Ambode: Pushing back ‘The Ghost of 1966’

Lagos State, under the administration of His Excellency, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, is akin to a bubbling oasis of peace and development, in a region – the West Africa sub-region, for instance – where diverse turmoil are competing – almost daily – for front-page or global attention. The diverse turmoil are, doubtless, plenteous. If it’s not […]

Lagos State, under the administration of His Excellency, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, is akin to a bubbling oasis of peace and development, in a region – the West Africa sub-region, for instance – where diverse turmoil are competing – almost daily – for front-page or global attention. The diverse turmoil are, doubtless, plenteous. If it’s not insurgency in Mali, where operatives of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are in open conflict with United Nations peace-keeping troops, American and French technical military advisers, it is seasonal armed conflict in Niger Republic. If it’s not bloody riots in Burkina Faso to keep away the followers deposed Blaise Campaore from power, it’s the vexed crisis of citizenship and nationality in the once very accommodating Code d’Ivoire.

If it’s not the agitations in Togo against the conversion of that tiny country to the private property of the Eyadema family and its cronies, it’s destructive floods. If it’s not corruption in Ghana – now that it appears that the once ubiquitous ghost of “Junior Jesus” Rawlings has gone to sleep – it’s the unease that springs from whether the politicians of the post-Rawlings era, like the Bourbons, have learnt and have forgotten nothing. If it’s not subterranean rumblings on haw politics and government can meet voters and tax-payers halfway, as the country finds new wealth in deep, off-shore oil wells, it’s the unsettled question of how the new petro-dollars should be fairly distributed to reflect even national development and the extent to which the government is ready to deal severely with international oil companies (IOCs) that may rudely play back the Ogoniland tape.

If it’s not the crisis of national re-orientation, democratic leadership and development – issues that were suppressed under the tyrannical regime of Yahya Jammel in The Gambia, it’s yet another crisis of repression, sit-tight syndrome and streaming of refugees from Cameroun into Nigeria.

And in Nigeria, too, if it’s not the terrorist activities of the Boko Haram group – much to the devastation of villages, dislocation of economic activities, displacement of men, women, and children from their roots into refugee camps, needless kidnapping of school girls in Chibok, in Borno State and Dapchi in Jigawa State, it’s the massacre of people in Benue, Zamfara, Plateau, Taraba and Adamawa states by elements armed with AK-47 rifles suspected to be herdsmen.

Perhaps, these instances of crises, especially Boko Haram terrorist activities and herdsmen attacks in the north-east and Middle Belt, could have been avoided, but for bad leadership. For the Ambode administration, the lesson Boko Haram and herdsmen killings and destruction a popular and efficacious strategy is already in place: inclusive government – designed to ensuring that no one is left behind by government run by elected deputies.

There was a story, that back in 2006 – almost a decade before Ambode became the Governor of Lagos State that he told some of his associates – including accountants – that, “when you build a solid bridge between the palace and the village square, when you build a substantial relationship, freighted on an open-door policy – between the seat of power and those who voted you into office; when you reach out to them, you would win their trust and followership. That open-door policy government of inclusiveness gives almost everyone a sense of belonging in the same administration. With almost everyone as a stakeholder in the affairs of the state, the government would have succeeded in creating a conducive milieu for peace and development.” That’s the thrust of government of inclusiveness. 

Yes, that’s where and why Ambode has been able to make Lagos State a thriving oasis of peace, security and development. Yes, he’s striving to improve upon the legacies of his sires: Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Babatunde Fashiola. Yes, further, where news of destruction of lives and property, ineptitude on the part of most state governors, gargantuan corruption and more than anything else, the flagitious refusal of some state governors to pay their workers and pensioners their salary and emolument, respectively, as and when due, what Ambode offers is the human face of democracy; openness, people-oriented leadership, infrastructural development and to the happiness of workers their salaries and pensioners, their emolument. He has also, within this matrix, pressed a culture of respect for one’s civic duty: payment of tax.

Ambode would not have succeed, three years into his administration, the way he, so far, has, if he had not pumped a generous amount of tax monies into urban renewal via construction of new roads to broaden the network in Lagos metropolis, for instance, and opening up other areas to viable economic activities through such roads. In one of his forward-looking strategies to help peace and development, Ambode reaches out to the crowded village square, in person – not by sending a Permanent Secretary or a Director in of the Ministries, in a clear case of arrogance and slight – to hear their complaints, needs and aspirations. There – the Town Hall Meeting (THM) as Ambode calls it – he listens and tells the people what his administration would do, within the limits of available resources. A whole lot he has done, in keeping his words, in places like Alimosho, Ipaja, Ikorodu, Agege, Abule Egba, Agbado, Ibeju-Lekki and, naturally, Epe – in terms of roads, health centre, schools, the Light-Up Lagos project and security through an alliance with the State Command of the Nigeria Police Force; establishment of Lagos Neighborhood Security Watch Corps, etc.

In all those places, economic activities, especially movement of labour, capital and consumer goods are booming. Add the strategic, economic partnership of the Ambode administration with the Kebbi State Government, which has yielded the Lake (Ambode) Rice and the Lagos-Kano Investment Partnership Summit, designed to promote economic co-operation – a unique, prize-winning template for North-South Co-operation, if you ask me – between Ikeja and Kano.

The intent is to pool resources for strategic investment in agriculture, so as to help inflation and boost the country’s food security profile – as they key into the Buhari administration’s bent to diversify the country’s economic base well beyond crude oil. In effect, a gradual return to the days of agricultural boom, the days of regionalism and true federalism. Add skill acquisition and entrepreneurship, so as to arm young Nigerians, especially products of tertiary institutions, to be self-employed – in place of chasing almost-non-existent white collar jobs, that, in any case, would not befit their educational investment and status. And so, the emergence of new stakeholders in the economies of the two states with the leading populations in the country.

Ambode has succeeded, where most of his counterparts have failed. Ask Commissioner for Home Affairs, Dr. AbdulHakeem AbdulLateef, he’d tell you that the peace and security that Lagos State enjoys today is freighted on Ambode’s respect for Section 38 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), which guarantees individual right to worship and Section 42, which states that nobody should be discriminated against on account of his or her religion. That explains why the Ambode sees religious harmony and peaceful coexistence as a necessity for orderly development in the state. Where some states are in the news for bloodshed and wanton destruction of lives and properties, Ambode is reaping the fruits of an inclusive administration. There is a healthy inter-faith discussion in the state. Ambode’s Lagos contrasts with what obtains in the Benue-Borno axis. Whichever you look at it, it is the kind of massacre going on to the north-east of the confluence that led to one of the ugliest chapters in Nigeria’s political history in the late 1960s.

Yes, the circumstances are quite different, but truth is that, in most parts of the north of the confluence, government and politics have failed voters, workers and tax-payers. It’s an unfortunate development caused by bad leadership and a self-destructive refusal by those in authority to build an Ambode bridge between the palace and village square. The senseless killings that are taking place north of the confluence, some development economists have said, have drawn back orderly progress of human development by nearly two decades and to the loss, in the past three years, of N640 billion – including agricultural activities in Benue State: The Food Basket of the Nation. Perhaps, Ambode’s inclusive style of government to the rescue. Perhaps.

Uzuakpundu is a Lagos-based journalist.