The completion of on-going road projects in Lagos State in the New Year would be the primary focus of the Fashola’s administration, even as efforts are being made to ensure that every geo-political zones in the state benefit from one road construction or the other.

Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Obafemi Hamzat dropped the hint during a media parley with journalists in his office to showcase the activities of his ministry in year 2013.

According to him, in 2014, his ministry would intensify on the completion of on-going road projects, rather than building new ones, adding that there was no point in constructing new roads when on-going ones were yet to be completed and commissioned.

Hamzat noted, that about 900 roads had either been rehabilitated or completed in the out gone year, pointing out, that, this year, more emphasis would be placed on the completion of those road projects that work commenced on in 2013.

His words: “Since the administration would be winding down as from 2014, it would a great disservice to the people of the state for on-going road projects to be abandoned. His Excellency Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola would be keen to see that all existing road projects were given top priority attention by ensuring that they were completed and commissioned before the end of the tenure of the present administration”.

Hamzat hinted that there is no local government or council area in the state that does not have an on-going road project or the other, pointing out, that it is a deliberate policy to make all the geo-political zones feel the presence of government.

According to him, the ministry usually considers connectivity in choosing any road project, notinhg that this development has no doubt, helped in shaping the road project that had so been undertaken by his ministry.

He said that even if all the resources and ability were available to prosecute any road project, it would not be feasible to do all the roads in one year. He was quick to add, that building roads in riverine areas is very expensive.

The commissioner said that it was expedient for the people to ensure that these roads being constructed with tax payers’ money were properly maintained, adding that by so doing, their life span would be extended. He was quick to point out, that the state government was not taking ownership of these roads but that the people should see them as their own and therefore take good care of them.

He lamented a situation where most of these roads were being abused by those who continually dig them; allowing waste water to overflow into them, warning that these activities no doubt would impact negatively on the life span of such roads.

Hamzat said that the ministry was constructing pedestrian bridges in some areas of the state such as Cement Bus stop, Ijaye, Ile Epo but was quick to point out, that the one at Ile Epo was currently under litigation because of a resident who said that the project was inimical to business interest.

The commissioner however said that the state government was looking into ways of resolving it so that the project could go on.

He frowned at the way people have turned the pedestrian bridges into bus stop, adding that this development should be discouraged.

He also used the occasion to hint that the Tinubu Square Fountain now has a facility manager with the sole aim of ensuring that it remained the pride of the state government and a tourist attraction.

On the Ayobo Road project, he hinted that the completion period is not something that be determined by sheer guessing because of the impediments the ministry was currently experiencing in respect of the road.

He said that the project was being curtailed by the lack of drawing from the corporation, pointing out, that the ministry would wait for the corporation to get its bearing right before continuing the project because ‘safety is the paramount thing on our minds’.

Governors of South West states recently converged on Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, over a backward integration policy on agricultural production aimed at re-positioning the agricultural sector of their respective states.

This is towards driving socio-economic growth and enhancing integration plans of the South West states. The South West backward integration policy, according to official report, is expected to focus on capacity building of farmers and agriculturalists in the region, finance of farmers and agricultural production, preservation and processing through credit facility and government subventions as well as technical intervention.

The agric parley, which was attended by Jide Arowosafe, Gbolahan Lawal, Ronke Sokefun, commissioners for agriculture in Ekiti, Lagos and Ogun states, respectively, as well as Kunle Adeduntan, permanent secretary, ministry of agriculture, Oyo State, showed that the region had concluded plans to revive agriculture that used to be its economic mainstay.

Speaking with newsmen after the parley, Jide Arowosafe, commissioner for agriculture, Ekiti State, disclosed that the four states had agreed to have a unified way of financing agricultural projects and building the capacity of farmers rather than doing it individually, adding that this would go a long way in repositioning agriculture as the mainstay of the economy.

The states also resolved to promote the use of mechanised farming to enhance food production and where necessary, create an atmosphere for any of them found lagging behind to catch up with others, Arowosafe said, adding that farmers’ capacity building programmes would be jointly organised on new trends in farming practices through a joint training institute.

The Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi, has commissioned an ultra-modern water treatment plant at the Asejire Water Scheme, which cost 262 million Naira, putting an end to 17 years of epileptic water supply to the people of the state and neighbouring towns.

