Ah! That means that I have to quote the full post. The full post is actually about Jakande's efforts and when you read it you can make up your mind whether he achieved any results or not.
9jaRealist: Interesting to learn that... Was obviously before my time, but our parents’ generation revered him. >
He was a star athlete at St Gregory's College. He was a director and then permanent secretary and then commissioner at the ministry of works in the 1980s and 1990s.
He was actually at my dad's funeral in the early 1990s (I didn't notice him, because of the crowd, until I watched the video a few weeks later).
9jaRealist: Good post, but abegi Mobolaji Johnson (although an achiever) cannot take credit for Eko Bridge, TMB or the ring roads... Lagos was then the federal capital, and another great Lagosian Femi Okunnu takes primary credit as Fed Works Commissioner. >
What were the projects you planned to execute during your tenure but for reasons of time and financial constraints, you could not?
I wasn’t happy with the transportation system in Lagos, and I particularly felt bad about the waterways that we could not fully exploit. I sent a delegation abroad to look for flat bottom boats that could take passengers across the waterways. I wasn’t happy with the transportation system and would have loved to see a better system in place. One of the ideas I had was to construct the 3rd Mainland Bridge. Don’t forget, the 3rd Mainland Bridge was a creation of the government of Lagos State and not the Federal Government. The Federal Government only took it over at a point in time when we didn’t have enough money and, therefore, included the project as part of the state’s contribution to second Five-Year Development Programme of the Federal Government in 1972. I went abroad and was surprised to discover that the headquarters of Julius Berger was located in the same area with the hospital where I went for medical treatment. I met Mr Whitman who later served as vice chairman on the board of Julius Berger. His first job in Nigeria was the construction of the Itoikin Bridge that links Lagos with Epe.
During my meeting with Mr Whitman and his team of engineers, I showed them what we were planning for the ring roads around Lagos. I believe people getting out of Lagos should have free ways that they can use. The concept I had for the inner ring road and outer ring road was to have pillars erected to the middle of Herbert Macaulay and Murtala Muhammed Way with the pillars supporting a network of highways on the top like the ones I saw in Tokyo, Japan. I believed we could achieve same in Lagos. The Julius Berger team looked into my concept and came up with a blueprint ready for my submission to the Federal Government. That was how Julius Berger and an army of officials came all the way to Lagos. Work began in earnest with the engineers in boats and canoes crisscrossing the body of water over which the 3rd Mainland Bridge and its ring roads would be built. At Marina, they proposed sand filling as the best option so as to be able to gain more useful land, in addition to solving the traffic problem on that axis. I was thinking we could use the idea of the 3rd Mainland Bridge to sand fill a sizeable portion of the water front of the University of Lagos and adjoining areas and create a big motor park where a park-and-ride system of transportation would be available to take passengers from the Oworonshoki area into Lagos, where you will equally take a taxi or a bus to wherever you are going on the Lagos Island and when you are through with what you came to do on the Island, you will be taken back by boats across the water to where your car is parked at Oworonshoki. That was one major project I would have loved to accomplish but couldn’t. To date, our waterways, I must say, are still largely underutilised.
Brigadier Johnson later became the chairman of Julius Berger Nigeria and he was the chairman for decades.
9jaRealist: Good post, but abegi Mobolaji Johnson (although an achiever) cannot take credit for Eko Bridge, TMB or the ring roads... Lagos was then the federal capital, and another great Lagosian Femi Okunnu takes primary credit as Fed Works Commissioner. >
It was a joint project. I've often written about Alhaji Femi Okunnu's role in the project, but he was not a governor of Lagos, so I couldn't have written about him in that post.
By the way, did you read Brigadier Johnson's interview on the first page (about how the idea of the Ring Road was concieved)?
anonimi: Nice one as usual. Don't you think that we focus too much on new physical infrastructures to the detriment of human capital development, utilities, services, maintenance that can reduce the cost of governance so more is done? Is it not time for the people to work with their local governments for better service?
Human capital development. I think that's what Governor Jakande tried to achieve with his education policy and what Governors Tinubu and Fashola tried to copy with their Millenium Schools policy.
Raji Rasaki (Adiyan Waterworks, completion of 3rd Mainland Bridge [Babangida ordered his secretary not to allow Rasaki into his office again, because Rasaki was always disturbing him about the 3rd Mainland Bridge], Lagos Horizon Newspaper, Opebi-Oregun Link Bridge, etc)
Mohammed Buba Marwa - Eko FM, LASUTH, Direct Labour Agency [which patched the roads that were left in a state of disrepair by Mr. No Bitumen ], Marwa Gardens, Eko FM, Operation Sweep
Bola Tinubu (Lasambus, BRT, Kai, Office of The Public Defender, Lagos Emergency Points, Millenium Schools, Lasuth, LASTMA, reconstruction of roads that were left in a state of disrepair by Mr. No Bitumen and patched by Governor Marwa, etc).
Raji Fashola (Okota-Itire Link Bridge, Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge, Lasu-Iba Road, Lasmi Cabs, Traffic Radio, LRT, Lagos HOMS, expension and modernisation of the Lekki Expressway, Lagos State Security Trust Fund, etc)
Governors Otedola, Akhigbe (Ikeja flyovers), Mudashiru (rehabilitation of Jakande schools), Kanu, Lawal and Ukiwe also did well. I won't rate them as the best, but I'll say they did very well.
The lone exception is Colonel Olagunsoye Oyinlola (Mr. No Bitumen) who did absolutely nothing. He sat and watched as Lagos roads became filled with ginormous craters, hills and valleys. Awolowo Road was an eyesore at this time.
