Let the truth be told, Lagos has hardly developed beyond where the disruption of LKJ’s vision left it on the last day of December 1983. His critics cannot understand how Lagos still runs on infrastructure that he left a quarter of a century ago – simply incredible. They cannot match his frugality (one of the things they also criticise him about), or his visionary knacks that led him into running programmes considered impossible, yet he succeeded.
He began his career as a journalist with the Daily Service and then Nigerian Tribune, easily coming under the influence of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, whose free education and health programmes Jakande implemented impeccably. LKJ was a foundation member of the Action Group in 1952 and was jailed with Awo for treason.
Alhaji Jakande is not a politician, in the petrified sense of most of today’s free loaders. There is hardly anything to recommend him to anyone. He still lives in his Ilupeju home that he used while serving as Governor, where he also lived as a journalist.
It is doubtful if he would ever part company with the antiquity that he calls a car and used while Governor. On becoming Governor, he pulled his children out of private schools and registered them in the public primary school closest to his house, possibly the only official of such ranking to have his children in public schools.
His distinct quality rests on ideas, an uncommon zeal for doing the impossible, a cascading vision that rolls through various spheres of life and the ability to pick out partners to help him get things done.
Many who have not gone to other parts of Lagos like Badagry, Egbeda, Epe, Ikorodu, Ojokoro, Oko Oba, Ogba, Abesan, Ajah, would not appreciate the incredible energy-fired ideas that Alhaji Jakande unleashed on Lagos. The housing estates he built in these places in addition to the ones in Iponri, Iyana Isolo, Mile II, Maryland, Pen Cinema, Lekki, Ebute Metta, Simpson (Lagos Island), have not been matched in size or quality by all the Governors of Lagos State since its creation 53 years ago. In only four years Jakande built 21,000 housing units in 18 housing estates. The Lagos Executive Development Board, LEDB, delivered 4,502 in 17 years!
In fact, all the housing projects of the state government since the creation of Lagos in 1967 are less than a fraction of one part of the Pen Cinema Estate. Yet they call him names, they vilify him, they find nothing to commend in a man whose main fault is that is he acted with standards that made the rest minions.
Education could actually be his forte. He abolished the shift system that saw school kids on the road throughout the day. His cheap school buildings deridingly called chicken pens were tailored for the quick task of getting all the children into school immediately. They were cheap, easy to construct. They are still in use, 36 years after they were built at N1,500 (yes, one thousand, five hundred Naira) each.
The number of primary schools increased in four years from 604 to 954 a 54.4 per cent increase in enrollment. The number of secondary schools increased over the same period from79 to 319. Government put available spaces to use. An example was the conversion of buildings ministries vacated on Victoria Island into three secondary schools. Alhaji Jakande started the Lagos State University in 1983 to address the educational needs of the state at tertiary level. Lagos at this time was listed among the 13 educationally disadvantaged states.
Today’s self-acclaimed financial managers pale beside his financial wizardry. By October 31, 1982, of the collected revenue of N455.29 million (10 months), N341.62 million was internally generated.
His master stroke would have been the metro line which the military cancelled when it seized power in 1983. Lagos was to repay the N698 million over 15 years, by 1997. Lagos planned to offset the loan from revenue the metro line which would have borne 44,000 passengers per hour in either direction would generate. The ferry service was running, providing alternative ways of reaching some parts of the state.
The state government had N288 million placed in some commercial banks from which it earned interests of N2.06 million monthly and $4.3 million in a New York bank at an interest rate of 13 per cent. It also earned N22 million yearly from other investments. In 1983, its N1.01 billion budget was the first time a state government made a billion Naira budget.
Jakande celebrated his financial prudence in bold investments he made in improving Lagos’ infrastructure. Lagos had a surplus budget every year, in addition to having enough to lend to state governments that were in financial binds. He even generated revenue from coin-operated parking spaces.
Not many would remember that Victoria Island ended at Maroko, a slum that nestled next to where the Mobil headquarters is located, where the shopping malls and hotels have been built. His dconstruction of the Lekki-Epe Expressway extended the island and marked the explosion of new estates in that part of Lagos. There was no Lekki until Jakande.
His developments in water, other roads, electricity, health services, which he provided free, agriculture, rural development, industries remain sterling. Why do other politicians hate him so? They have carried on about his stint with General Sani Abacha as if he was the only one who served that blighted administration.
There was more to it. The race to succeed Awo started long before Abacha became a factor in Nigerian politics is a major part of it. The pettiness that has been used in rubbishing LKJ’s achievements has something to do with the fact that Chief Awolowo affectionately called him Baba Kekere (young father), a title that some understood to foreclose their ambition to succeed Awo.
At 91, LKJ is the most successful Nigerian politician in the past 36 years. If his achievements in only four years and four months are benchmarked against what others did with more time, he is possibly the most achieving Nigerian politician since independence. Why is he not celebrated?
To most politicians he is a bad example. He is a towering example of the fact that a politician can strive and achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people. LKJ makes the point that a politician is an ordinary human being, who must remain human because power is transient. Politicians would not follow his example because his prudence, hard work, vision, selflessness unmake politicians reveal the secret that Nigeria might not be too difficult to manage as is popularly believed.
Yet in line with their hypocrisy, they would send glowing birthday messages to the man they dare not be like.
Happy birthday Sir, you have made your presence count, no matter what your detractors say.
Please share. Your comments, complaints, concerns, and commendations are welcome.
Pictures are from his 90th birthday
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