By Phillip Ibitoye
Nigeria boasts the biggest economy in Africa and a population of more than 200 million. So, it’s no surprise that it is a complex country to rule. Certainly, the task of leading Nigeria is not for the faint-hearted or the inexperienced.
Accordingly, the supporters of the country’s presidential candidates have been touting their leadership credentials, including their achievements in their previously held political offices.
One such candidate is Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate (APC). Tinubu was the governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007. Incidentally, Lagos boasts the largest economy in Nigeria. The APC presidential candidate for 2023 has played no small part in that feat, as his supporters like to point out to anyone who cares to listen.
Recently, media platforms have been awash with headlines suggesting that Tinubu would replicate his Lagos achievements as Nigeria’s president if elected in the February 2023 presidential election.
Earlier this month, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State said the APC presidential flag-bearer laid the foundation of a new Lagos, commending him for having good eyes for talent. “We must give credit to Asiwaju for laying the foundation of a new Lagos; by the time he comes in as president, he will put the right pegs in the right holes, because of the peculiarity of Lagos. Asiwaju brought in so many people from different spheres, which helped Lagos to keep growing,”
Akeredolu’s comments echoed Tinubu’s revelation in a recently released documentary that he turned Lagos from a jungle to a megacity. But how true are the claims of Tinubu’s achievements?
In 1998, Tinubu stood in Isolo, Oshodi LGA, to lead his campaign to become the governor of Lagos State, reeling out his plans for the 1999 elections. He told a crowd of thousands of Lagosians that he had come to change their story, promising that he had come to develop education, health, and security and to empower youths and women. By the time he left office, he seemed to have made significant progress on all the promises.
At the inception of Tinubu’s administration, he faced a bloated civil service filled with several ghost workers. Unsurprisingly, the situation put a strain on the state’s treasury. In an interview with an American researcher, Graeme Blair, in August 2009, the former Lagos governor said the bloated civil service forced the state to run on overdraft without meeting its obligations.
However, Tinubu launched a test run of the payroll, which eliminated thousands of ghost workers. By the time the government was done with its civil service sanitisation, it had saved nearly N600 million out of a N1.2 billion payroll.
The next challenge for Tinubu was growing the state’s revenue as it was near bankruptcy. His administration partnered with external consultants to develop software for effective tax administration and accountability. In no time, Lagos’s revenue jumped from N600 million a month to more than N2 billion.
“So the revenue that was 600 million a month grew astronomically to 2 billion, 3 billion, 4 billion, 5 billion, and it was fluctuating between 10 and 8 before I left office. That is the story of the financial recovery of the state,” the APC presidential candidate told Blair.
On power, Tinubu tried to make Lagos produce its energy through innovative projects, but the Olusegun Obasanjo-led Federal Government frustrated the efforts. Nonetheless, the Tinubu-led Lagos State government achieved 270 megawatts of independent power generation.
On security, Tinubu ensured that he supported law enforcement agency to deliver optimum security even though the country’s flawed federal system handicapped him significantly. Not accepting defeat, he fought for the safety of Lagosians and was largely successful in the most populous state in Nigeria. Notably, he initiated and equipped the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), an anti-crime unit in Lagos, to solve the internecine war among motor park managers.
The RRS and many of Tinubu’s initiatives endure till today. As of December 2021, the state’s monthly revenue had risen to an incredible N45 billion. Little wonder the state projected an ambitious N81 billion monthly revenue in its 2022 budget.
There’s absolutely no doubt that Tinubu laid the foundation for Lagos’ thriving economy, giving him and his supporters all the bragging rights in the buildup to the 2023 presidential election.
With Nigeria facing revenue crisis and insecurity today, Tinubu can boast of a track record of successes in these critical areas of the economy. However, questions will arise about his ability to repeat the same exploits as a septuagenarian—1999 is not 2023— but it would be unfair to question his leadership credentials. He has undoubtedly paid his dues.
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