However, if you tell some people that Governor Johnson did a lot, they will direct your attention to Eko Court and the armed robbery edict. If you tell them that Governor Rasaki was an action governor, they will remind you of Maroko and Ilado. If you tell them that Marwa was very popular, they will tell you that he served Abacha, that Operation Sweep killed many innocent people and they will ask you where he got the money with which he started his airline (some will even tell you that he was one of the people that delivered the parcel bomb to Dele Giwa's house and they will also remind you about Bagauda Kaltho's death). If you tell them that Tinubu transformed Lagos from the huge refuse dumps and bad roads of the 1990s to a clean place with smooth roads, they will tell you that Tinubu owns the whole of Lagos. If you tell them that Fashola brought back sanity to Oshodi and continued the progress started by Tinubu, they will tell you that Fashola is elitist.
We Started Lagos State With Only 10,000 Pounds — Mobolaji Johnson.
The first military governor of Lagos State, Brigadier Mobolaji Johnson (retd), in this interview granted a specialised publication in respect of the 50th anniversary of Lagos State, Matters of Heritage, a copy of which was obtained by SATURDAY TRIBUNE, relives the birth of Lagos State and the challenges of its early stages of development.
What was the feeling when you became the governor of Lagos State at such a young age of 31?
The appointment came suddenly upon me as a young man and I had to take it. I took it as a challenge and faced it squarely. The challenges were not difficult to face and overcome because of the upbringing I had under my father, Pa ‘Motola Johnson, who was a strong character and raised all of us his children to be equally strong in character. While I was governor, my father was always reminding me not to tarnish the name and image of the family. That kept me focused and steady throughout my tenure. No wonder after the investigations of the Murtala Muhammed government that came after the government of General Yakubu Gowon, in which I served as governor, I was one of the governors given a clean bill of health as free from corrupt practices. I must say that a major problem in our political life today is that we have many in positions of authority who never had good home training. I am eternally grateful to God for the good upbringing under my father, which shaped my life for good.
What were the challenges you met on ground as the pioneer governor of the state?
Lagos State came into existence as a child of circumstance. The country was on the verge of civil war and one of the masterstrokes General Gowon applied was the creation of states, which pulled the carpet off the feet of [Chukwuemeka Odumegwu] Ojukwu. I came in first as the administrator of the Federal Capital before states were created. The feeling of Nigerians was that Lagos was a no man’s land. I had to face the challenge of correcting that erroneous impression. There was the need to let people know that the territory called Lagos belonged to a people with their distinct historical background, culture and tradition. Again, quite a good number of people thought the creation of Lagos was a ruse, that it could not be; that it could not work. So, we had to make sure it worked. We had to work round the clock to ensure that Lagos became a reality and I am happy to say that 50 years down the road, Lagos State is a reality, a model state waxing stronger.
What major problems did you have to contend with?
Our brothers in the West did not like the creation of Lagos State. They believed it should be part of the West. It became a ding-dong affair. Don’t forget that Lagos at a point in history was part of the West before it later became the Federal Capital, which brought about the parlance ‘gedegbe l’Eko wa’. The West was bitter, claiming that they had all their industries in Ikeja and how can we come to take them (the industries) away? I had to go on a peace mission to the West with my officials to see the late General Adeyinka Adebayo, the governor of Western Region, in Ibadan.
Again, skeptics never gave us a chance. They were calling us names, wondering how we were running government without commissioners. But I knew it was more difficult than that. All the functions being done by the Federal Government were being taken over by the new state, which was still in its infancy. A lot needed to be done at that time – the legal backing to the new state and part of the functions to be taken away from the Federal Government by the emerging new government in Lagos State would take some time. There was also a noticeable friction between the elders and youths who were trying to write off the elders as those responsible for the woes of the country; that the fall of the First Republic was caused by them. They were agitating that it was now time for the youths to be at the helm of affairs. Before long, I became the subject of all sorts of editorials in national newspapers that I surrounded myself with some of those who spoilt the country. I had to call a conference of the elders at the old City Hall. I told them in Yoruba parlance that: ‘ogiri to ba la ni alamo nkosi’ (it is when you have cracks on your wall that lizards have the opportunity to get inside). I didn’t want to bring the elders and the youths together without first taking care of the rough edges. I had to convene a separate meeting with the youths. A grand final took place at the City Hall where I brought the elders and the youths under one roof and I said to the assembly that I could not conduct the meeting alone; that I wanted six representatives from each side to join me on the high table. A lot of fundamental issues were resolved at the meeting and in a way formed the background to the emergence of Lagos State. When things improved, particularly after my peace mission to the West, some of them had a change of mind and returned to Lagos State. Folarin Coker and Shamsudeen Thomas were two of the early highly-ranking civil servants that returned to join the service of Lagos State. I should also mention here that civil servants of Lagos State origin were reluctant to leave the West, because Lagos to them was not yet a reality. They were not sure of their future, so they remained in the West.
What was the first budget like?
I had a one-line vote which I was using as the administrator of the Federal Capital. It was a modest sum of 10,000 pounds. That was what I used in starting Lagos State. Okuyiga and Coker set up a board that was responsible for revenue generation. Pools betting generated money for the state and once we were sure we could pay the salary of our workers and civil servants by the first month, we began the march to transforming the state. Those who never gave us a chance were surprised that we could achieve that feat with our meager resources.
Before you became the administrator of the Federal Capital and later the first governor of Lagos State in May 1967, where were you?
