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“Lagos is going to become the fourth mega city in the whole world in the coming years. We are already about the sixth in position and we will get there.” These were the words of the Lagos State Commissioner for Physical and Urban Planning, Francisco Bolaji Abosede.

To achieve this, his counterpart in the Economic Planning and Budget Ministry, Mr Ben Akabueze, said that the sum of N7 trillion was needed for infrastructure development alone.
This makes the N117 billion the Union Bank of Nigeria Plc and a Chinese Group are sourcing for the state look like a small drop in a mighty ocean.

But not to worry, Abosede assured and added that the state government had decided to “take the step due to the desire to enable the state has a beautiful mega city”.
Elaborating on the practical steps already taken by the government, he said, “we have been all over the world and have seen what is obtainable. Nigeria should be a paradise; Lagos most especially is the showpiece, the centrepiece of Nigeria.”

To be the real showpiece, old things must go away for all things to become new. That might explain the demolition exercise going on around the metropolis now. Abosede admitted so much and added that, “we are demolishing, yes, but we do not just demolish for the sake of it. It is because we want to improve.”

Akabueze concurred and added that the N7 trillion will be used to “build new infrastructure and upgrade aging ones to meet the demands of the mega status of the city.” The banker-turned-public servant said that the state government was uncomfortable with the recent classification of Lagos as Africa’s second most expensive city and the 59th in the world.

Sad as this situation is, Akabueze justified it thus: “Lagos has a population growth rate of between six and eight per cent as against the national average of 2.9 per cent.”
If this projection was sustained, he said by 2015, the population of the area will be 25 million.

With its current population of 18 million, the chartered accountant said that “the state still experiences a huge gap in terms of infrastructure it needs and what is available.”
Continuing, Akabueze on whose shoulders the planning of the state’s economy, rests observed, “the gap between the infrastructural needs and availability is worsened by the aging nature of what is available and the magnitude of cost involved in replacement and renewal.”

Sounding optimistic, Akabueze said that the state government was determined in its goal of making Lagos a world class city.
According to him, “our approach has been to frontally confront these challenges to tackle infrastructure in such sectors as water development, roads, drainage, power, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as well as transportation.”

In the meantime, there is a pervasive perception of Lagos as an organised slum.To this extent, therefore, if Lagos was to become the dreamed beautiful city, then it follows that its slum notoriety must give way. Abosede blamed this perception of Lagos on the people’s proclivity to disobey the law.
“Town planning laws have ever been in existence, but people will never follow the law as they believe they can wake up, build and develop without any plan,” he lamented.

For this group of people, the Physical and Urban Planning commissioner said, “money carries the day. They just wake up and go and build because they have money. But until you start doing something as a control, something to say it cannot continue, you may not be taken seriously.”
But is mega city as a development concept new? The January-March 2008 edition of the Lagos Organization Review, says ‘no’. The concept, it continues , as well as the nature of mega city is “very arbitrary and ever changing. The change is dictated by many factors”, prominent of which is population.
The review pointed out that “population concentration was referred to and used to differentiate mega cities from other big cities.”

If population were the only criterion, how is it that Rome with just over one million inhabitants is referred to as a mega city whereas cities like Chicago, London, Bombay became candidates only when they attained or crossed the 10 million figure of United Nations’ threshold?
For Lagos, population is an important criterion. But as the land mass of the area known as Lagos becomes too congested for the population size, expansion to adjoining state of Ogun towards the Ibafo, Mowe, Ofada, Ota and Sango areas becomes not only inevitable but also imperative. Before this, the reclamation of swampy areas of Lekki had opened up and thrown Epe, Badagry and Ikorodu into the mix.

According to Abosede, the immediate past governor of the state, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu laid the foundation for the mega city project through an aggressive urban renewal that transformed Lagos with the emergence of central business districts in Ikeja, Lagos Island including Victoria Island and Ikoyi, complete with network of roads and other social infrastructure befitting the city as the economic hub of the nation.