The scheme, which has a production capacity of 186,000 cubic meter of water per day, is the largest water production scheme in the state, supplying potable water to 85 per cent of the entire populace in Ibadan metropolis, as well as the communities of Ikire, Ikoyi and Apomu in the neighbouring Osun State.

While commissioning the scheme, Governor Ajimobi expressed gladness that the water challenges being suffered in the state would become a thing of the past.

He said that when his administration came into office, water situation in the state was deplorable and the Water Treatment Plants had reduced in production performance to about eight per cent, due to “un-imaginable neglect by past administrations and the managerial deficiencies of erstwhile operators.”

The Governor added that the last time the plants witnessed installation and construction was seventeen years ago, as they were constructed and installed in 1972, 1991 and 1996 respectively. Apart from the old age of the equipment, other factors that led to the decline of water production at the Water Scheme included lack of spare parts for maintenance and persistent interruption in power supply.

The analysis, he said, had led to award of contracts for the construction of Ayete Water Supply Scheme, to supply water to Tapa, Idere and Ayete Communities; dedicated Power Line to Saki Water Supply Scheme, rehabilitation of Dedicated Power Line to Ogbomoso Water Supply Schemes, extension of pipelines to New Areas throughout the State, upgrading of Water Treatment facilities at Koso and Atori Waterworks in Iseyin, Comprehensive replacement and repair of all electro-mechanical components at all Water Supply Schemes and Booster Stations in the state, upgrading and rehabilitation of Oyo Water Supply Scheme, rehabilitation and upgrading of Igboho Water Supply Scheme, expansion works on Igbetti and Ogbomoso Water Supply Scheme, revalidation of construction of Ilero Water Supply Scheme, laying of New Rising Mains from Eruwa to Igboora (Phase I & II).

In his remarks, the General Manager of Water Corporation of Oyo State, Mr. Gabriel Oguntola, said that the project was awarded six months ago by the State Government as part of efforts towards increasing the volume of potable water supply to the people of Ibadan metropolis.Eight out of the ten pumps were rehabilitated with 100 per cent efficiency, while all critical water treatment units are now functioning well.

The rehabilitated and upgraded water treatment plant, he said, would increase water production from 10 per cent to 80 per cent production capacity and would also eliminate incidences of waterborne diseases. The plant could conveniently supply about 150 million litres of water to about four million residents of Ibadan and its environs on daily basis.

[b]Fashola has failed while Chime is the best

How come you all pass through Enugu and don't consider the state a place to pitch you business and crime tent? Why Lagos?

You're quick to remember the 4MB which I know very well is on course

You mention the Lekki FTZ of empty plots. How else will it start? Fully built?

Dubai Airport didn't just spring up in one night. The land for the Lekki Airport has been reclaimed and cleared. The project is on course.

You think it is beans running a state like Lagos?

Go figure why the lights on the 3MB never come on every night but most of the other streets in Lagos are lit and powered by thousands of liters of diesel

With about twenty million people, the crime rate is lower than Enugu's. Isn't it the same NPF securing both states? Do you think those transformer police men you see on the roads, their bikes and other gadgets they use come from Abuja

Dial 767 in an emergency and see what happens. A fully fitted ambulance in the case of a medical issue or a full combat police suwad will appear in case of a security threat. Are these services run on charity?

You failed to mention thousands, not hundreds, of kilometers of inner roads he's build and rehabilitated with drainages and street lights which all function effectively

BRF has built more housing estates in Lagos than the FG has in Nigeria in the last seven years

School buildings have been built and are still being built

You failed to mention the several world class water projects he has executed

The blue rail is over 70% completed. The tracks have been laid and the FMF led by NOI slowed down the project by not guaranteeing the WB loan as required by the word body.

You failed of mention the various agricultural projects he has embarked on, from cassava farming, to rice
[/b]

Simon Kolawole Live!: By Simon Kolawole, Email: simon.kolawole@thisdaylive.com

In the beginning, there was a mistake – the “Mistake of 1914”. In split seconds, some 250 ethnic groups were compressed into one map by the British colonial masters. The contraption was poetically nicknamed “Nigeria” – an obvious contraction of “Niger Area”. There had been an unruly competition for African territory among the European colonial powers. They hovered over the continent, like vultures, looking for territories and resources to capture and devour. In 1884-85, they queued up at the Berlin Conference to share the loot. The British were gifted with the slices of Nigeria. They then created the Nigerian protectorates for their pleasure.