I always tell people that if you are good, you are good, and if you are bad, you pay a price. I had a rapid promotion in the military. Before the first coup of January 15, 1966, I was already a Deputy Adjutant and Quartermaster General of the Headquarters of the 2nd Brigade in Apapa, Lagos. I was in charge of the troops in the West, Mid-West.
The DAQG job involved everything from boots and bootlaces to armoured tanks and accommodation of career officers and men under my command. As Brigade Commander, I was, working as number two staff officer. My Brigade Commanders in the brigade were Aguiyi Ironsi and Maimalari. When the coup took place, the commander of the First Battalion, Major Largema, was killed at Ikoyi Hotel and the troops marched on Lagos, insisting on seeing their commander and, of course, we knew he was dead. I stopped the invading troops and received them, telling them, ‘look, it is not by fighting that we can do justice to the memory of the late Commander of the Battalion’. So, I asked them to go back and rest assured that everything would be done to immortalise the fallen officer. It didn’t come as a surprise when, after things had settled down a bit, I was posted to the 4th Battalion, Ibadan, as second-in-command to the late Joe Akahan. In my new posting, I was able to change the attitude of my officers and men and move their concentration from coup plotting to games, sports and training programmes. We came to Lagos for Army Sports Competition and we won the competition. Soon, I was posted to Benin without troops. Benin was never a military zone. So, I was again called upon to go and set up a military station in Benin under Ejoor and I became second-in-command to Governor Ejoor. I must state here that Benin provided the opportunity for me to have my first stint of political administration. I was in the cabinet that had people like Mariere, who was adviser to the governor. I learnt a lot from Benin. It was there in Benin that Ejoor returned to his duty post after a Supreme Military Council meeting in Lagos and instead of me saluting, he was saluting me sharply and then gave me a signal that I was wanted in Lagos and that when I get to Lagos, they would tell me the details. That was how I moved back to Lagos and was received by General Ironsi who told me that as from that time on, whenever he was receiving visitors or conducting interviews, he would want me to be there because, he wanted somebody to come and look after Lagos, otherwise, he wouldn’t move an inch: he couldn’t do a thing outside solving the problems of Lagos. He said he wanted somebody and that was how they came up with my name. They wanted somebody born and bred here in Lagos and that was how I became the head of the Federal Capital.
Earlier, you mentioned the four musketeers who were saddled with the responsibility of running the newly created state with you at the helm. If you had to look back, who were the personages that came on board and at what point in your administration?
The four men I called the musketeers were civil servants. Howson Wright was Secretary to the Military Government; F.C.O Coker was Finance Secretary; Agoro was the Attorney General while Adeyemi Bero was the Administrative Secretary. In the enlarged cabinet, which was constituted later on, I had the simple luck of having credible men around me and the right people for the right job. The men who came on board my administration included L.S. Adewale; Adeniran Ogunsanya; Reverend Akin Adesola; Babs Williams; Johnson Agiri; Ganiyu Dawodu and other men and women of integrity whose names I cannot readily recollect now.
As a governor operating from the seat of the Federal Government, how much autonomy did you enjoy?
I must give it to Gowon. He created states and ensured that they operated as autonomous states. Although some officials didn’t let go, I went ahead to form my own Civil Service Commission overnight, headed by Norman Williams as chairman, Oba Alaketu of Ketu and Mrs Femi Pearse were commissioners in the Civil Service Commission. I was given a free hand by Gowon to operate while I got my cabinet working. We took steps to ensure that the new state stabilised.
With the ever increasing population of Lagos State, what were the major problems you had to contend with?
I remember when the civil war came to an end, there was so much hardship; increased cases of armed robbery and Lagos become chaotic. That was when I made an edict to the effect that if you were caught as an armed robber, you will be sentenced to death. This stance became necessary because I believed that the law court would be too slow for me. I believe in punishment being immediate for it to have desired effect. If someone does something, punish him or her immediately and let the people know. That was why we made that edict. But then I found out that my edict was not strong enough to override the constitution of the country that says that anybody that’s going to be sentenced must be tried in a court of law. But was my tribunal a court of law? So, I put up a memo to General Gowon telling him to give backing to my edict by creating a decree that could override the constitution. I didn’t get a reply from him. One Monday morning, a lawyer was killed in the Yaba area. His death at the hands of armed robbers made headline news. The lawyer’s mother had come from up country. My blood went cold on hearing the news and I phoned General Gowon and that was the only time I think I was rude to my Head of State. I called him on the red-hot line telling him, ‘Have you seen the papers this morning, sir? Have you seen the front page of Daily times?’ I went on to tell him that since the time I wrote a letter to him that my edict be backed with a decree, I never heard from him. ‘I want to tell you, sir, that the people being killed in Lagos are human beings. Are you waiting until one of your commissioners or governors comes to Lagos and gets killed before you will deem fit to take action?’ And I banged the phone. Gowon got my message and acted fast. He sent Graham Douglas to come and confer with my Attorney General and that was how a decree came up.
It is on record that your administration also came up with an edict to check the skyrocketing house rent in Lagos, especially in the metropolis. Could you give us an insight into the edict on house rent?