Abosede continued, “in the whole of Yaba and Ebute-Metta, all contracts for infrastructure have been awarded. People will now go there and want to develop. Over 36 streets are to be upgraded to Lagos Island status.”
The state government is aware of the challenges facing it as it embarks on the arduous task of reinventing Lagos. Regardless, and to demonstrate its seriousness, it has put in place the Lagos Metropolitan Development and Governance Project (LMDGP). The agency’s function is essentially to “increase sustainable access to urban services through investment in critical infrastructure,” Governor Babatunde Fashola said while launching the project.

He categorized the investment areas as infrastructure with an estimated budget of $165.35 million. Public governance and capacity building $5.95 million , urban policy and project coordination $12.13 million. These will take care of drainage, solid waste management, upgrading of slums, institutionalized data driven planning and results monitoring of government programmes and policies, public finance reforms to improve budgeting and expenditure management, essentially for operations and maintenance of infrastructure and support leadership development programmes.

Similarly, urban policy will finance knowledge management and communications to strengthen metropolitan policy dialogue and public/private partnerships.
Considering the strategic importance of Lagos to the economic well-being of the country should the job be left to the state government alone?
Akabueze seemed to have answered this question in the negative when he pointed out that the state government had “received a N701 million grant from the Federal Government for the rehabilitation of primary health centers in its local councils.”
Before this, the state government had received a $200 million World Bank assistance towards the development of the state’s infrastructure, public finance and capacity building as well as urban policy and project coordination.

Justifying the N117 billion the Union Bank Plc and a Chinese Group are raising for Lagos as partners in the infrastructure development of the state, the Executive Director, Corporate and International Banking, Mr Austen Obigwe, said that “Lagos State has a history of continuity, of obeying and respecting whatever contractual obligations the preceding government has gone into. We see Lagos State as being highly credit worthy. What we are trying to do is, our bank (Union) and a group in China are launching a one billion dollar infrastructural development fund which will be used in the state alone.”
According to him, “we will use it to fund projects in Lagos State. We are doing that because we have confidence in Lagos State. We believe in Lagos State.”

Obigwe affirmed that the credibility of Lagos State could be judged by the fact that “even if another government comes to power, because of the importance of the economic activities in the state, the chances that whatever contractual obligation the previous government has will be respected are usually very high.”

But, is there really a mega city project on or is it all hype? This was the main subject of an interview Fashola granted Lagos Organization Review.
In it he said, “I think the first thing is to identify and clear some seemingly grey areas and the first of these is that there is no mega city project.”
According to him, the mega city project could be a hype “especially when it is looked at in the context of some esoteric new emergent or building plan.” As far as His Excellency was concerned, “the mega city concept is a status, just as the status we acquire as human beings.”
To that extend, therefore, Fashola said, “in the same way that you have those incidences of status change, Lagos, because of the population that we have, has fallen into the benchmark of cities classified by the United Nations and their Urban Development Agencies as mega cities and that benchmark is 10 million people.”

The governor moved on to narrate the urgency in the need to accelerate the rate of infrastructural, social and economic development of Lagos. “We are 18 million people and projected to become 25 million by the year 2015, thus, due to become the third largest mega city after Bombay in India and Tokyo in Japan.”

With this in view, he averred that the “status of mega city carries certain incidents, because it is a consequence of rapid, somewhat uncontrolled urbanization. You have more people, so there is almost a continuous demand on government for services and government is all about people. The challenge for us, today, is to continue and at a very rapid rate to do all that is within our power to position Lagos in such a way that she can cope with the obvious challenges of that new status of a mega city”.

This challenge, Fashola observed, has become even more pressing because “unlike a city that has one million people, 10 million people need more buses, more roads, more houses, more policemen to secure them to meet the police-to-citizen ratio, more schools, more hospital beds. They need more capacity to manage refuse, because the tonnage of refuse as a result of human activities will increase and is increasing. Everything that is necessary to make sure that the city does not implode is a mega city project.”

