Bola Tinubu, the APC’s nominee for president, said that while serving as Lagos’ governor from 1999 to 2007, he transformed the city from a jungle to a megacity
In a program that aired on Channels TV on Friday night, Tinubu said that he laid the framework for all subsequent governors of Lagos State to build upon in order to transform the state into what it is today.
Lagos “came alive” under Tinubu’s leadership, he proclaimed
“Lagos was a jungle when I took office as governor of Lagos State in 1999,” he remarked. It was an entirely primitive setting. There were garbage heaps everywhere, no roofs on the schools, no ambulances in the hospitals, and no oxygen tanks to save lives. It was in a terrible condition.
“The state started to take shape as we progressively put everything in place. The state’s obligations were taken and turned into assets as a result of what we performed.
“The Victoria Island neighborhoods from the Civic Center to the Oriental Hotel used to be trash dumps, but look at what the neighborhoods are like now. Only elderly people would remember all of these
According to the mini-documentary on Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate redesigned the state’s revenue, and after he stepped down as governor in 2007, Lagos became totally independent from the federal government in terms of revenue generation after being entirely reliant on federal allocations before 1999.
“Lagos was insolvent in 1999, the year Tinubu became president.
At the time, the state’s monthly internal revenue was only N600m, and it was entirely reliant on the federal government.
“In 2007, when Tinubu left office, Lagos’ IGR was N7 billion per month. Babatunde Fashola expanded on that legacy to N15 billion each month. According to the documentary, this was made possible by Tinubu’s short-, medium-, and long-term goals for the state’s revenue and wealth creation.
The president, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (ret. ), described Tinubu as a political strategist, which attracted him (Buhari) to Tinubu, in a brief excerpt from the mini documentary.
Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has distinguished himself as a political strategist and has a mountain of ideas, which attracted me to him, according to Buhari. He is a genuine humanitarian who has made a significant contribution to Nigeria’s and Africa’s progress.
In the program, both the current governor of the state, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and the former governor of the state, Babatunde Fashola, credited the APC presidential candidate for the majority of the projects that their administrations completed. They referred to Tinubu as the mastermind behind the state’s developments and said that the majority of them were born during his time, long before they were implemented.
