There is no denying the fact a city, nation could be dead and a cemetery if the leaders and people do not birth fresh ideas to capture its futuristic development. It is no story that great cities and very prosperous ones at that innovates every six months if not yearly to encourage livability options and also to stay on the good side of revenue generation from services and infrastructure so provided.
Last week, I was privileged to be among Lagos big boys – Babatunde Fashola, immediate works minister, Obafemi Hamzat, Deputy Governor of Lagos, Senator (Dr) Olurinnibe Mamora, Managing Director, National Inland Waterways (NIWA).
From all indications, Lagosians holds the nation’s key to effective movements of people, goods and services. On this score and until the last federal executive council was disbanded, Fashola, a Lagosian and former governor was in charge of road affairs in the country and Dr. Mamora, also a Lagosian in charge of the huge national waterways – another road ignorantly excluded in the development of national transportation architecture.
Today however is not about what these gentlemen have done or failed to do but to concern ourselves why our dear Lagos is under siege from acute traffic menace.
Story tellers at that event packaged by the creative Lagos traffic radio opined that attempts were made by former and immediate past government in Lagos to arrest the trend. I particularly took interest in the presentation Dr. Femi Salaam, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transportation and to be honest, I didn’t get the drift of his speech. There was no solution in view, just a history down the lane of how the state began attempts to develop intermodal transport system.
For the sake of space, I would ignore others who spoke at the event but will pick bones with all the presentations which did nothing to interpret the data of a state with 22 million people, a hold bay of about 30% of national population of 200 million people, 50 littoral communities, longest bridge in west Africa and Africa’s fifth largest economy.
I sat raging in disappoint as nothing was said about the lagos waterways, the inefficient and poorly managed Lagos Waterways Authority (LASWA) and the big operational fuzz called Lagos ferry.
Fashola nearly came to the opening of vistas in this area and honestly, cannot understand why he did not beam lights into Lagos waters except to advise the new government to operationalize the jetties.
I cannot pretend to understand what BRF meant by his position but could understand that Lagos can and must generate new operational goals and development on the movement of people and goods, not excluding creating new windows on service economy. It could revisit the state of jetties in Lagos and partner with the private sector on ferry services and water taxi’s operation.
Possibly and significantly, the Lagos waterways holds the lifeline to effective operation and value chain in the yet to be completed but desirable seven blue rail line project. On this score, it gladdens the heart that Lagos is ever prepared and has transportation blueprint that could be rejigged to create seamless movement of people and goods around the city and thereby grow other downstream economies such as tourism and its vast attribute.
So the question remains why the ferry service organ of the state not fully activated and why a water management institution so poorly managed, operating as a Frankenstein monster? To operationalize the sector and make it a dream feature of governance and solution driver to the rage on Lagos roads, the ferry service should be privatized or tested hands be appointed for its rapid growth, hands who understands the intricate business and ecosystem of Lagos waterways and could develop creative roadmaps which will include the private sector boat operators in its operations and services.
The current situation where the state ferry service is projected and seen as a competitor and winner takes all in its operations would not help the sector. To start with, the new ferry boats acquired by Ambode administration were in bad taste, operationally defective and nothing more than coffins. Allegedly brought in from South-Africa, the boats would never withstand the very corrosive nature of the highly abused Lagos waterways where faeces and debris reign supreme.
Indeed, the healthy state of Lagos waters needs to be captured before the venture of services could begin without which operational issues beyond the control of the state could lead to their early grounding. To operationalize the jetties as Fashola suggested without detailed look into the state of the waterways heavily logged with woods and abandoned dredging equipment would amount to nothing.
Dr. Salaam, once said that a private ferry operator handles about 3% of the total movement of people in Lagos state and we wonder why such operator(s) are not made or invited to provide intelligence on how Lagos could turn its vast water bodies into actual roads. Oh yes, Lagos waters could creativity provide a new line of economic activities apart from being strategic enabler of fast and comfortable movement of citizens and visitors to and from their destinations.
From Apongbon, Mile 2, Ikorodu, Badagry and Epe new cities and water front economy could emerge if the government of Sanwo-olu could get cracking to solve the rage on Lagos roads through effective mobilisation of both the private and public influencers to properly fund and manage the waterways.
As earlier stated, Lagos Water Transport Management Authority (LASMA) needs deep changes. The current leadership of LASWA is bereft of ideas and operates as motor touts in a sector to which it could creatively actualize the needs and expectations of its mandate. In a hurry to be seen to generate only revenue from impoverished private boat operators, LASWA’s only achievement in the past four years, is to brain alleged factionalization of the organized body of boat operators in Lagos in an attempt to hold on to nonsensical revenue expectations.
Sanwo-Olu should boot these fellow(s) at LASWA out and bring in experienced people such as Jide Cole or likes of him who would not focus on waterways as rabid dogs.