No matter how much anyone may want to pretend, developing Lagos to cope with the influx of people is a challenge enormous in its immensity.
Fashola knows and understands this and that is why he has earmarked a three-pronged approach to the issue. One, is Public-Private Partnership. Two, is the expectation from the Federal Government given the special position of the state as (a) a former federal capital (b) as the epicenter of not just the nation’s economic activity but also her social life (c) internally generated revenue.
On public-private partnership, the governor said that it, “offers the only realistic route to the actualization of Nigeria’s potentialities.”

Narrowing it to Lagos State, he added, “we are determined to show the light for others to find the way.”
The governor asserted that the opportunities for viable investment in Lagos State are practically limitless. Giving a brief insight into the massive investment required to meet the infrastructural challenges of Lagos State, Fashola said, “over the next two decades, it is projected that the state must expend, at least, $2billion over a five year period to provide a qualitative and efficient road network.”
Describing as a crucial challenge the upgrading of existing slums to uplift the quality of life of millions of men, women and children, the governor further said that, “over the next one and a half decades, no less than $185 million would be needed.”

The governor cited power sector, waste management, transportation, housing and security as other areas that deserved to be explored through the public-private partnership.
However, he stressed that, “we are not extending a begging bowl for charity or compassionate financial hand outs. No. All we are seeking is serious minded investors who will utilize our infrastructure challenges as opportunities to do profitable business in Lagos State and Nigeria.”

Fashola, who served his pupilage in governance under Asiwaju Tinubu as his Chief of Staff, in his quest for federal assistance in the task of building the envisaged new Lagos, recalled what the late Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed, said when the idea was mooted for the relocation of the federal capital from Lagos that “Lagos would not be abandoned to the fate of coping with all the infrastructure and that she should be declared a special status.”
The governor lamented that more than 30 years after that statement was made, that pledge, because that is what it was, remained unfulfilled. But he insisted that it must be discharged because “it is not a favour to Lagos, it is a debt, an obligation.”

On a positive note, the governor observed that “we are expecting about 30-35 per cent of our revenue to come from the Federal Government, I have received some cooperation from Mr President. I want more, certainly, and I am hoping that this will continue.”
Still on the mode of execution of the mega city project, Fashola said that part of the finance would be internally generated. For instance, he pointed out that in the 2008 budget, “we are going to raise 65-70 per cent of it on our own strength and resources and that is why we are not letting off on taxation.”

Picking up the gauntlet dropped by Fashola, Nigeria’s Financial Strategy 2020 Group is set to partner the Lagos State government to establish an international financial center in Lekki, Lagos State.
The scheme is being embarked upon as part of overall strategy to fasttrack the evolution of an African financial center in Nigeria. Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, who threw light on possible areas of such collaboration at an interactive session with media executives in Lagos, said that the center which would function under a separate regulatory framework from that governing the conduct of banking business in Nigeria required an enabling environment enjoyed elsewhere to function.

He said that the FSS 2020 team would soon begin discussions with the Fashola administration, to explore ways of making the project a center of excellence. According to him, the discussions will focus largely on provision of infrastructure, effective transportation system, and such other components that would make prospective users enjoy the kind of services that obtain in more advanced countries.
He explained that the Lekki Financial Corridor will enable its users conduct their business as if they were in London, New York or Malaysia and, therefore, help in the nation’s quest for full integration of the African financial market with the rest of the world.

The CBN boss said the Financial System Strategy 2020 group which is already working out modalities for the scheme’s take off will be collaborating with the Lagos State government to ensure the realization of the project.
On his part, the Group Managing Director of Dunlop Nigeria Plc, Mr Mohammed Yinusa, reiterated the need for the Federal Government and the organised private sector to partner with the Lagos State government in addressing the infrastructure challenge in the state.
He said it would be myopic to leave the challenges to the state to singularly address, adding that the cost of the renewal and development of infrastructure was far beyond the state’s resources.

The Dunlop boss and co-chairman of the Lagos Economic Summit Group (LESG), who said this recently remarked that the mega-city challenge was a national responsibility, adding that with a 25 million population coming in 2015, there was an urgent need to expand the infrastructure base of the state.