I was quite close to the people and felt for them. I also knew then that the landlords were shylocks; they were exploiting the explosion in population by demanding high rents for accommodation. The landlords were charging very exorbitant rents on their properties. So, we sat down and formed a committee that looked into categories of houses and accommodation as well as the locations. Of course, for obvious reasons, you cannot compare a room in Ajegunle to, say, a room in Victoria Island or Ikoyi. So, we came up with an edict, stipulating categories of houses and what landlords will take as rent on their buildings. One musician, Ayinla Omowura, actually waxed a record and the lyric of the song goes like this: ‘aye e ma tapa si’joba, e fara mon omo Bolaji’ (it is fruitless kicking against the government, abide by the housing edict of Mobolaji Johnson). Omowura did it on his own as his social responsibility; we didn’t ask him to promote the rent edict. We set up a tribunal where an aggrieved tenant who felt aggrieved could take his or her landlord. The tribunal was to ensure that the common people were not exploited. The edict worked for some time, but I don’t know what happened when I left office as governor.
What were the projects you planned to execute during your tenure but for reasons of time and financial constraints, you could not?
I wasn’t happy with the transportation system in Lagos, and I particularly felt bad about the waterways that we could not fully exploit. I sent a delegation abroad to look for flat bottom boats that could take passengers across the waterways. I wasn’t happy with the transportation system and would have loved to see a better system in place. One of the ideas I had was to construct the 3rd Mainland Bridge. Don’t forget, the 3rd Mainland Bridge was a creation of the government of Lagos State and not the Federal Government. The Federal Government only took it over at a point in time when we didn’t have enough money and, therefore, included the project as part of the state’s contribution to second Five-Year Development Programme of the Federal Government in 1972. I went abroad and was surprised to discover that the headquarters of Julius Berger was located in the same area with the hospital where I went for medical treatment. I met Mr Whitman who later served as vice chairman on the board of Julius Berger. His first job in Nigeria was the construction of the Itoikin Bridge that links Lagos with Epe.
During my meeting with Mr Whitman and his team of engineers, I showed them what we were planning for the ring roads around Lagos. I believe people getting out of Lagos should have free ways that they can use. The concept I had for the inner ring road and outer ring road was to have pillars erected to the middle of Herbert Macaulay and Murtala Muhammed Way with the pillars supporting a network of highways on the top like the ones I saw in Tokyo, Japan. I believed we could achieve same in Lagos. The Julius Berger team looked into my concept and came up with a blueprint ready for my submission to the Federal Government. That was how Julius Berger and an army of officials came all the way to Lagos. Work began in earnest with the engineers in boats and canoes crisscrossing the body of water over which the 3rd Mainland Bridge and its ring roads would be built. At Marina, they proposed sand filling as the best option so as to be able to gain more useful land, in addition to solving the traffic problem on that axis. I was thinking we could use the idea of the 3rd Mainland Bridge to sand fill a sizeable portion of the water front of the University of Lagos and adjoining areas and create a big motor park where a park-and-ride system of transportation would be available to take passengers from the Oworonshoki area into Lagos, where you will equally take a taxi or a bus to wherever you are going on the Lagos Island and when you are through with what you came to do on the Island, you will be taken back by boats across the water to where your car is parked at Oworonshoki. That was one major project I would have loved to accomplish but couldn’t. To date, our waterways, I must say, are still largely underutilised.
The Lagos City Hall was established in 1900 to serve as the secretariat of the Lagos City Council. The present building was commissioned in 1968 by Governor Mobolaji Johnson and later by the head of state, General Yakubu Gowon. The building caught fire on Thursday, April 30th, 1998 and it was renovated by the Babatunde Fashola administration and reopened in 2009.
There are two other notable people in this video. You can see the late Oba of Lagos, Oba Adeyinka Oyekan and the first clerk of the Lagos City Council, Alhaji Fasinro (in wig and gown) who died in March this year.
Here is a video of the ceremony. (Check out the Lagos State coat of arms on the governor's car).
Raji Rasaki (Adiyan Waterworks, completion of 3rd Mainland Bridge [Babangida ordered his secretary not to allow Rasaki into his office again, because Rasaki was always disturbing him about the 3rd Mainland Bridge], Lagos Horizon Newspaper, Opebi-Oregun Link Bridge, etc)
Mohammed Buba Marwa - Eko FM, LASUTH, Direct Labour Agency [which patched the roads that were left in a state of disrepair by Mr. No Bitumen ], Marwa Gardens, Eko FM, Operation Sweep
Bola Tinubu (Lasambus, BRT, Kai, Office of The Public Defender, Lagos Emergency Points, Millenium Schools, Lasuth, LASTMA, reconstruction of roads that were left in a state of disrepair by Mr. No Bitumen and patched by Governor Marwa, etc).
Raji Fashola (Okota-Itire Link Bridge, Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge, Lasu-Iba Road, Lasmi Cabs, Traffic Radio, LRT, Lagos HOMS, expension and modernisation of the Lekki Expressway, Lagos State Security Trust Fund, etc)
Governors Otedola, Akhigbe (Ikeja flyovers), Mudashiru (rehabilitation of Jakande schools), Kanu, Lawal and Ukiwe also did well. I won't rate them as the best, but I'll say they did very well.
The lone exception is Colonel Olagunsoye Oyinlola (Mr. No Bitumen) who did absolutely nothing. He sat and watched as Lagos roads became filled with ginormous craters, hills and valleys. Awolowo Road was an eyesore at this time.
However, if you tell some people that Governor Johnson did a lot, they will direct your attention to Eko Court and the armed robbery edict. If you tell them that Governor Rasaki was an action governor, they will remind you of Maroko and Ilado. If you tell them that Marwa was very popular, they will tell you that he served Abacha, that Operation Sweep killed many innocent people and they will ask you where he got the money with which he started his airline (some will even tell you that he was one of the people that delivered the parcel bomb to Dele Giwa's house and they will also remind you about Bagauda Kaltho's death). If you tell them that Tinubu transformed Lagos from the huge refuse dumps and bad roads of the 1990s to a clean place with smooth roads, they will tell you that Tinubu owns the whole of Lagos. If you tell them that Fashola brought back sanity to Oshodi and continued the progress started by Tinubu, they will tell you that Fashola is elitist.
