BY EMMANUEL AZIKEN, POLITICAL EDITOR
Dr. Shamsudeen Dosunmu, who spent all his working life in the public sector is now the gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Set in battle against the dominant Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Dosunmu ventilates a cool enthusiasm that obviously flows from his quiet observation of the operation of government from the bureaucracy. Ahead of the flagging off of his gubernatorial campaign he spoke to some newsmen on his vision for Lagos, his plans and how he hopes to achieve them. Excerpts:

WHY are you in the race, what new are you bringing to the governance of Lagos State?

I have come into this race to serve the people of Lagos State I believe that I have all it takes in terms of education, family background, experience and contacts that I have made in the last 48 years of my life. I believe that I have all it takes to take Lagos to the next level.

If you look at Lagos as a state since 1967, the state has been in opposition.

Dosumu

If you look at the infrastructure in Lagos, over 60 per cent belongs to the Federal Government. Since the capital was moved out of Lagos, I can tell you with all sense of confidence that the development of the state has been slowed down; slowed down not deliberately by the state government but by the fact that it could not cope with the challenges of administering the state like Lagos.  And who suffers for all these? The people of course.

In politics you use what you have to get what you want.  How many people are benefitting in Lagos for being in opposition? I feel that Lagos can be better when we take Lagos to the mainstream.

Lagos is a commercial capital of Nigeria and over 15 per cent of Nigerians live in the state, Lagos is the only state where you have all ethnic nationalities present.  And for a state like that it needs to be governed by people who have national exposure, national outlook and not people who see things from a parochial point of view.

The state and the Federal Government have not had a good relationship.  Looking at these, we believe that we are in a position to function better as a state if we move Lagos to the mainstream.  I give you an instance, look at the Niger Delta, last year alone, the region got an extra budget of about N500 to N600 billion from the Federation Account through the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and even by Federal Government conceding its own share of the joint venture to the host communities.

This was made possible because of close collaboration between the federal and the state. Most of the states in the Niger Delta are controlled by the PDP and that is why it is easier for them to do that with the Federal Government.  Some of these things you look at require political solution, it is not by advocacy or activism that will solve the problem, it needs political solution.

I can tell you that during President Olusegun  Obasanjo’s regime, he tried to bring something similar to NDDC to Lagos.  He introduced what they called Lagos Megacity Project.  It was a Federal Government initiative.  He even went to the extent of setting up a Presidential Committee and when the committee submitted its report, he set up Lagos Megacity Development Authority.  Their office is still in Ikoyi and it was under the presidency.

The Lagos Megacity Development Authority was supposed to be drawing money directly from the Federation Account and was supposed to be responsible for handling all federal infrastructure in Lagos.  But the only problem encountered by that project was that certain responsibilities were assigned to the Lagos State Government.  It was supposed to be on counterpart funding basis.  Lagos State did not come up with its own part of the fund.  I have a copy of the report.

The Megacity dream is what Lagos state is implementing directly by way of Megacity Project.  All the things you see today are in that report.

What I am saying is that we would have saved ourselves the problem of over burdening the resources of the state if the Federal Government had been allowed to take charge of that agency.

In Lagos today, we have excessive taxation, we have unfriendly business environment, aggressive tax regime.  And what do you see happening; these are putting undue pressure on companies, undue pressure on residents, thereby eroding them of their disposable income.  Whereas if we had allowed Federal Government to come with some form of intervention, that would have saved us this burden of over taxation.

Those running the government are eating more than they can swallow and that is why they are looking for all ways to raise fund. Government is a continuous thing, nobody finishes government’s business in two or three years, you just have to get out your priority.

So looking at all those issues we have decided that the only thing we can do to free Lagos State is to provide the people with a credible alternative, at least a platform.  That is why I have decided to run for the office of governorship under the PDP.  My party has chosen me at its primary to be its candidate.

I want to tell you that we should expect new perspectives in governance; we should expect different way of doing things.  I have different orientation, an orientation to run government because I have not done any other thing other than government in my life.

Unfortunately, what we see is that people who run government don’t even have orientation for it.  In the history of Lagos state, I can tell you that from 1967 to date, Lagos has not been lucky to have a governor who had public service background. Just look at all the governors of Lagos state, they have been from the private sector.  And that may be responsible for part of the problems that we are witnessing in the state.

