I’ll double Fashola’s achievements in four years — Hamzat

Dr. Kadri Obafemi Hamzat (popularly known   as Femi Hamzat) is the current Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure in Lagos State. Hamzat, who was born in September 19th, 1964 is one of the governorship aspirants in Lagos under the platform of All Progressives Congress, APC, hoping to succeed the incumbent, Governor Babatunde Fashola in 2015. In this interview, he unveils his plans for Lagos if given the opportunity. Excerpts:

Lagos state in my view has moved forward. In 1998-1999 the state was full of heaps of garbage, 20 meters high and around that time Lagos could not process its waste at that time and a population of 12 million did not have a single public ambulance in the state. But things have changed, there are ambulances, we can now process 10 tonnes of garbage. In 1960 when we got our independence, the population of United Kingdom was 63 million while ours was 53 million. Today the population of UK is about 58 million while ours is about 170 million which means our population is expanding tremendously. Very soon Lagos State will reach about 40 million in population. And our land mass is one of the smallest. So how do we manage that? We need to build infrastructure that will sustain that population. Lagos is a country in the real sense of it.

Lagos requires an administrator that understands Lagos and I have been opportuned to have served both in public and private sectors having been a commissioner for about nine years I understand the mistakes we have made in the past, the success we can repeat but everything is a learning process, so when you understand the mistake you made you won't do it again. For me how do we move our state forward, how do we build a state that can accommodate 40 million people with the smallest land size in the country.
We produce only seven percent of what we eat. How do we change that? In area of power we need to improve on that and continue to grow Lagos.
When people talk about religion I think it is between you and your God. We cannot measure the heart so we cannot manage it.
Given my own experience I have been able to come up with programme that I think in the next four years will uplift the state from where it is today. I know we have done a lot and we can still do more. But I have seen a lot of things we have not done in which we can improve on.
From my own way of measuring, is to say that the administration of Babatunde Raji Fashola has been able to achieve in eight years which am proud to be part. Because the foundation is well built and it is straight forward, so building on it will be very easy. So I have a programme which I tag: "Building a State to Last" about 14 pages that show clearly what need to be done in education, housing, roads, infrastructure, and power among others. So it's not a guess work, it is a lot of work behind the scene. Again any plan is subject to change but there must be a frame work to guide yourself.
My administration is going to focus on how to ensure that we have a type of education where our children will be employable. It is not ok to say you give people free education and they don't have a job. It is meaningless if people graduate and they are not employable. So our focus is to ensure that our youth are employable and they get job.
APC primaries/consensus candidates
Our party primary election is slated for December 2. On the idea of consensus candidate, the party can initiate any process, but for me, I see the race as a healthy competition. The consensus is ok but we need to build a healthy institution. I see this race as a competition and I will suggest that everybody should be allowed to campaign and primaries should be done and anybody that emerges as the winner should be supported so that he can beat the opposition hands down.
On Zoning
Zoning is ok by me. If you look at the way our federation is built, federal government who controls the inflow of the resources take 56 per cent, two percent to ecology, one   percent to FCT so the moment resources come in, 59 goes to The Federal Government technically. 41 is shared among the states which comprise of 774 local governments that is why people complained that local governments are not doing much. So we have to build our people and make them function well.
By the time we actually power Lagos, we are going to ensure that people get jobs. All this money from Abuja is nothing to write home about, it will not take any state to anywhere. The biggest resources we have in this country are the people.
The reality is how do we turn Lagos state into knowledge based economy? It is through, Information Technology, IT, and what we are doing now. In another four years, if we have appropriate talent in that team, Lagos will improve the more for the people.