Unlocking the money in Lagos(2)

By Amechi Chukwujama - updated: Monday 02.11.2009

Lagos has got the kind of leadership it needs to start working towards the full realisation of its potential. What needs to further change in Lagos in order for it to fully unfold its potential and precipitate the mega-city vision? How do all these help you to unlock the money in Lagos? Let us look at how some of the challenges in Lagos can be transformed into opportunities for entrepreneurs, investors and everyone.

One of the biggest challenges of Lagos is mass transportation and traffic management. About six million passengers are moved daily in Lagos. As a result of the absence (or more correctly, limited public transportation channels which presently is through road), hundreds of thousands of cars move into the streets everyday and clog the system.

With an inter-modal and integrated transport system, involving water, rail, enhanced road network, a lot more bridges and enhanced traffic management system, the present traffic chaos will disappear.

With the recent release of some jetties at Marina, Ijora, Oworo, and Ajegunle by the Federal Government to the state, and the development of jetties at Ikorodu, Bada-gry, Mile 2, and other places, at least 35 per cent of commuters would be moved through water boats and ferries.

A middle-level execu-tive with office in Victoria Island could relocate to Badagry with his family and build a house there. He could wake up by 6.00 a.m, be at the jetty at Badagry by 7.00 a.m, and be at his office in Victoria Island at 7.50 a.m.

Entrepreneurs and investors at different levels can position themselves to provide services from estate development, parking services, catering, shopping, daycare, and shuttle services to the jetties and back to residential estates. The same applies to the proposed light rail network such as on Badagry-Ijora expressway and Agbado-Iddo axis. The Oodua Investment Company plans a rail line from Ibadan to Lagos, but the project was held back by permits it needed to secure since the Railway Act, which gave the Nigerian Railway Corporation the sole right to build rail lines, maintain it and run rail services, has not been repealed by the National Assembly.

Lagos needs a lot more bridges. The on-going bridge construction across the Oworonshoki-Apapa Expressway at Cele Busstop is a very bold and imaginative project.

Some of the expressways need bridges that can allow a driver to cross over to the other side, such as exists in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivore.

The proposed Lekki-Ikoyi link bridge and the Fourth Mainland Bridge to link Ikorodu and Badore/Ajah would be much welcomed by Lagosians.

Some of the needed bridges and roads can be constructed by acquiring, in the overall public interest, certain buildings and compensating the owners adequately.

Apart from the present ideas being exploited by LAMATA and other agencies on traffic management and maximisation of the road asset in Lagos, the issue of vehicles parking on streets should also be addressed. The state House of Assembly can make a law requiring that in designated areas, any new building from, say 2011, should have an inbuilt car park.

The government should provide incentives to entrepreneurs to go into the provision of parking services. Parking could be permitted on very wide streets, but the Ministry of Transport and Lagos Internal Revenue Service should develop a frame-work that charges at least N200 for every parked car and make sure that the money goes into the treasury.

The state government should encourage inves-tors and entrepreneurs to form intra-city transport companies, with a capital base of up to N3 billion each.

The terminuses and parks run by the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) are to say the least, a big mess. These people have little regard for themselves, and, therefore, they should not be entrusted with such a heavy responsibility without supervision. They urinate all over the grounds and have no vision of how to redeem themselves. They have no place in the new Lagos of our dreams. As a society, we should tell them that enough is enough, they should clean up their acts or move aside.

More next week