Before then, there was no Nigeria. No Southern Nigeria, no Northern Nigeria. There were many ethnic groups sprinkled randomly over the landmass. There were empires, kingdoms, city-states and emirates. War and peace united and divided hamlets, communities, villages, towns, cities and territories. Trade, military adventures and political alliances crossed borders, tribes and tongues.
But there was no Nigeria.

Then, the tag “Yoruba” did not refer to all the people we now call Yoruba. It referred to only the Oyo-speaking people who lived in places such as Oyo-Ile, Ibadan, Ede, Osogbo, Iwo and Ogbomoso, etc. Ekitis were called Ekitis. Ifes were called Ifes. Egbas were called Egbas. Ijebus were called Ijebus. Ijeshas were called Ijeshas. They were not called Yorubas.

In fact, the first newspaper to be published on these shores, established in 1859, was named Iwe Irohin Fun Awon Egba ati Yoruba, literally: “Newspaper for the Egba and the Yoruba”. As at 1859, therefore, Egbas were not referred to as Yorubas. It was the colonial masters and their missionary siblings, for ease of demography and identity, that applied the common identity of Yoruba to all descendants of Oduduwa who greet “eku”, “eka” and “okun” – stretching across what we now have as Lagos, Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Ogun and parts of Kwara and Kogi states. Today’s “Yoruba” national identity is, therefore, largely a colonial-era development.

In truth, too, the people we call Igbo today were not all known as Igbo before the amalgamation. For instance, Aro and Onitsha often rejected the ideology of corporate Igbo identity. B.O.N. Eluwa, who was the General Secretary of the Ibo Federal (State) Union, told the story of how he toured “Igboland” from 1947 to 1951 to convince “Igbo” villagers that they were indeed “Igbos”. He said these villagers “couldn’t even imagine” that categorisation. David B. Abernethy wrote: “In the 1930s, many Aro and Onitsha Ibos (Igbos) consciously rejected identification as Ibos (Igbos), preferring to think of themselves as separate, superior groups.” In simple language, therefore, the popular Igbo identity in use today is post-amalgamation.

The Igbo story, as told by Eluwa in his book, Ado-Na-Idu: History of Igbo Origin, is instructive. Unlike the Yoruba who migrated as a group, Eluwa said the Igbo migrated in clans – and that should explain the noticeable cultural and linguistic differences. The people we call Anioma today (Delta Igbo, Onitsha, etc) migrated along with the Edo, hence the cultural and lingual similarities (dressing, kingship, “do”, “ndo” etc). The Nsukka Igbo migrated through present-day Benue State, hence the similarities with the Idoma, including facial marks. Many clans in today’s Anambra settled in Igalaland before moving Southward. On the basis of these accounts, many Igbo clans apparently lived in the North centuries ago.

What’s more, what we call “North” today was just a large expanse of land occupied by various sovereignties – the Kanem-Bornu empire, the Hausa kingdoms, the Kwararrafa (Jukun) empire and the Nupe kingdom, etc. Not until the Hausa kingdoms were captured into the Sokoto Caliphate through Usuman Dan Fodio’s jihad was there a dominant sovereignty in the North. But the North was never one entity. The Kano man, though Hausa, called himself Abakani and the Zaria man Abazasage. They were Hausas and Muslims quite all right, but they were always at war, killing each other. They did not see themselves as Hausa kith and kin, but as rivals trying to expand their territories, just like the pre-colonial “Yoruba” kingdoms.

In sum, contrary to the popular impression, it is not just “Nigeria” that is a colonial contraption. Most of the ethnic and regional identities we so dearly cling to today were either colonial contraptions or constructed by us in the contestation for power in the embryonic Nigeria. The British created the Niger Coast Protectorate in 1893, formed the Northern Protectorate in 1900, and added the Lagos Colony to the Niger Coast Protectorate in 1906 to establish the Southern Protectorate. In 1912, Sir Frederick Lugard was appointed governor for both Northern and Southern protectorates in preparation for the amalgamation for ease of administration.
Then came January 1, 1914. Then came the mistake. The “Mistake of 1914”.

