Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola, says the multi-million naira corporate head office of BusinessDay, ‘The Brook’, in Apapa, represents the growing confidence of the private sector in Lagos and his administration’s effort at providing the right environment for businesses in the state.
The governor also said that private sector players should be willing to turn in their expertise in the development of the public sector which, he said, was in dire need of well-developed human capital for a positive turnaround.
Fashola spoke on Tuesday at the official opening of ‘The Brook’, pointing out that investors’ confidence in Apapa was rising again, spurred by the regeneration programme and the new model city plan for the area which his government was pursuing.
Under the renewal programme, the state government is targeting reconstruction of inner city roads and clearing and beautification of hitherto abandoned areas which for long served as hideouts for criminals, with spill-over negative effects on businesses and Apapa residents.
“‘The Brook’ represents strong confidence in our government and I can assure you that this confidence is not misplaced. If anything, it confirms to me that if we as government do things right, the entrepreneurs will invest, and if the entrepreneurs invest, people will find jobs,” Fashola said. “I do know that this would not have been possible without the Apapa Model City Plan.”
The governor, however, expressed disappointment over the long neglect of Apapa by the Federal Government which rakes in trillions of naira in revenues from the ports annually. He said there was a limit to which Lagos as a state government could go, especially regarding the hundreds of fuel tankers parked indiscriminately and mindlessly along major roads into Apapa.
“It seems to me that as a nation we are bearing the burden for the wrong choice we have made – moving petrol by road,” he added.
Insisting that the Federal Government must take interest in Apapa, the governor said, “I wonder what kind of a business manager will make so much money from a place and refuse to put back.”
He observed that it was possible to move petrol around the country without seeing oil tankers on the roads, adding that it was the way to go in putting an end to the tankers’ blockade.
Speaking earlier, Frank Aigbogun, publisher/CEO, BusinessDay, commended Governor Fashola for his style of government which, he said, had been business-like, with full recognition of the pivotal role that business could play in Lagos and Nigeria at large.
Aigbogun observed that with an infrastructure spend of N250 billion a year, Lagos was paying due attention to central business districts such as Ikeja, Victoria Island, and increasingly Apapa.
He, however, decried the gross abuse of statutory powers by federal authorities which, he said, had brought Apapa to its knees. He lamented further that this abuse had also led to the crush of Apapa on every side, by oil tankers and container-bearing trailers which simply have become lords of Apapa, appealing to the governor for some respite through focused resolution of the situation.
“Your approach to governance confirms your administration’s commitment to being a catalyst for economic development and its abundant spill-over effect. A better business environment is having a positive impact on employment from either new or expanding businesses. It has also had a positive effect on Lagos States’ internally generated revenue (IGR),” the publisher said.
He commended the governor for the vast improvement in the state’s IGR, from N600 million per month (pre-1999) to N20 billion per month (2007-2012), saying it was a feat to be admired.
“We commend your push to further increase total IGR to N33 billion per month in 2015 and your commitment to do this without raising tax rates,” he added.
Aigbogun tasked the governor on power supply, saying, “If Lagos were to get power supply right, and there is no good reason why it should not, this place can in less than a decade of more momentum and traction assume the face of a nation state, without the legal affirmation. For with power on the back of continued good governance, people in Lagos will have very little need of the central government.”
On the new office complex, the publisher described it as an ostensible monolith built to serve the several business segments in the company, adding that as a towering state-of-the-art facility archetypal of world-class media centres the world over, it symbolised the ambition of the company.
