Nigeria Ronú! Part II ~ by Babatunde O. Gbadamosi
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For the last 24 years, Bola Tinubu has ruled Lagos State, first directly for 8 years, then indirectly through successive “governors”, usually “elected” through increasingly dubious means.
These 24 yearlong dictatorships have seen several uncompleted or even ghost infrastructure projects, which have gulped a lot of money on paper, but have failed to see the light of day.
The expansion of a 23km section of the Lekki-Epe Expressway started in 2006 remains UNCOMPLETED, 17 years on. This is despite giving the “private concessionaire” 1,500 hectares of prime land in Lakowe, Ibeju-Lekki, & $42m of state funds at the start of the project, & billions of naira earned in tolls since November 2011.
The 13km Blue Line light rail project, started in 2009 at the grossly over-invoiced cost of $1.2b, remains uncompleted, 14 years later, with excuse after unbelievable excuse offered by successive “governors”, including the current one, who made a big show of “completing” some inscrutable part thereof during the election campaigns, even though it hasn’t carried a single paying passenger till date. They even brought the president to “commission” it.
The obscene 4th Mainland bridge, both in scope & in cost, remains but a speck in Tinubu’s eye, as persuading any sensible financier to finance a project that will probably never complete – based on the above projects – will be an uphill task. As usual, every election cycle, it is trotted out and “packaged”, only for it to be rightly shelved again. It is an unworkable & unjustifiable “solution” to the Lagos Traffic Problem, but since it will involve the demolition of thousands of homes in Lekki and Ikorodu, the APC halleluya boys are excited.
There are many more failed projects under Tinubu’s watch in Lagos, not least the Lekki Airport and the almost ill-fated Port@Lekki, which eventually got built, thanks to the doggedness of its original promoters, the Tolarams Group.
Is this the same Tinubu some are thinking can drag Nigeria back from the precipice, with the millstone of massive debt hung around its neck by the unbelievably irresponsible Muhammadu Buhari & his gang, including Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu?
*Below is a picture of what a serious government does, when they mean well for their people. That’s a picture of Gongxian North Station, on the huge Shenzhen Metro network. It’s one of the world’s biggest metro stations. For context, it’s bigger than Murtala Muhammed international airport.
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It shows the world is moving on, and why we need leaders like Mr. Peter Obi & Gbadebo P Rhodes-Vivour to run our affairs NOW. Tinubu can never do better in his old age than he did in his “youth” (he was 59 in 1993, according to American Court Records). Buhari’s performance confirms this.
