‘Jakande’s footprints are all over Lagos’

Chief Kola Oseni was the Organising Secretary of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in the Second Republic. He spoke with reporters in Lagos on the 90th birthday of the former Governor, Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande. MUSA ODOSHIMOKHE was there.

Why has it not been possible to get the kind of governance that Jakande provided for the people of Lagos State?

The reasons are very simple, those who took over from him are not prepared for the position they found themselves. When he came, he took Lagos like his child and when you have a child that you are so passionate about, you will give your best to ensure the child grows up better. I know that Jakande followed the path of environmentalist, he created environment that suited the people, because Lagos State happened to be his child. The creation of Lagos State he wanted was made easy because of the essay he wrote when he was incarcerated during the treasonable felony trial. While in prison, the essay titled a ‘Case For Lagos State’ provided the template for the governance of the state. Look around him, I found in him someone with a passion for Lagos. He was committed, brilliant and intelligent. I want to say that if you don’t know what you want that could be the most challenging of the aspect of the problems and that is exactly what happened. When you go into governance, when you draw your blueprint you give it to technocrats to work on and they would give you the expected results. But the military bastardised the system; this created problems for those who came into governance thereafter. Life is all about giving the greatest good to the greater number of people. Jakande’s philosophy was not only replicated in governance, but in journalism. Journalism, as you know, is his first calling. Since he left office in 1983, there has been nothing done in Lagos State on the issue of development and good governance that he did not lay the foundation. It was his development strategy that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu built on and added the computerization and the oracle to all the departments.

Jakande worked on the metro line project that was abandoned after the Second Republic. He developed the housing scheme, school and other projects. When Jakande gave his blueprint of what to do to transform Lagos, some people were laughing at him. He said ‘by the time I assume office, all schools would become free’. He said children would go to schools in the morning, afternoon and evening, but those mocking him asked whether he was a miracle worker. He said there would be free books, free tuition and other benefits for public schools. He said pupils who have not paid tuition before he was sworn in should not pay anybody, those who paid should demand for a refund. My elders in Lagos were laughing, saying look at him; he has started again and how is that possible? Now everybody is commending him for the efforts.

What other landmark do you think Jakande is known for?

In the past, Lekki used to be a den of lions and pythons. It was a thick forest, but Jakande opened the place. He constructed the first roads linking Lekki to Epe. He created the path for the dualization of the roads linking Lekki and Epe. I am able to tell you this because I was part of the administration. We worked for 18 hours in a day. He worked for 21 hours. He only slept for three hours. There was a day Jakande sent for me to meet him in his house at 6am.  By the time was in the house, I met Alhaji Jakande already prepared and set to go out for work. He was such a committed and workaholic person. Looking back to what the late Chukwuemeka Ojukwu said about Chief Obafemi Awolowo that ‘he was the best President Nigeria never had’. I must say that Nigeria has missed a lot about Awolowo. Now, they are on the verge of missing the same thing in Jakande. Look at Lagos; this is not the Lagos I knew. If you go back into the archive, members of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) were laughing at us. Lagos was full with all sort of garbage, but within three years, he reactivated the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) and put the state back on course. Certainly, there is no way you will not work, when the man leading the team was busy working. The man will be at governor’s office at the latest 10am.

How did he execute his housing programme that brought him so much fame?

Look at Abesan, Isolo, Meran, Glover and Adeniji Adele housing estates and what they portend to Lagosians. Before he came into governance, the military had already allocated Adeniji Adele estate to be known as Ikoyi extension, Victoria Island. They cancelled the ones that would take care of the ordinary people. But when we came there the policy was to make housing affordable for the people. The housing issue was that people who could not pay their rent were ejected from their houses by the landlord, so we moved to create low cost housing estates. We were aware of what people were facing, in terms of what they are paying as rent. He said this should not increase and that you only have to deposit N1000 and repay the rest for 30 years. Tell me who will not be able to afford that? Is it the subsequent administrations building low income houses and expecting people to pay N15 million that will meet the need of the poor? Where will a messenger get N15 million? Where will your driver get N15,000 million? Where will your dispatch rider N15,000 million? What is the salary in total amount to for people of this category?

The party’s policy is that there will be free education at all levels. If you want to be a mechanic, be a literate mechanic. If you want to be a house keep, be a literate house keeper. If you want to be a vulcanizer, be a literate one. These were the promises carried over from the defunct Western Region. Western Region happened to be the first region in Nigeria that practiced free primary education. Everybody was so critical, saying it was possible.  Jakande had gone to do his work which he put down in the book. He called me to go and implement it. We inquired about the cost of the books to be supplied to schools, Obagun was going to sell at 15 kobo and another company gave us its own price. But, we agreed that we were going to print our own books. He gave the chairmanship to handle the issue to one of the party leaders that I respected, but I am not going to mention names. Jakande called and said Kola you are going to be the chairman of Lagos State Printing Press of the Ministry of Information. We got to work after appointing my GM, since my master had already tutored me on what to do, we took off from there. Since the budget of Lagos State, including the Ministry of Information, all the allocation for printing, stationery put together, we requested from the government to give us 10 per cent of everything we do. That is where the printing corporation would start. We now discovered through his own knowledge that if we bought our material locally we will produce exercise book for five or six Kobo.

You talked about Jakande’s first and second inaugural speech. What is special about it?

In his inaugural speech, he showed his love for the people of Lagos State. He is a very loving man and yet very humble. He does not look after himself alone, but whenever he discusses with business people, he urged them not to steal but serve the people.

What were his criteria for selecting his cabinet members?

Like I told you, I don’t have to tell you that you can study the situation and get your conclusion yourself. There has been no government like that of Jakande in Lagos. Pick Tinubu’s regime, compare it to Fashola’s regime and compare it to Ambode’s regime. One last thing that I will say and I don’t care what anybody says about me is that Jakande enjoys unrivalled record. When he left governance, he left one billion naira in the coffers. Lagos being the first state to have one billion in 1983, but Tinubu improved the tax collection of Lagos State, so any idiot that will not give Tinubu that credit must be coming from the pit of hell. This is because the revenue collection of Lagos has skyrocketed; it skyrocketed to the extent that irrespective of how bad the economy is you cannot bring Lagos down. Why? Tinubu added computerization and the oracle to the governance of Lagos State.