FULL TEXT: Jandor, PDP governorship candidate, speaks on his vision for Lagos

Olajide ‘Jandor’ Adediran, governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos, has spoken on his plans for the state.

The governorship candidate said he will work on reforms in housing and road infrastructure, education, healthcare, and improve ease of doing business, among other issues.

Here is the full text of his speech.

Today marks a special point in our journey to the ballot and our resolve to offer ourselves for public service in the quest to create a Lagos state of our shared desire. Officially, the electoral umpire has signaled the commencement of political campaigns allowing us to formally seek your votes and support in the 2023 gubernatorial election.

We are not beckoned to serve or railroaded into a project of which we have little knowledge. This journey started exactly seven years ago, after a detailed appraisal of the performance of successive governments in the State of Lagos from 1999. We are convinced that our state will fair better when well-meaning stakeholders graduate from armchair criticism of the systemic decadence to becoming active players by throwing their hats into the ring to salvage the state.

The experience of an average resident of Lagos state across the 5 IBILE divisions in the 20 Local Governments since the beginning of our nascent democracy left much to be desired. We can have it better, our lives could be much easier when altruism, transparent honesty, accountability, and empathy govern the conduct of public officeholders.

We are set to make Lagos work better in the interest of all residents by decentralizing development to all parts of the state and ensuring that the flow of the wealth of the state is redirected from the pockets of an individual to the benefit of all.

We are very intentional about our vision of birthing a true Mega City led by a servant leader who is truly independent and will not need a second level of approval before taking decisions. The power will truly reside with the people and not an individual pretending to be a demi-god.

We will make Lagos truly WEALTHY by giving a breath of fresh air in the area of Works & Infrastructure, Education & Environment, Aquaculture & ease of doing business, Law & Order, Transportation & Traffic management, Health & Housing, Youth & Women empowerment, and other critical areas of governance.

It is public knowledge that endemic corruption is one of the biggest problems stagnating the development of our state, we will bring on financial re-engineering through critical reforms that will fast-track operational processes and plug financial leakages in the public service. We will hit the ground running.

We are bewildered that over 2 million of our children are out of school. We are pained to see our people suffer so much to access very basic healthcare services. We are ashamed of the poor state of infrastructure and the widening gap in infrastructure deficit. We are not comfortable that our State’s wealth is only on paper, nothing significant is on the ground to justify the humongous revenue generation, including our local and foreign borrowings to fund budget deficit, year on year.

Every time we think we have seen the worst, somehow, the ones we handed our dear state will always find a way to outdo themselves in how bad things can get.

For 23 years, they have rewarded the love of the people with so little. We are the wealthiest state in Nigeria, yet 66% of Lagos residents still live in slums.

It is better to imagine and never experience another four years of no real solution to waking up at 4am everyday because of the awful traffic across Lagos metropolis. Or four more years of being scared to stop at traffic lights for fear of traffic robbers?

I don’t think we can continue with another four years of 2 million of our children still out of school.

The solution to the problem of
Lagos is to make real change.

For too long we have paid lip service to seeking “progress”. The time to fight for our lives, our rights and our future, is now. Another four years is too long to waste!

So what exactly are we doing
differently?

Our focus is to change the face of governance in Lagos and make it a WEALTHY State in truth as against it current status of being a wealthy state only on paper.

Our Agenda for a WEALTHY Lagos, is a TREAT everyone deserves. This agenda has been outlined as follows;
W – Works, Housing & Road Infrastructure
E – Education
A – Aquaculture & Ease of Doing Business
L – Law, Order & Security
T – Tourism, Transport & Traffic Management, H – Health & Environment
Y – Youth, Women & Social Development.

Blueprints are only as good as the excellence in implementation. As part of our plans to ensure that we deliver on the promise of a WEALTHY Lagos, we will be guided by the following pillars;

Tech-driven approach to governance;
Rule of Law;
Equity & Inclusiveness; Accountable Representation and;
Transparency.(TREAT)

The key to resolving the perennial traffic on our roads is to identify flash points, get root causes and be deliberate about resolving them, either by providing the necessary infrastructure such as expanding the roads or constructing bridges to free up intersections and more importantly, by instilling discipline on our roads. We will also lead by example and provide real leadership.

