By Yinka Odumakin
‘THE state currently has a design of 10 lanes to come from Oshodi to the International airport with interchange and flyover that would drop you towards the local airport. The contractor is already set to go and everything as I said has been completed and we already have the cash, but alas we are having challenges with the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing. This is a federal and not a state road. The Federal Ministry of Works believes that they should do the road, but they have not been able to do it all these years.”

Fashola and Ambode

The above were not the words of Senator Bola Tinubu as governor of Lagos State against his arch foe Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe, the Federal Minister of Works under different political parties. They are the recent lamentations of  Governor Akinwumi Ambode of Lagos State against the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing under Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, who handed power to him 22 months ago. They are both of APC, sired by the same godfather and working under a former Attorney-General of Lagos State who was Acting President as at the time of the outcry.

Mr. Ambode further complained about the withholding of some N51bn reimbursement due to Lagos State over repairs of federal roads in the state as well as the inability to access the presidential lodge in Lagos months after it was given to the state by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Misleading  statements

Fashola on the other hand has come out smoking, debunking the allegations of the governor. A strongly worded rebuttal by his media aide, Hakeem Bello denied all the allegations by the governor one after the other. He said the rebuttal became necessary in order to ensure that “members of the public are not misled by deliberate or inadvertent mis-statements” of the Lagos governor.

Two issues were raised in Fashola’s response which signposted the complications of the present unitary structure in Nigeria which has necessitated our campaign for restructuring over the years. Unfortunately the leadership of Lagos State has been the weakest link in this quest at critical juncture in recent years. I return to this shortly.

Hear Mr. Fashola on the working of our unitary rule: “Due to the fact that two of the roads also connect Ogun State, the Federal Executive Council could not reach an immediate decision on them because it requested the input of the other State Government affected.

“The Kaduna State Government requested the Federal Government to transfer two roads within Kaduna Metropolis to the State in November 2015. Due process was followed, and the request of the State Government was approved in August 2016, a period of ten months.”

One, the consent of another state had to be sought before a state can repair a road in its state. Two, Kaduna state had to wait for 10 full months to secure Abuja’s nod for two federal roads in its domain to be “transferred” to it. Only God knows the number of deaths that would have occurred on the roads in needless deaths in those months. The Federal (read Unitary) Government of Nigeria has become that good-for-nothing guy that the Yoruba say will do nothing but will always obstruct the person who wants to do.

There may be undertone of personal animosity to those exchanges as Fashola gave some hint in his response when he said that the outburst of the governor should “be scrutinized coming a week barely after the governor spoke with the Minister, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, SAN, on the outstanding requests of the State for several minutes and the Minister took the time to explain the situation of things to the Governor. (The first telephone conversation the Governor has had with the Minister since May 29, 2015).”

It may be that there is some other war elsewhere at the periphery that has its vertical link with what we are being told or that the spat is over perception of might by the state government, one undeniable fact, however, is that we would not witness all these if Nigeria is run as a proper federation where the federating units do not exist as mere appendages of the central government as we currently operate.

Teachable moment  for Lagos

It is a teachable moment for the Lagos establishment that has been a drag on Yoruba quest for autonomy in recent history. In 2005 when Yoruba sought autonomy when Obasanjo convoked a Political Reforms Conference, Lagos came with its own distinct position called “Lagos Agenda”. It was the same situation at the 2014 National conference. On both occasions the state more or less opted for the status quo. It then goes begging for ‘special status’ that would not give it anything close to what it would have under autonomy. A state that the centre should beg for a lot of things under a proper federal structure is presently the son of a butcher begging for bones. It presently goes to Sokoto in search of what is in the pocket of its sokoto.

The future of Lagos lies in a proper federation as there is no status  for it in the status quo!