We Started Lagos State With Only 10,000 Pounds — Mobolaji Johnson.
The first military governor of Lagos State, Brigadier Mobolaji Johnson (retd), in this interview granted a specialised publication in respect of the 50th anniversary of Lagos State, Matters of Heritage, a copy of which was obtained by SATURDAY TRIBUNE, relives the birth of Lagos State and the challenges of its early stages of development.
What was the feeling when you became the governor of Lagos State at such a young age of 31?
The appointment came suddenly upon me as a young man and I had to take it. I took it as a challenge and faced it squarely. The challenges were not difficult to face and overcome because of the upbringing I had under my father, Pa ‘Motola Johnson, who was a strong character and raised all of us his children to be equally strong in character. While I was governor, my father was always reminding me not to tarnish the name and image of the family. That kept me focused and steady throughout my tenure. No wonder after the investigations of the Murtala Muhammed government that came after the government of General Yakubu Gowon, in which I served as governor, I was one of the governors given a clean bill of health as free from corrupt practices. I must say that a major problem in our political life today is that we have many in positions of authority who never had good home training. I am eternally grateful to God for the good upbringing under my father, which shaped my life for good.
What were the challenges you met on ground as the pioneer governor of the state?
Lagos State came into existence as a child of circumstance. The country was on the verge of civil war and one of the masterstrokes General Gowon applied was the creation of states, which pulled the carpet off the feet of [Chukwuemeka Odumegwu] Ojukwu. I came in first as the administrator of the Federal Capital before states were created. The feeling of Nigerians was that Lagos was a no man’s land. I had to face the challenge of correcting that erroneous impression. There was the need to let people know that the territory called Lagos belonged to a people with their distinct historical background, culture and tradition. Again, quite a good number of people thought the creation of Lagos was a ruse, that it could not be; that it could not work. So, we had to make sure it worked. We had to work round the clock to ensure that Lagos became a reality and I am happy to say that 50 years down the road, Lagos State is a reality, a model state waxing stronger.
What major problems did you have to contend with?
Our brothers in the West did not like the creation of Lagos State. They believed it should be part of the West. It became a ding-dong affair. Don’t forget that Lagos at a point in history was part of the West before it later became the Federal Capital, which brought about the parlance ‘gedegbe l’Eko wa’. The West was bitter, claiming that they had all their industries in Ikeja and how can we come to take them (the industries) away? I had to go on a peace mission to the West with my officials to see the late General Adeyinka Adebayo, the governor of Western Region, in Ibadan.
Again, skeptics never gave us a chance. They were calling us names, wondering how we were running government without commissioners. But I knew it was more difficult than that. All the functions being done by the Federal Government were being taken over by the new state, which was still in its infancy. A lot needed to be done at that time – the legal backing to the new state and part of the functions to be taken away from the Federal Government by the emerging new government in Lagos State would take some time. There was also a noticeable friction between the elders and youths who were trying to write off the elders as those responsible for the woes of the country; that the fall of the First Republic was caused by them. They were agitating that it was now time for the youths to be at the helm of affairs. Before long, I became the subject of all sorts of editorials in national newspapers that I surrounded myself with some of those who spoilt the country. I had to call a conference of the elders at the old City Hall. I told them in Yoruba parlance that: ‘ogiri to ba la ni alamo nkosi’ (it is when you have cracks on your wall that lizards have the opportunity to get inside). I didn’t want to bring the elders and the youths together without first taking care of the rough edges. I had to convene a separate meeting with the youths. A grand final took place at the City Hall where I brought the elders and the youths under one roof and I said to the assembly that I could not conduct the meeting alone; that I wanted six representatives from each side to join me on the high table. A lot of fundamental issues were resolved at the meeting and in a way formed the background to the emergence of Lagos State. When things improved, particularly after my peace mission to the West, some of them had a change of mind and returned to Lagos State. Folarin Coker and Shamsudeen Thomas were two of the early highly-ranking civil servants that returned to join the service of Lagos State. I should also mention here that civil servants of Lagos State origin were reluctant to leave the West, because Lagos to them was not yet a reality. They were not sure of their future, so they remained in the West.
What was the first budget like?
I had a one-line vote which I was using as the administrator of the Federal Capital. It was a modest sum of 10,000 pounds. That was what I used in starting Lagos State. Okuyiga and Coker set up a board that was responsible for revenue generation. Pools betting generated money for the state and once we were sure we could pay the salary of our workers and civil servants by the first month, we began the march to transforming the state. Those who never gave us a chance were surprised that we could achieve that feat with our meager resources.
Before you became the administrator of the Federal Capital and later the first governor of Lagos State in May 1967, where were you?
I always tell people that if you are good, you are good, and if you are bad, you pay a price. I had a rapid promotion in the military. Before the first coup of January 15, 1966, I was already a Deputy Adjutant and Quartermaster General of the Headquarters of the 2nd Brigade in Apapa, Lagos. I was in charge of the troops in the West, Mid-West.
