Egunje spoil Lagos (II)

Lagos puts a bad hue to a great environment program called ‘CLIN Lagos’. And this is how it happened; the sharp boys in Lagos were looking to make money. They weren’t particularly looking to fixing Lagos. Or rather the urge to make money got the best of them. This is why the first thing they did, in their bid to clean Lagos, was to launch a N50billion Naira Bond, at 17.5% per annum, for 5 years! The arrangers of the Bond made almost N1billion from the deal (and of course a chunk of that will head back to the big boys). The bond locks Lagos State into a ten years bondage which has already commenced even though Lagos has never been dirtier. That they had to go to the UK to bring a company to help process our waste is spiritually, morally and economically wrong.  The entire approach leaps over the people. Our smart boys make a classic mistake; they always think they have arrived. They forget that there is no way a nation can develop if its people do not develop. That is the problem with Lagos today, and indeed the other flashes in the pan that we commend around Nigeria. That is the same way Osun was put into debt by the smart chaps Aregbe hired. 

This same environmental approach was used to transform India. Only that they involved their people. India’s Narendra Modi had a mind to clean up India and launched the Swacch Barat (Clean up India) project. He targeted the stoppage of open defecation and has convinced a broad swathe of India’s 1.3billion population to build toilets in their backyards, even if they have to sell their jewellery. The project has seen the construction of 75million toilets in the rural areas. Imagine the amount of small construction, and the productivity it has unleashed among masons, plumbers and the rest? No wonder the Indian economy is growing in leaps.  The project has been so successful that the richest man in the world, Bill Gates had to visit India and wrote an article about it. See  

https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Indias-War-on-Human-Waste.  

But in Lagos, as in most of Nigeria, our pretend leaders would rather rush into the capital market or bring fake investors because they are interested only in making money; money that they can’t even spend. That the Lagos government is totally deluded can be found in the fact that they included the name of a company, Alpha Beta Consulting, which is allegedly owned by the master of Lagos, Bola Tinubu, in a LAW, for the collection of Land Fees! Imagine trying to cement a private company into a public law. This is enough for Ambode and his cohorts to resign. The delusion is further manifested in the type of ‘stakeholders’ that Lagos State invites to justify its new trips. Jim Ovia – perhaps Nigeria’s richest man in cash terms – was the one justifying the increases on behalf of the government while promising to double his contributions to the security fund. Jim? That guy doesn’t represent 0.01% of Nigerians. He’s in a world of his own. Fantastically loaded! He can say anything he wants.  

Let me close out by looking at a Business Day article which captures what really went on with this Visionscape environmental deal. It is just pathetic. See

https://www.businessdayonline.com/inside-lagosvisionscape-deal-costs-taxpayers-n85bn/:

“In an unprecedented move the State Executive Council at a meeting held on March 21, 2017 passed a resolution to secure the financing structure adopted by the Consortium to raise funds for the project via issuance of an Irrevocable Standing Payment Order (ISPO) as a charge on the State Internally Generated Revenue account/ Environmental Trust Fund…. This meant the Lagos State Government was basically agreeing to be on the hook in case of default for a N50 billion bond programme the Visionscape Group through its SPV was set to issue… (A letter was issued conveying a monthly) remittance of the gross sum of Seven Hundred and Thirteen Million, Seven Hundred Thousand Naira Only (NGN713,700,000) as a first line charge from the revenue account of Lagos State Government which is to commence in June 2017 and terminate in June 2027… The consequence of this is that in a 1 year period the state would spend N8.56 billion as guarantees for the bond and be on the hook for about N85 billion over the 10 year timeline on just this one transaction…  Armed with the letter, the Visionscape Group now began to market the first tranche of its proposed bond issuance, a N27 billion, 17.5 percent, fixed rate 5 year bond due 2022, to high net worth individuals.  Ratings agency Agusto & co rated the debt offer from the relatively unknown SPV an A+ largely on the back of the Lagos State guarantee.”

Well, everyone got in on the action. Note that Visionscape the ‘foreign investor’, just like Etisalat, raised money in Nigeria. They didn’t bring in a dime. And LASG guaranteed the borrowing, so it is Nigerians vs Nigerians.  ‘High networth’ individuals bought into this under the table.  The focus was not on how to better the lives of Lagosians and make us attain a higher level of humanity. It was all about the money; the egunje that spoils Lagos. It is also part of a desperation to cover up grounds over past borrowings. The concept of leading a country via massive foreign borrowing may yet be the death of Nigeria. Lagos owes more than many sovereign countries around the world. Yet the money did not pass through the hands of majority of the people, who still live in want, penury, filth and stench. The best development approach in my view, is people-based, like what the Indians have done. They didn’t rush to the capital markets in India. They rushed into the minds and brains of their people and got them working, thinking and producing differently. Shame on Nigeria’s leaders. 

BusinessDay reported further; 

““Lagos has gotten progressively less transparent today, they don’t even bother,” said Tunde Leye, Consulting Partner at SBM Intelligence.  “Under the previous Governor Fashola for example, even though the budget was not detailed, you could find procurement information on the LASG website (that’s how we knew how much he spent on the website or boreholes for example). We know exactly the cost of building the Lekki Ikoyi Bridge. Compare to Ambode where we do not know how much he spent to build the Ajah flyover or anything else. Civil society has tried to invoke the freedom of information (FOI) act repeatedly but they have either been ignored or blown off. Lagos is very opaque.””

So there you have it. Lagos state government is embracing more and more darkness and opacity in an age of technology and total transparency. They should go to South Africa and see the level of transparency in government.  Ambode has presently lost perspective if he ever had any. All these observed lapses in an age where everyone has become a reporter, makes Lagos look very bad.

As for the filthy environment, I know that all over the world, those who engage in environmental services are a mafia but Ambode played into their hands.  He must back down immediately and consult his conscience. And Lagos will need a massive program of exorcism from the spirit of money-grabbing and desperate corruption.