But what was the “Mistake of 1914”? Was it the fact or the act of amalgamation? Those who blame the “fact of amalgamation” say there should never have been a Nigeria, that Nigeria is a fraud, that the various ethnic groups had nothing in common and that Nigeria is just a colonial contraption. Conversely, those who see the “act of amalgamation” as the “mistake” posit that the problem was not the amalgamation per se but the failure of the colonial masters to consciously integrate the 250 ethnic nationalities into one nation. It was like proclaiming a couple man and wife without courtship and without honeymoon. This foundational error in nation-building, they argue, is the “mistake”.

Meanwhile, to say the North and the South had “nothing” in common is a complete exaggeration. Commerce and migration made their paths cross. The story of the farming, trading and consumption of the kola nut puts a lie to the suggestion that the North and the South had “nothing” in common. Many Southern ethnic groups that migrated from Upper Sudan actually settled in the North before their Southward journey. Some political scientists will even argue that the amalgamation was a natural consequence of these historical links. Those who claim the amalgamation was intended to feed the North with Southern resources apparently care little about economic history. For centuries before the amalgamation, Kano was one of the biggest centres of trade in Africa.

I would rather think the biggest challenge to our nationhood today is how to move away from the ethnocentric mindset of the pre-Independence era. Most of our founding fathers were ethnic nationalists. A notable exception, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, eventually abandoned his pan-Nigerian ideals when confronted with our stark political reality. Today, we are still searching for that pan-Nigerian identity. Unfortunately, more and more ethnic nationalists and their offspring are taking the political centre stage and reinforcing these divisions, with balkanisation in mind. Nevertheless, on several indices of integration – such as inter-ethnic marriage, cultural assimilation and internal migration – we are not doing badly, at least compared to 1914 or 1960. However, the political mismanagement of our diversity means we will continue to live with conflicts and tensions.
But we who believe in “unity in diversity” should refuse to give up on Nigeria. With competent and patriotic leadership, our march to greatness will be unstoppable. This I believe.

•NOTE: This article is an abridged version of a chapter in my debut book, Rethinking Nigeria, due for release later this year.


And Four Other Things...
COUP SCARE?
A newspaper report said a coup scare was responsible for recent shake-ups in the military. I am not so sure military rule has proved to be better than democracy in Nigeria. The military introduced most of the distortions to the federal structure that we are battling with today. Soldiers are no better looters either. The formation of All Progressives Congress (APC), in my opinion, is the ultimate “coup” we need to strengthen our democracy and improve governance. With a fierce competition between two strong national parties, our democratisation project can only get better.

ONE-TERM PACT
Did President Jonathan sign a pact in 2011 to do only one term? This controversy has been raised yet again by Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State. Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger raised it two years ago, while President Obasanjo alluded to it in his “letter bomb”. Jonathan’s men have denied this and challenged the governors to leak a copy of the agreement to the media to put the speculation to rest for ever. I don’t even think we need all this argument again. Jonathan would want to run as long as it is within his right. The solution? Let Nigerians decide in 2015...

REFINERIES AGAIN
There were protests by oil workers last week against the proposed sale of refineries. I think this is a wrong-headed move. To keep the refineries in government control is to continue to waste billions of dollars on maintenance that gets us nowhere. When President Obasanjo sold Warri and Kaduna in 2007, President Yar’Adua reversed it and pumped another round of billions into them. Nothing came out of it. I think the unions should refine their argument. What we need is a transparent process that meets global standards. The refineries must not be surreptitiously sold. Simple.

CORRUPT JUDGES
Imagine how relieved I was to learn about the impending prosecution of seven judges on charges of corruption. It is not enough for the National Judicial Council (NJC) to discipline them. They should stand trial and go to jail if found guilty. We often complain that government is not fighting corruption, but that does not tell the whole story. Lawyers and judges play a major role in scuttling graft trials and making sure no “big man” is brought to justice. EFCC and ICPC cannot jail people! It is only the judiciary that is empowered by law to do. And if the same judiciary is rotten, God help us!