The DAQG job involved everything from boots and bootlaces to armoured tanks and accommodation of career officers and men under my command. As Brigade Commander, I was, working as number two staff officer. My Brigade Commanders in the brigade were Aguiyi Ironsi and Maimalari. When the coup took place, the commander of the First Battalion, Major Largema, was killed at Ikoyi Hotel and the troops marched on Lagos, insisting on seeing their commander and, of course, we knew he was dead. I stopped the invading troops and received them, telling them, ‘look, it is not by fighting that we can do justice to the memory of the late Commander of the Battalion’. So, I asked them to go back and rest assured that everything would be done to immortalise the fallen officer. It didn’t come as a surprise when, after things had settled down a bit, I was posted to the 4th Battalion, Ibadan, as second-in-command to the late Joe Akahan. In my new posting, I was able to change the attitude of my officers and men and move their concentration from coup plotting to games, sports and training programmes. We came to Lagos for Army Sports Competition and we won the competition. Soon, I was posted to Benin without troops. Benin was never a military zone. So, I was again called upon to go and set up a military station in Benin under Ejoor and I became second-in-command to Governor Ejoor. I must state here that Benin provided the opportunity for me to have my first stint of political administration. I was in the cabinet that had people like Mariere, who was adviser to the governor. I learnt a lot from Benin. It was there in Benin that Ejoor returned to his duty post after a Supreme Military Council meeting in Lagos and instead of me saluting, he was saluting me sharply and then gave me a signal that I was wanted in Lagos and that when I get to Lagos, they would tell me the details. That was how I moved back to Lagos and was received by General Ironsi who told me that as from that time on, whenever he was receiving visitors or conducting interviews, he would want me to be there because, he wanted somebody to come and look after Lagos, otherwise, he wouldn’t move an inch: he couldn’t do a thing outside solving the problems of Lagos. He said he wanted somebody and that was how they came up with my name. They wanted somebody born and bred here in Lagos and that was how I became the head of the Federal Capital.
Earlier, you mentioned the four musketeers who were saddled with the responsibility of running the newly created state with you at the helm. If you had to look back, who were the personages that came on board and at what point in your administration?
The four men I called the musketeers were civil servants. Howson Wright was Secretary to the Military Government; F.C.O Coker was Finance Secretary; Agoro was the Attorney General while Adeyemi Bero was the Administrative Secretary. In the enlarged cabinet, which was constituted later on, I had the simple luck of having credible men around me and the right people for the right job. The men who came on board my administration included L.S. Adewale; Adeniran Ogunsanya; Reverend Akin Adesola; Babs Williams; Johnson Agiri; Ganiyu Dawodu and other men and women of integrity whose names I cannot readily recollect now.
As a governor operating from the seat of the Federal Government, how much autonomy did you enjoy?
I must give it to Gowon. He created states and ensured that they operated as autonomous states. Although some officials didn’t let go, I went ahead to form my own Civil Service Commission overnight, headed by Norman Williams as chairman, Oba Alaketu of Ketu and Mrs Femi Pearse were commissioners in the Civil Service Commission. I was given a free hand by Gowon to operate while I got my cabinet working. We took steps to ensure that the new state stabilised.
With the ever increasing population of Lagos State, what were the major problems you had to contend with?
I remember when the civil war came to an end, there was so much hardship; increased cases of armed robbery and Lagos become chaotic. That was when I made an edict to the effect that if you were caught as an armed robber, you will be sentenced to death. This stance became necessary because I believed that the law court would be too slow for me. I believe in punishment being immediate for it to have desired effect. If someone does something, punish him or her immediately and let the people know. That was why we made that edict. But then I found out that my edict was not strong enough to override the constitution of the country that says that anybody that’s going to be sentenced must be tried in a court of law. But was my tribunal a court of law? So, I put up a memo to General Gowon telling him to give backing to my edict by creating a decree that could override the constitution. I didn’t get a reply from him. One Monday morning, a lawyer was killed in the Yaba area. His death at the hands of armed robbers made headline news. The lawyer’s mother had come from up country. My blood went cold on hearing the news and I phoned General Gowon and that was the only time I think I was rude to my Head of State. I called him on the red-hot line telling him, ‘Have you seen the papers this morning, sir? Have you seen the front page of Daily times?’ I went on to tell him that since the time I wrote a letter to him that my edict be backed with a decree, I never heard from him. ‘I want to tell you, sir, that the people being killed in Lagos are human beings. Are you waiting until one of your commissioners or governors comes to Lagos and gets killed before you will deem fit to take action?’ And I banged the phone. Gowon got my message and acted fast. He sent Graham Douglas to come and confer with my Attorney General and that was how a decree came up.
It is on record that your administration also came up with an edict to check the skyrocketing house rent in Lagos, especially in the metropolis. Could you give us an insight into the edict on house rent?
I was quite close to the people and felt for them. I also knew then that the landlords were shylocks; they were exploiting the explosion in population by demanding high rents for accommodation. The landlords were charging very exorbitant rents on their properties. So, we sat down and formed a committee that looked into categories of houses and accommodation as well as the locations. Of course, for obvious reasons, you cannot compare a room in Ajegunle to, say, a room in Victoria Island or Ikoyi. So, we came up with an edict, stipulating categories of houses and what landlords will take as rent on their buildings. One musician, Ayinla Omowura, actually waxed a record and the lyric of the song goes like this: ‘aye e ma tapa si’joba, e fara mon omo Bolaji’ (it is fruitless kicking against the government, abide by the housing edict of Mobolaji Johnson). Omowura did it on his own as his social responsibility; we didn’t ask him to promote the rent edict. We set up a tribunal where an aggrieved tenant who felt aggrieved could take his or her landlord. The tribunal was to ensure that the common people were not exploited. The edict worked for some time, but I don’t know what happened when I left office as governor.
