_The very large numbers of people living in Lagos State requires that we must always ensure that our social infrastructure is effective, that the social infrastructure does not suffer from non-application of resources and that the social infrastructure is not overwhelmed by the numbers of its users. How would one rate social infrastructure in Lagos today and why should I be concerned about infrastructure matters?

My first visit to Lagos was in the early 1950s and I had the opportunity of my first boat journey when we crossed the lagoon by the ferry service between the Marina and Apapa. Subsequently, I spent some of my school holidays in Lagos until I became a Lagos resident for the first time in the early 1960s as a student and next as a worker.

I recall that in my first employment as a school leaver, I was part of the teams that carried out the enumeration of the persons and properties in the Apongbon area of Lagos Island as these persons and properties had to make way for the construction of the Eko Bridge.

I recall the relatively high density of the population in this area. The construction of the Eko Bridge is a significant milestone as the Carter Bridger was the only road access into Lagos Island until the Eko Bridge was put into use. How have we fared with the provision of social infrastructure since that milestone?

We are moving into another election period and it would be useful to look at some of the changes that have taken place over the years. I recognize that political advertisements use the words change, transform, next level and so on but I realize that the government’s work cannot be all done.

I will give a simple example and move on. The Lagos State Government has been constructing our roads to new standards using adequate thicknesses of stone base and asphalt. It is obvious that it would take several years before all existing roads are built to this new standard and in the meantime more roads would have been opened and would be begging for attention.

We would be looking at change starting with an extract from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem – the Passing of Arthur – as follows:

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”

This extract suggests to us that periodic change of persons in authority is necessary so that whatever may be imperfect in what these persons are doing would not grow to diminish what is perfect.

It also suggests that change could bring us to new ways, possibly better ways of doing things and that if one administration would not meet a particular request from us we may be able to persuade the next administration to meet our request.

There is also the suggestion that there could be something bad going on within an otherwise good administration but the bad thing could only be brought to an end when that administration leaves office. However, the word corrupt stands out and one may ask if God supports the corruption that is built into the ways in which we manage our affairs.

We would in the next few weeks be looking at some little things that our civilian governors in Lagos State have done and which little things have brought tremendous changes in the lives of the residents of the state. We would from these indicate what we would want the next governor of the state to do for us.

The late Sir Michael Otedola’s administration was at a time when we had a military government at the federal level and so we would only be looking at the administrations of Alhaji Lateef Jakande, Senator Bola Tinubu and Mr. Babatunde Fashola, S.A.N.