But there are other reactions on the mega city project. Professionals are worried that the emerging megacity might be a blessing in disguise and, therefore, called for a cautious approach to the project.
Chief Mike Campbell, an engineer, said that he had mixed feelings over the mega city project. According to him, turning Lagos to the world’s fourth mega city is a good dream and a welcome development.
However, he said that right now, what should be uppermost in the mind of Lagos State government should be how to decongest the city instead congesting it the more, adding that that was what turning Lagos into a mega city would come to at the end of the day.

“If people in Asaba, Osogbo or Takum hear that all is now well with Lagos in terms of infrastructure, they would jump into the next bus and come to Lagos and before you know it, the whole Nigeria is in Lagos. Government should think of ways of de-centralizing economic and social activities to the other areas. It is only when the other parts of the country are developed and independent of Lagos that the dream could be successful. Turning Lagos into a mega city will not only attract people from the other parts of the country but other African countries.”
Felix Oguejiofor, an Architect, said that Lagos was the fastest growing city in the world but at the same time the least planned of the major cities.

According to him, the ever-increasing population of the city has led to social, political, economic and environmental problems.
For him, changing the face of Lagos from a jungle city to a modern city should be seen as a step in the right direction.
“I don’t care the name they choose to call it whether Lagos Metropolitan Development and Governance Project (LMDGP) or Lagos Mega City project. My concern is that Lagos is due for complete turn around. The entire infrastructure in the state is begging for face-lift, the refuse dumps have filled to the brim. Everywhere is stinking. This, to me, is as a result of corruption and neglect because in the 70’s, the Lagos Master Plan was drafted with the intention of guiding the ever-increasing population of the state into the 21st century.

With the support of the UNDP, the master plan was meant to provide a framework for addressing challenges concerning the provision of housing, expansion of economic activity centers, improvement of transportation, infrastructure and upgrading of informal slums settlements.
According to the master plan, Oguejiofor said, “the growing city was to be divided into 35 self-sufficient districts, each with its commercial industrial and residential zones. This beautiful master plan was abandoned. Had it been that it was implemented, Lagos would have been the better for it. That is why I doff my hat for the administrations of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his successor, Barrister Babatunde Raji Fashola for resurrecting the master plan.

It was the abandonment of the master plan that made the planned development of Lagos to go out of hand. Now, everybody has become a lord unto himself in the state. This has made the project to look like a crisis. The little injury then in the 60’s and 70’s that was left untreated has decayed and become cancerous and the doctors are now battling to save the life of the patient. The patient on the other hand is resisting because it has got used to decay and cancer after decades of abandonment.”

Ebenezer Oladiran, an estate surveyor and valuer said that for the Lagos mega city project to work, a lot of things would come into play. He said that infrastructure must be functioning.
According to him, the rail lines as well as road networks would be effective.
His words: “You cannot talk of a mega city without efficient road and rail networks. The rails would be developed to such an extent that they will be major means of transportation in the city. The rail lines must be cheap and very effective. If you go to London or New York which are mega cities, rail lines are the major means of transportation. Car owners prefer parking their cars in their houses and going to their various places of work in buses and trains.

So, efficient transportation system is one of the things that should be put into consideration when talking about mega city. Another thing is efficient police system. There should also be efficient police system. The countries with mega cities have developed efficient police system that they are able to track down criminals in minutes. You can not think of a mega city where the security system is not functioning.”

Oladiran said that the Lagos State Government should go and study other mega cities to know why their system is working, adding that it was not infrastructure alone that makes a town mega city.
He said that putting all the infastructure in place without political will would amount to nothing.
“Lagosians have been noted for lawlessness. This is a city where people find it difficult to obey laws. So, apart from the infrastructure, we also need political will to make it work. We need attitudinal change and cultural reorientation. So, mega city is not all about having six lane roads, airports in every street, skyscrapers and beautifully painted houses.

We need political will to coordinate all the infrastructure. If the government puts all the required infrastructure in place and we don’t have the discipline to manage them, they would all come to naught. Therefore, I feel that the most important tool that we need to make the dream come true is attitudinal change.

He said that the professionals in the construction industry should be allowed to do their work.
According to him, the National Building Code has spelt out the role of each professional in construction be it in road or house construction.