We will ensure that the acclaimed huge Lagos revenue that we only hear is no longer “audio”. It will now reflect in our daily living by using it to aggressively repair all existing state roads, building iconic bridges that will give Lagos the face lift as a mega city of repute. We will involve private sectors in project financing via Public-Private Partnership such as build operate and transfer (BOT) and other concessions, but with interest of Lagosians at the centre of it all.

Any serious government will take the education of our children very seriously.

Our solution to taking our children out of the streets and have them back in school would be to declare a state of emergency in our education sector and proceed to make primary and secondary education COMPLETELY free and compulsory. How? Our administration will provide free school uniforms and learning aids to all pupils in our primary and secondary schools. Majority of these children are out of school because their parents are unable to afford ancillary school requirements such as uniforms and learning aids that are presently not part of the free education scheme of this current administration. These uniforms will be produced by local tailors in all local governments. This means local tailors within Ikeja local government will sew uniforms for all pupils and students schooling within the confines of Ikeja local government. This way, we would also have succeeded in boosting the economy, especially the earning power of the locals all at a cost no more than N24b in a fiscal year.

Another reason for having over 2million out of school children in Lagos is lack of infrastructure and human resources…our immediate plan would be to first go into partnership with private schools and ensure these children are admitted and spread across the over 18,000 private schools in Lagos, among which only 5,000 are registered, in exchange for tax incentives while we embark on infrastructural renewal and upgrades in our public schools.

We will address shortage of school teachers by being the first to implement the 65years retirement age and 40 years of service. We will also bring back those that have been retired since the signing of this law to complete their years of service.

Currently in our health facilities, epecially at the general hospitals, we are confronted by the unpalatable experience of patients littering the premises in the name of no hospital beds to accommodate them.

Pending when we will provide adequate infrastructure, we will embark on the automation of all health care facilities in Lagos, both public and private to ensure that no hospital transfers any patient to the general hospital until such facility has successfully secured a bed space for such patient and we will also eradicate reception areas at all Emergency Units.

This way, we would have succeeded in ridding the premises of our general hospitals of littering patients and save more lives. In addition to this, health insurances will be made compulsory and available to the less privileged and vulnerable for free, to improve access and affordability.

Our administration will create technovation hubs across the 5 divisions of Lagos state, namely, Ikeja, Badagry, Ikorodu, Lagos and Epe where youths will be trained to acquire digital skills while facilitating tech start-up support to leverage opportunities.

We will secure Lagos with native intelligential community policing in conjunction with the law enforcement agencies.

Our government will ensure that the rights of citizens are respected and protected.

On flooding, our administration will declare a state of emergency on our environment, with regular de-silting, clearing of collectors and primary channels in preparation for the rainy season and we will be bold to take tough decisions in the interest of generality of Lagosians by enforcing environmental sanitation laws.

We will work closely with the Metrological agency to plan ahead by giving utmost attention to areas that are prone to flood.

We will be deliberate about ease of doing business in Lagos by providing enabling environment to players in our economy both at the formal and informal sectors. We will restore hope of our market men and women to make sure no one harasses or extort them in the name of “Mama loja” (Market Leader) and we won’t take away their means of livelihood for a day, by closing any market in Lagos under whatever guise.

We know that you, the good people of Lagos are just enduring the remaining days of the incumbent government. We are signing a social contract with you to serve you with the skillfulness of our hands and the integrity of our hearts. We will reach out to every Lagosian, and walk through each of the 245 political wards and 13,325 polling units across the 20 Local Government areas of the state to seek your vote and your support for Funke and I on March 11, 2023 date for the governorship election and all other candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party for the legislative offices.

We will continue to communicate our plans to you in the coming days as we solicit your feedback from time to time on this project of our mutual interest.

I am not here to make promises that are not achievable but with your mandate, our vision is to transform Lagos into a functional, prosperous and secure state that will deliver the promise of making Lagos work for all.

My name is Dr. Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran (Jandor) and I am running for the office of governor of Lagos State under the Peoples Democratic Party, the PDP.

Ja fun eko. Ja fun e to e

PDP…Power!!!