What were the projects you planned to execute during your tenure but for reasons of time and financial constraints, you could not?
I wasn’t happy with the transportation system in Lagos, and I particularly felt bad about the waterways that we could not fully exploit. I sent a delegation abroad to look for flat bottom boats that could take passengers across the waterways. I wasn’t happy with the transportation system and would have loved to see a better system in place. One of the ideas I had was to construct the 3rd Mainland Bridge. Don’t forget, the 3rd Mainland Bridge was a creation of the government of Lagos State and not the Federal Government. The Federal Government only took it over at a point in time when we didn’t have enough money and, therefore, included the project as part of the state’s contribution to second Five-Year Development Programme of the Federal Government in 1972. I went abroad and was surprised to discover that the headquarters of Julius Berger was located in the same area with the hospital where I went for medical treatment. I met Mr Whitman who later served as vice chairman on the board of Julius Berger. His first job in Nigeria was the construction of the Itoikin Bridge that links Lagos with Epe.
During my meeting with Mr Whitman and his team of engineers, I showed them what we were planning for the ring roads around Lagos. I believe people getting out of Lagos should have free ways that they can use. The concept I had for the inner ring road and outer ring road was to have pillars erected to the middle of Herbert Macaulay and Murtala Muhammed Way with the pillars supporting a network of highways on the top like the ones I saw in Tokyo, Japan. I believed we could achieve same in Lagos. The Julius Berger team looked into my concept and came up with a blueprint ready for my submission to the Federal Government. That was how Julius Berger and an army of officials came all the way to Lagos. Work began in earnest with the engineers in boats and canoes crisscrossing the body of water over which the 3rd Mainland Bridge and its ring roads would be built. At Marina, they proposed sand filling as the best option so as to be able to gain more useful land, in addition to solving the traffic problem on that axis. I was thinking we could use the idea of the 3rd Mainland Bridge to sand fill a sizeable portion of the water front of the University of Lagos and adjoining areas and create a big motor park where a park-and-ride system of transportation would be available to take passengers from the Oworonshoki area into Lagos, where you will equally take a taxi or a bus to wherever you are going on the Lagos Island and when you are through with what you came to do on the Island, you will be taken back by boats across the water to where your car is parked at Oworonshoki. That was one major project I would have loved to accomplish but couldn’t. To date, our waterways, I must say, are still largely underutilised.
seunmsg: Twitter influencers with millions of followers would still be allowed to make political posts and promote candidates. That’s a loophole they should have blocked if they want this policy to be very successful. Politicians are smart and desperate to reach their targeted audience. If I want to pass a certain political message, I will simply pay a popular influencer to pass the message. Twitter will only end up losing revenue with this policy.
That's why there have been regular Twitter raptures in the past few months.
Twitter has banned all political advertising on its platforms globally. This was announced in a series of tweets by Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey. Here are the tweets below.
jack @jack
We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…
A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money.
While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions.
Internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes. All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale.
These challenges will affect ALL internet communication, not just political ads. Best to focus our efforts on the root problems, without the additional burden and complexity taking money brings. Trying to fix both means fixing neither well, and harms our credibility.
For instance, it‘s not credible for us to say: “We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well...they can say whatever they want!
We considered stopping only candidate ads, but issue ads present a way to circumvent. Additionally, it isn’t fair for everyone but candidates to buy ads for issues they want to push. So we're stopping these too.
We’re well aware we‘re a small part of a much larger political advertising ecosystem. Some might argue our actions today could favor incumbents. But we have witnessed many social movements reach massive scale without any political advertising. I trust this will only grow.
In addition, we need more forward-looking political ad regulation (very difficult to do). Ad transparency requirements are progress, but not enough. The internet provides entirely new capabilities, and regulators need to think past the present day to ensure a level playing field.
We’ll share the final policy by 11/15, including a few exceptions (ads in support of voter registration will still be allowed, for instance). We’ll start enforcing our new policy on 11/22 to provide current advertisers a notice period before this change goes into effect.
A final note. This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It’s worth stepping back in order to address.
This practice began with the Lagos Traffic Law of 2012. http://www.nigeria-law.org/Legislation/Laws%20of%20the%20States/Lagos%20State/Lagos%20State%20Road%20Traffic%20Law%202012.pdf
1) Judicial processes: My opposition to the practice stemmed from the fact that the state authorities were auctioning vehicles without going through judicial processes. Vehicles were impounded, the Task Force waited for 2 months and then they auctioned the vehicles. These processes could obviously easily have been abused.
However, after several people went to court and successfully challenged the government’s practice of issuing fines and auctioning vehicles, the government modified the process and now they actually get a court order before auctioning the vehicles.
2) Harshness: Several people (including many Nairalanders) complained that the penalty was way too harsh. “How can you lose your car just because of a traffic offence?” they complained.
The government’s response was that road traffic offences were very serious issues and many people had lost their lives because of them. They said that fines do not work because many people see the fines as no big deal and they even break the law because they know that all they need to do is pay money. They also said that the constant devaluation of the naira ensures that fines are not a good deterrent.
It reminded me of what someone told me about a popular Lagos socialite. This man was very famous/infamous in the early 1990s and he was known for his extravagant displays of wealth. A friend told me that the man was also quite infamous in London too. He said that the man was fond of parking his Rolls Royce in no-parking zones and leaving the fine tucked beneath the windshield wiper.
This famous joke further illustrates the point.
