add up.”

On several afternoons I sat with Olabode on a balcony overlooking his street. A sound like the clip-clop of a pantomime horse ­heralded the arrival of a Hausa shoeshine boy – he was banging his brush on his box of polish to attract customers. Purveyors of herbal medicine walked past in a pair, one using a megaphone to advertise their wares. Housewives carried buckets of water on their heads after paying to fill up at boreholes. Entrepreneurial zeal was everywhere, yet the government seemed almost absent. Only a new sign with the name of the road attested to Fashola’s beautification scheme.

Ola had given up his job as a traffic warden. The pay was too low; the stress of donning his menacing mask too high. I had the impression he was relying heavily on the support of friends and ­relatives. His ambition was to open a “viewing centre” like the shack down his street where men paid a few naira to crowd on to benches to watch English ­Premiership football on satellite television. As a psychology ­graduate, it was the best he could hope to achieve. His plan embodied the make-money-anyhow spirit of Lagos, though it was hard to see where he would find the cash to get started. For Fashola – or any governor – the real achievement would be to find a way to channel the city’s boundless energy away from the daily fight for survival and into jobs that would give millions like Ola a sense of security.

Some time after Ola had first stopped my car, I was again apprehended near Akin Adesola. Police with rifles sprang out of the darkness and one filmed the car with a video camera. “Now we have documentary evidence,” he told me, triumphant. This was Fashola’s new discipline taken to its extreme: police deployed to arrest violators of his one-way system, ­regulated by new traffic lights. I had taken a wrong turn and been caught red-handed. I dipped down and touched the cracked pavement at the officer’s feet – the ultimate symbol of respect. The police laughed and waved me on. Whatever the schemes of its leaders, Lagos will write its own story.






Authorities shut down the New Africa Shrine, a music venue, for breaching environment laws

Fashola is working, Lagos is moving forward.

Pacesetter carry go!

Loma doing us proud at oxford

Fashola, may God continue to guide you!!!
You are meant and built to reach greater heights by our creator!

i luv fashola alot. He know and appreciates the value of education. I wish him the best at oxford college.

Kx:

I dont get it.
This is Fashola's report card.
Ant the best place to present it is abroad, to the "colonial masters"?

You fail to realize that he wasn't merely presenting his "report card" but speaking about the challenges of Managing a Mega City at the special Oxford Research Network on Government in Africa. Mega Cities all over the world all face most of the same set of problems and Fashola is educating them on what it takes to tame a city like Lagos.

Is there still room for improvement in Fashola's performance and delivery of service? Sure he’s human but there's also zero doubt that he ranks among the best rulers Nigeria has ever had. You may not like him personally but you can’t deny that he’s very hard working and delivers results that seem like “miracles” when compared to other elected governors/presidents.

And just like a true leader, he gives credit to his “very talented and hard-working team.”

This man just continues to inspire me. I hope he will run for presidency, come 2015, or at least vice presidency,
Nigeria needs the man desperately

Wallie:


You may not like him personally but you can’t deny that he’s very hard working and delivers results that seem like “miracles” when compared to other elected governors/presidents.

For the avoidance of doubts, i sing Fashola praise to high heavens.
But like someone rightly pointed out, could nt this report card have been presented in LASU?
Why did he choose to sell himself and his team in Oxford?
Could nt he have achieved the same objective at home?
Can the guys in Oxford verify his claims that In the past three and a half years, as a city-state, we have built more roads than two of our neighbouring countries – Ghana and Sierra Leone even if that statement is bogus?
Who does he owe the duty of stewardship reporting, londoners or lagosians?