Building our human infrastructure

Lagos is a city that elicits a strong emotional response from both those who know it and those who don’t. Experiences are varied but everyone can generally agree on one thing – it is without a doubt the home of ambition, of dreams and endless possibilities. The western media’s definition of Lagos as an overpopulated city with crumbling infrastructure is a reductionist western view of a city which over 21 million people – from all across the country as well as many parts of the world - proudly call home.

The only true identity anyone can claim for Lagos comes from its people and their heritage. Lagos is the collective hope and ambition of those twenty-one plus million people. Without them Lagos would be inconsequential. They are the reason why our great city is the single largest market in Africa. They are the reason why Lagos is the only other financial services hub in Sub-Saharan Africa after Johannesburg. It is a place where every single person, regardless of ethnicity, financial status, gender or religion, wakes up every day believing that life changing opportunity can and indeed will be found just around the corner. It is this ‘human infrastructure’ that makes this great city the most independent state in Nigeria today. Despite encumbered natural resources, (encumbered because of our warped federalism), Lagos is and has always been a city of endless possibilities and a shining example to the country, and other cities in West Africa.

Lagos like any other megacity has more than its fair share of challenges to contend with. To help us reach our destination we need good men and women – ordinary citizens, civil servants, politicians and entrepreneurs, to accept the challenge that our ambitions and aspirations demand of us. To roll up our sleeves with tenacity and great resolve to work together to realise our dreams and aspirations for the city of Lagos.

The physical and social infrastructures that we are building are designed to enable our people achieve their goals. Without these infrastructures Lagos cannot function properly, serve its increasing number of inhabitants or compete on a global scale. The roads and bridges that we build will connect businesses to their markets, people to jobs, the sick to the hospitals and tighten the fabrics of the family unit. The water works we provide must deliver a reliable, usable water supply that supports our health and well–being and that of our families. The power solutions we put in place must provide the electricity we need to grow our businesses, do our jobs, educate our children and live our lives.

Infrastructure is without a doubt the most visible and impactful development deficit we have today. The amount of money required

to meet the needs of an increasing population is more than $50 billion over the next 10 years. Raising this vast sum of money will not be easy and requires us to collaborate with the private sector, through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to accelerate the delivery and maintenance of this much needed infrastructure. When we consider the value of these PPP’s we must assess them against our own benchmark, which takes into the account the needs of the people that will drive our development.

While addressing our ‘hard infrastructure’ needs, we must, in tandem, address our soft infrastructure needs. And by soft infrastructure I mean human infrastructure, our most distinguishing feature and the true asset of Lagos State. There can be no sustainable infrastructure development without sustained human capital development. It is the combination of the simultaneous investment in these two areas that will impact positively on Lagos States development trajectory. Creating an enabling environment for this approach to development requires an integrated and pragmatic approach to policy formulation and implementation. It requires us to build on the giant leap embarked upon by the current administration to place the state in an enviable position among cities around the globe. We must focus on more than just feeding the ‘stomach infrastructure’ of our people or just concentrating on physical infrastructure. We must in essence address how physical infrastructure affects stomach infrastructure. We must focus on the full breadth of our human infrastructure requirements.

Increasingly, it is clear to me and others that we must as a people focus on some key issues which relates to sustaining the socio-economic development of Lagos State. These issues are very close to my heart and in my view hold the key to continuing on current path of turning Lagos into Africa's model mega city, and the economic heart of the continent. This is important for me as someone who has over eighteen years private sector experience and also as a public servant in Lagos State for the past 10 years in different capacities. It is therefore easy to view Lagos from different prisms.

To my mind, there are four themes that we must work on over the next decade. They are service delivery, ensuring that we continue to build the infrastructure to meet our needs today, and for the future while focusing on efficient revenue generation and the best use of public funds; Job creation, providing the opportunities our people need to fulfil their ambitions; Knowledge and skills, enhancing the ability of our people to improve themselves and build an economy and workforce that meets our future needs in order to our youths to employ their God given talent, and lastly

health and well-being, ensuring that our people have access to health services and can live in an environment that enables all of us to be and do the best that we can, for ourselves and our families, and of course the great State of Lagos. The target is clear, we must build a state that our children will be proud to inherit. Eko oni baje!!! Eko Atesiwaju!!!.