A blonde walks into a bank in New York City and asks for the loan officer. She says she's going to Europe on business for two weeks and needs to borrow $5,000. The bank officer says the bank will need some kind of security for the loan, so the blonde hands over the keys to a new Rolls Royce. The car is parked on the street in front of the bank; she has the title, and everything checks out. The bank agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan. The bank's president and its officers all enjoy a good laugh at the blonde for using a $250,000 Rolls as collateral against a $5,000 loan. An employee of the bank then drives the Rolls into the bank's underground garage and parks it there. Two weeks later, the blonde returns and repays the $5,000 and the interest, which comes to $15.41. The loan officer says, "Miss, we are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely; but we are a little puzzled. We checked you out and found that you are a multimillionaire. What puzzles us is – why would you bother to borrow $5,000?" The blond replies....."Where else in New York City can I park my car for two weeks for only $15.41 and expect it to be there when I return?"
It was this same argument that played out in the early 2000s when the government decided that people that violated traffic laws must undergo psychiatric examination at their own expense.
3) Awareness: A lot of people complained that the government is only interested in making a profit from this practice. They say that government often changes the status of roads arbitrarily. For example, Ikoyi Club Road was once a two-way street, but it suddenly became a one-way street and the public was not informed of this change and many people ended up falling into LASTMA’s traps. People also complained that there were no signs to indicate that streets were one-way streets and to indicate the direction that cars should be travelling. They said that, even when there are signs, they are usually put in obscure positions where motorists would not easily see them (for example, a sign was eventually erected on Ikoyi Club Road, but it was erected right behind the branches of a tree, so motorists could not easily see it).
In response to these complaints, the Fashola administration published a list of one-way streets and also promised to erect signs to indicate which streets were one-way streets. This was done initially, but it was not sustained. A Nairalander created a thread so that people could list all the one-way streets in Lagos, as a means of warning people. https://www.nairaland.com/1019021/list-one-way-roads-lagos
Therefore, the justified criticism is that people could lose their vehicles simply because they went the wrong way down a street that they genuinely did not know was a one-way street.
4) Privilege: Some people complained about the people that they believed would be exempt from punishment. They said that bullion vans, danfo buses, personnel of the armed forces and the police and motorcades of government officials would not be punished for driving against the flow of traffic and that these people are the biggest offenders.
Naptu2, please provide those contacts you have provided in the past
Donald95: I am in Aba, Abia State and those government agencies works only when they smell money.
Looking at the victims non-helpful poor mom, you will know they will definitely loose any case made against the abuser
See if there is any way that you can contact the Abia State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development or any of the NGOs in Abia that handle such issues.
The auctioning of seized vehicles began with the Lagos Traffic Law 2012.
Initially the government auctioned seized vehicles, but the courts ruled that the government could not auction the vehicles without a court order, so the government now approaches the court before auctioning the vehicles.
LASG set to auction vehicles impounded for violation of traffic law
. . . As Taskforce Awaits Directives On 7350 Impounded Motorcycles
The Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Unit (Taskforce) has concluded arrangements to auction vehicles of 31 traffic offenders already convicted by the Court for driving against traffic as well as 22 automobiles that were abandoned for over six months after the arrest of their riders.
Chairman of the Agency, CSP Olayinka Egbeyemi disclosed that the owners of the impounded vehicles who abandoned their cars contravened the Lagos State Transport Sector Reform Law 2018, stating that public notice had been issued for owners of both the court forfeited and abandoned cars to identify their vehicles at the Agency's car parks in Ikorodu and Bolade-Oshodi.
"At the expiration of the one-month verification exercise the Agency shall apply to court for an order of 'Public Auction' where members of the public would have opportunity to buy any of these vehicles”, the Chairman said.
Egbeyemi clarified that the owners of the vehicles forfeited to the government pleaded guilty before Magistrate Omobola Salawu of the Lagos State Mobile Court at Oshodi after their arrest for driving against traffic.
He affirmed that in addition to the forfeiture of the vehicles, each traffic offender was sentenced to 100 days 'Community Service' at any public institution of their choice.
The Chairman, however, maintained that with the State government’s zero-tolerance for violation of the law, the Agency will continue to prosecute traffic offenders until sanity is restored on our roads and law-abiding citizens are allowed to commute without being impeded by unlawful individuals.
Meanwhile, CSP Egbeyemi also confirmed that over 7350 impounded motorcycles are presently in custody of the Agency for plying restricted routes, including highways and bridges across the State.
He stated that the Agency is awaiting further directives from the government in respect of the impounded motorcycles, adding that the motorcyclists were apprehended around Agege, Pen-Cinema, Apapa, Ikorodu, Mile 2, Obalende, Oyingbo, 2nd Rainbow, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, Ojota, Maryland, Yaba, Oshodi, Ikorodu Road, Apongbon, Ikeja and Iyana-Ipaja.
franktolk: Neptu I think the Hausa song you can't remember goes thus ...." Ina za muje, Ina za muje ,Ina za muje Naijeriya , ina za aa muje " can't remember the artist but I think Bala Miller also sang it on his TV show those days .
This is the song.
naptu2: AT LAST! AT LAST! THIS IS THE SONG THAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT!
This is the Hausa tune that I'm always talking about.
Does anybody know the name of the tune that was playing at the 3:29 minute mark in this video (when Seyni Kountche was inspecting the troops)?
I once knew the words of this song, but I can't remember a single word anymore.
Politics › Re: Mobolaji Johnson, The First Governor Of Lagos Is Dead by naptu2: 8:48am On Oct 31, 2019
