So, What Is Fashola Doing Right?
By Austin Avuru

I have consciously restrained myself from writing any praise-signing commentary on the Governor of Lagos State, His Excellency, Babatunde Fashola, for two main reasons. First is my fear that it could get into his head and then he derails. We have all seen what persistent praise-singing and title taking has done to many public officers who start out well. Secondly, I have this nagging fear that one ambitious Presidential Candidate in 2011, desperately in search of credibility for his ticket, will draft Fashola in as running mate and in the process, extricate him from Lagos and start him on a futile journey to nowhere.

So, instead, I keep praying for him quietly that he does not lose his head and does not get carried away into aspiring so soon for much higher office. Back to the point, what is he really doing right as Governor of Lagos State? To be sure, there is a fairly long history of good governance in Lagos State . Alhaji Lateef Jakande, even though with a sense of class and value that is far too modest for today's modern world, was legendary in his administration of the State between 1979 and 1983. In his first three months in office he brought the chaotic, two and three-shift school system under control and re-established the traditional 8 am to 2 pm school period. This meant hurriedly building thousands of classroom blocks and employing a lot more teachers, all in 100 days! His Housing Scheme delivered thousands of flats in several sprawling "Jakande Estates" that can be found all over Lagos today.

For the medium and high income, he created the "Ogudu G.R.A" and for the business community, established the Professional Centre (PC series of plots) that is now the Victoria Island Business District. He did not stop there, the light rail mass transit, which is on the hot burner today was already initiated by Jakande thirty years ago. The contract for the Metro-line, as it was then called, was only cancelled by the intruding Military Administration while searching for justification for their misadventure in 1984. And Marine Transport? Two high capacity vessels (one of them was Baba Kekere) were plying the Mile-2 to Lagos route, each capable of taking 400 passengers. I was living in Festac then and regularly came to work on the Island through those vessels.

And Lagosians have always known and acknowledged their leaders. At re-election time in 1983, Jakande spent more time in Rivers and then Bendel States, campaigning for their UPN Candidates than his own campaign here in Lagos . He did not need to campaign here. He was assured of his place as Governor. And even the massive rigging machinery of NPN which ultimately torpedoed that four-year window of democracy could not throw Jakande out of office.

Twenty years later, in 1999 stepped in Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a pro-democracy activist who spent over four years in exile fighting the Abacha military junta. Some people believe that he did not win the Alliance for Democracy (AD) governorship nomination in 1998. But the man who probably won served during the Abacha Military era and the pro-democracy activists who controlled the AD could not understand how he was allowed to collect the nomination form in the first place, let alone winning! Bola Tibunu was chosen and what a good choice. Bola Tinubu did three things in eight years.

He played "real politik", so sophisticated that he was able to keep away the rampaging PDP machinery from capturing Lagos and reducing her to its low level. That was a huge job, and no wonder that Lagos was the only State left standing in the South when the PDP smoke cleared in 2003. Inspite of the rigours of fighting the PDP machinery and a President that was intent on bringing the State to her knees, he found time, thanks to his world-class cabinet, to prepare the blue print for the transformation of Lagos into a working, modern city. He started the implementation process before leaving office. The third thing he did was to apply good judgment in picking, grooming and installing a successor that not only shares his vision but actually has the discipline and the management capacity to turn the vision into action.

The defining element of the Fashola governance model is what Accountants refer to as sources and application of funds. The first step, in this case, is to establish and optimize the sources of internally generated revenue without too harsh a backlash on the contributors. It is instructive that Lagos State generates about 64% of its total revenue internally whereas other industrial/commercial states like Rivers, Delta and Kano only generate about 15% of their revenue internally. Even more telling is the fact that while Lagos keeps her recurrent expenditure at less than 50% of the total budget, in most other states, recurrent expenditure eats up between 70% and 95%. So it is clear where the difference lies, the serious minded one works very hard to generate sufficient revenue to implement his key capital projects while the clueless one lines up every month to collect his dole in Abuja and spends the bulk of it to pay salaries, allowances and pecks.

Beyond optimising internally generated revenue, prudent and purposeful application of such funds builds trust between Government and the Tax payers, engendering in the latter a stronger willingness to pay. Thus the elaborate security arrangement in Lagos State , which probably gulps up to 2billion Naira annually, is funded largely through private sector donations to a well established Security Trust Fund. Prudent application of funds also means that Government restricts its intervention to the four critical areas of infrastructure, Environment and Security, Health Care and Education while partnering with the Private Sector to move in capital and fund investments in Transportation, Power Supply and even some supplemental infrastructure development. This critical partnership, backed by proper planning and focused budget implementation is what is delivering the magic in Lagos State today.

Perhaps the more appropriate question should then be, "what is everyone else doing so wrong then?" The Federal Government depends entirely on Oil exports and associated (customs duty and VAT) revenues to fund her budget. And because this oil rent is so readily available (even if all Government workers went on strike for one month, provided the Oil companies are working) we continue to pay lip service to agriculture, solid minerals, manufacturing and even tourism as additional sources of revenue.

Worse still, with fifty two Ministers, a retinue of Special Advisers, Special Assistants and Personal Assistants to the Special Assistants, added to the heavy baggage at the National Assembly and the multitude of pecks that go with these offices, we have managed to ensure that eighty percent of our meagre earnings is swallowed by recurrent spending. Meaning that 80% of our total revenue is spent taking care of one million public servants while the rest 139 million Nigerians watch in envy and awe! And what little is left is then spent on such white elephants as refineries, power plants and paying subsidies to those who import petrol for us. Is it any more surprising why the critical areas of transport infrastructure, security, healthcare, education and even electricity remain in the state they are?

And most of the States are caught in the same quagmire. Near total dependence on federally collected oil revenue for funding their budgets, and worse still, spending almost the entire revenue to pay salaries and pecks of public servants that constitute less than five percent of the population and what little is left is then channeled to self-serving white elephant projects like building power plants, buying vehicles for State transport companies or even building modular refineries. In the event, building a guest lodge for a Governor in Abuja is celebrated with fanfare as a major achievement of the State Government while hospitals and schools remain unattended to.

In the end, good governance means proper planning, budgeting and prudent budget implementation. It is no more than the classical "sources and application of funds", with minimal corruption to wit.

Avuru is a company executive in Lagos
SOURCEhttp://www.ngrguardiannews.com/editorial_opinion/article03//indexn2_html?pdate=100110&ptitle=So,%20What%20Is%20Fashola%20Doing%20Right?)

Fashola still the best no matter what
And he cant be derailed

"even if all Government workers went on strike for one month, provided the Oil companies are working"

"governors lines up every month to collect his dole in Abuja and spends the bulk of it to pay salaries, allowances and pecks.

This is an excellent article.

It clearly identifies the problem of Nigeria, which is total dependence on a natural resource. and therein lies the trap of mediocrity and retrogression. Nigeria is a potentially great country but all the potentials remain dormant until there is a rude awakening.

the first step is to create an effective tax regime in order to have a buy in for all stakeholders.

i think his question should have been, so what is Fashola not doing right?