Lagos generates 30% of Nigeria’s GDP – Sanwo-Olu

Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has said the state has about 30 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with her current GDP at over N120 Billion. This GDP figure, the Governor noted, was more than the GDP of such countries as Kenya, Ghana and Ivory Coast.

He made the revelation on Monday in Lagos during his opening remarks at the All Progressives Congress (APC) interactive section with the Organised Private Sector.

He was speaking about the achievements of his administration, the challenges and how to move the state ahead, even as he equally told the players in the private sector why they should canvass massive support for his reelection on March 11.

The Governor noted that with a population of about 25 million people and over 300 tribes struggling in a state whose landmass constitutes about 0.4 per cent of the country’s landmass, the cost of governance is so huge that robust partnership with the organised private sector was most welcomed.

He also noted that the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) which currently stands at over N50 Billion still needs to be doubled to be able to respond to all the challenges that are bedevilling the state.

“Lagos population is about 25 million and it is a city that has over 300 tribes. In that contraption, Lagos represents less than 0.4 per cent of the total landmass of the country. Nigeria’s landmass is over 920, 000 square kilometres and Lagos is just about 1, 200 square kilometres. And if you also remove one-third of the water all over the state, it is just about 0.27 of the real land area where we have over 10 per cent of the population of this country.

“We have an IGR of about N50 Billion but we need to double it. The amount of money we spent to keep the city running is so huge that those IGRs need to go up. And those of you in the private sector need to team up with us so that we can offer a lot more. Lagos is home to the headquarters of close to 70 per cent of all large corporations in our country. It is the largest food basket in the entire sub-Saharan region, meaning that we consume everything that comes in but we are trying to take ourselves away from that even if we cannot feed ourselves completely,” he said.

He also noted that Lagos is home to entertainment and technology hubs, not only in Nigeria but also in the entire African continent. He promised to support the entertainment industry, saying, “The industry is now getting close to about five per cent of our GDP. You saw recently the first female Grammy Award winner; she grew up and went to school in Lagos, and several others are doing great exploits in the industry. For us as a government, we will continue to activate, support and grow that sector even under our TEAMS agenda.”

The Governor used the opportunity to showcase his scorecards in education, transport and traffic management, health, agriculture, entertainment, infrastructure and all other sectors of the economy.

He promised that the Red Rail train service would be ready before April. “In the next two or three months, the red line will be ready. We are almost done. It is bigger and has a longer corridor. We are excited that it should be ready before April. These are the things we promised. We promised an integrated urban mass transportation system where people are free to use the railways, waterways or road infrastructure to reduce journey time and save money,” he said.

He said the state was committed to constructing the Fourth Mainland Bridge to ease traffic and reduce man-hours spent on the road by Lagosian. He said a reliable and dependable feasibility study has been completed and the investors were now convinced that the 37 kilometres on water and land road were tenable.

“We are excited that in our time, we will see the Fourth Mainland Bridge. We are at a stage where we are just finishing detailed engineering designs and we will go into a groundbreaking ceremony very soon,” he said.

The Governor also revealed that the state government would soon embark on the construction of an airport in the Lekki axis even as he noted that another deep seaport would also be constructed in the Badagry area of the state. “We have got approval for Lekki airport. We are also going to build another deep seaport in Badagry. Our government has a deliberate plan to decentralise development in Lagos State” he added.

Panelists at the session included Sanwo-Olu, Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, SSA to the President on Sustainable Development Goals, Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze and Chairman of Titan Bank, Tunde Lemo who moderated the session.

In his remarks, Fashola described the session as a pleasant opportunity for him to interface with the private sector players even as he urged them to remain unemotional and dispassionate as they choose the next president in a few days’ time. “In a few days, we have a choice to make and the choice will be so defining, not only for our businesses but also for our families and livelihood. And this is for those who have not made up their minds.”

He noted that having been a governor for eight years, he was in the right position to determine who has the required capacity to do the job. He lampooned the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Lagos, Olajide Adediran, who became panicky and made skits of him being arrested in Belgium and that he was playing God simply for saying that he lacks the capacity to govern a state like Lagos. “I raised the issue of capacity last week and somebody really panicked and started producing skits about me and that I was arrested in Belgium on the same day and that I was playing God. The answer to criticism is not to resort to God. It clearly demonstrates that you are losing the argument first of all and it is not to start producing skits. You will be Governor and you will be criticised. Do you want to respond to criticism by producing skits or by issuing press releases? You get the job done and that is what our Governor, Sanwo-Olu, has tried to do here. It is not an easy job. It just raises the question of readiness. The voters should be very observant. This is not reality TV; it is about real life and reality.”

He advised Nigerians to decide between those who denied that the Chibok school girls were not kidnapped and those who accepted the reality and confronted it as the vote in a few days’ time. He stated that out of 276 Chibok school girls that were kidnapped in 2015, the APC government was able to rescue and return 158 of them.

Credit: Daily Sun