Government is about the people. During the administration of Alh. Lateef Jakande we were able to see a lot of social policies,  government was churning out policies that addressed the interest of the majority.  We can say that was government of the people.  That was the only time when government was building houses for the masses.  Jakande within four years built thousands of houses and gave out lands.

Those who bought them needed to pay only 30 per cent to collect letter of allocation, go to Mortgage bank and collect loans which they repaid in instalments.  I can tell you that if other governments we have had in this state had improved on what Jakande did, the level of problems we have in the state today would have been minimized.

What in specific term, are the things that Fashola is not getting right that you want to correct?

The first thing I want to do is to return government to the people.  I said it earlier, that the foundation of government is a social contract with the people.  Now which social contract are we seeing? When I say social contract, I am trying to emphasize that public office is public trust and where government policy is alienating the majority, then that government is not serving its purpose.

Government is not about the few elite, it is about the majority. The elite can afford, if the public health system collapses, to go to private hospital. If the electricity does not function, the elite can afford to buy a generator and power their houses.  If you don’t have good public water system, the elite can provide borehole in their houses.  If public schools don’t function, the elite can send their children to private schools and pay any amount.

It is the masses that are the mark of government and that is why government should be built around the people.  I am not saying that we should not develop but the development must have some human face.

So I believe that we have to return government back to the people.  That is the fundamental thing that I want to focus on.  Then there are other areas, Lagos being a commercial nerve centre of not only Nigeria but the West Africa sub_region needs to be properly taken care of.  We cannot afford to witness where we are currently seeing many companies  relocating out of Lagos.  Just last week, Nestle relocated to Shagamu in Ogun State.  And when you ask these companies, they tell you multiple taxation, unfriendly business environment.

Before now, everybody was moving to Lagos because it was seen as a land of opportunity but these opportunities are compressing, companies are moving away. Recently the President came to Lagos and went to commission a company at Agbara. Companies are moving to Agbara because they know that once you are there, you are in Ogun State.  Those who are not moving to Shagamu and Agbara are relocating to Ghana .

Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) did a study and they came up with a report that 82 companies have moved out of Nigeria to Ghana.  And of this number, 60 moved out of Lagos. Anybody can go to MAN and get the report.

MAN gave two reasons for the movement multiple taxation and power unstable electricity constitutes 40 per cent of their production cost.  If a company devotes 40 per cent production cost to one item, electricity generation, and then you can as well go to where you will not spend anything.

That is one thing that my government will address.  I don’t believe in tax and kill. There is no government that does not tax but it must be in a such a way that it will not be counter productive, it will not erode disposable income of an average Lagosian, it will not erode the working capital of a company.

I will address power problem through Lagos power project there are a lot of power infrastructure in Lagos that are obsolete like the Ijora power state, we can work on them and make them to serve the need of the people.  Power situation is a national problem but it is pathetic with Lagos because Lagos is a commercial centre.

I back call for decentralization of power, let every state generate and distribute power through IPP.  The problem we have now is that when you generate, you will  be asked to put it into the national grid. If they allow states to generate and retain then things will improve.

What do you make of  claims by President Jonathan that those ruling Lagos state are rascals?

He did not say Lagos, he said South-West.  We should quote him rightly, he never said Lagos.

But do you support the assertion that the current rulers of South west are rascals who deserve to be swept away as said by Jonathan?

All I will say is that the President is entitled to his opinion and as the leader of the country, as the president of Nigeria he is in a better position to see things and know what everybody stands for better than you and I have seen them. He has dealt with them; he knows their idiosyncrasies, their secrets and their activities.  Perhaps based on the information he has, he decided to classify them as rascals.  And I don’t think it is a reckless statement.  He knows what he was saying.

You think PDP has what it takes to wrest power from ACN in Lagos?

In terms of quality of people the PDP in Lagos is by far in a better position to win the election. In terms of resources we don’t believe in buying peoples’ conscience. There is a limit to what you are even allowed to spend. For governorship you are not expected to spend more than one billion Naira to prosecute your election.  So I don’t see resources playing too much of a crucial role because that is what has led us to the situation we are where we have people who have not even managed anything in their life managing government.

This is the time for us to be asking questions_ what have people done before? You are going to entrust the collective patrimony of everybody in their hands so you should find out what they have done before. It is not about sentiment.