Hamzat: My Plan is to Make Lagos Human Capital of the World

Deputy Governor of Lagos State and candidate of the All Progressives Congress for the 2027 gubernatorial election in the Centre of Excellence, Dr Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, in this interview reflects on his philosophy of leadership and governance, offering insights into the challenges and opportunities facing Lagos. He discusses issues ranging from infrastructure, housing and environmental sustainability to politics, urban development and the future of Africa’s largest city, while outlining his vision for building a more resilient, inclusive and globally competitive Lagos. Excerpts:

You currently serve as Deputy Governor and have now emerged as your party’s governorship candidate. Many Lagosians have different perceptions of the role you hope to play if elected from next year. How do you define the role of a governor, and what leadership philosophy would guide your administration?

A – Well, thank you very much. The role of a governor is like that of the captain of a team. There are many experts who run a state, but the governor’s job is to captain that team, align expertise with vision, and guide delivery.

We have ministries implementing projects and policies, but the real question is: How does every policy affect the ordinary Lagosian? Whether we build a new hospital or clear drainage channels, how does it improve people’s lives?

That is the job of government—to ensure that everything we do, from budgeting to implementation, positively impacts the quality of life of our citizens. That is the responsibility of a governor, and it is something I take very seriously.

This administration has done a lot of work. You are familiar with the THEMES+ Agenda, which serves as the guiding framework for everything we do. We have undertaken many projects, but the truth is that no administration completes everything. Government is a continuum.

Our responsibility is to complete as much as possible and prepare the next administration to build on what we have done. We have a 25-year development master plan that extends to 2050. The objective is to ensure continuity, so that successive administrations can continue implementing that vision.

For example, we built the Blue Line and the Red Line rail projects. They are not yet fully completed. The Blue Line still needs to be extended, and eventually linked with the Red Line at Marina. Hopefully, a future administration will extend the Red Line from Ikeja to the airport.

These are capital-intensive projects, but there are many other priorities as well. Our focus is to finish strong by completing ongoing projects and putting policies in place so that the next administration can hit the ground running.

In practical terms, what are the key priorities you are presenting to Lagosians in your manifesto, and what should residents expect within your first four years in office?

Our manifesto is ready. It is a very comprehensive document—about 537 pages. There are many things we want to accomplish. At the moment, we are engaging market women, transport operators, artisans, professionals and experts to determine what should receive priority.

We are also costing every proposal. We are preparing one-year, two-year, three-year and four-year implementation plans, taking inflation and possible price variations into account.

For example, we want to ensure that at least 60 percent of Lagosians have access to potable water within the first two years. We are examining what it will cost to rehabilitate water reticulation systems. Many pipelines are old and damaged. Current estimates are around N97 billion, so we have to determine which projects should come first and how to mobilise the required capital.

Our manifesto covers education, healthcare, infrastructure and many other sectors. One thing we have observed is that many responsibilities need to be decentralised. More importantly, our society needs to become better organised.

That, in my view, is one of the greatest challenges facing not just Nigeria but much of West Africa. Whether you go to Accra, Lagos or Freetown, the same issues exist. We simply need to become more organised and make life more predictable.

Take Lagos, for example. If my vehicle breaks down, I should not have people harassing me. Within the first six months of our administration, that is something we must address. It should not happen.

Beyond the big projects, we must organise our society better. We are currently installing solar-powered street lights across the state. But those projects must translate into tangible improvements in people’s lives. People should be able to move around safely at night. A thriving night-time economy depends on security and proper lighting.

One of our priorities is improving the way people live by ensuring security. We will invest whatever resources are necessary to strengthen security. Technology is already available, and we will build on the security architecture currently in place and expand it significantly.

We are also fortunate that discussions about state policing are gaining momentum. That would allow states to take greater responsibility for their own security. I grew up in Mushin. We knew who the troublemakers were. But if a police officer is posted from another state, such as Oyo, he may not know the community. A police officer from Mushin understands the environment and the people. Local knowledge is invaluable.

People worry that state police could be abused. But are we saying the current police system cannot be abused? Why should we focus only on potential negatives instead of the enormous benefits?

One reason Lagos has street signs across the state is that officers responding to emergencies often do not know the roads because they are unfamiliar with the city.

Someone who grew up in Mushin, Surulere or Ikoyi already knows those communities without needing directions. That local knowledge is extremely important, and I am pleased that the President is pushing the state policing conversation aggressively. Ultimately, security enhances quality of life.

Every project and every policy should answer one simple question: How does it improve the lives of citizens? If we cannot demonstrate measurable improvements in people’s quality of life, perhaps we should reconsider the project.

For instance, I do not want anyone knocking on my car window while I am driving. I simply want to drive home peacefully. If I choose to help people, I should be able to do so voluntarily—not under pressure. We will enact appropriate laws and enforce them. This is standard practice around the world.

I remember visiting New York years ago, where people known as “squeegee men” would clean car windows at traffic lights without permission. The city eventually stopped the practice.

I am not suggesting that we should criminalise poverty. Rather, I am saying people should be allowed to live their lives peacefully without feeling threatened or compelled while driving. That is the kind of organised society we want to build.

As I mentioned, our manifesto is extensive. We have already reduced it from about 537 pages to roughly 241 pages, and we are working on an even shorter version. The recurring theme throughout our discussions is simple: How do we make life easier and better for Lagosians?

Flooding and waste management remain recurring challenges in Lagos. What specific strategies would your administration adopt to address these issues sustainably?

Certainly. First, we must understand that Lagos is naturally surrounded by water. In many areas, we are about two metres below sea level. Lagos has an extensive drainage network—far more sophisticated than many people realise. We have six major drainage systems stretching across the state and discharging into creeks and lagoons.

Problems arise when development disrupts these systems. That is why physical planning is so important. If a plot of land has approved building limits, people should not exceed them. Illegal structures may not cause problems immediately, but over time they obstruct water flow and create flooding.

Think of pouring water into a container. Even if the container can hold the volume, if water enters too rapidly from different directions, it overflows. Similarly, our drainage channels are capable of handling large volumes of water, but during extremely heavy rainfall the receiving lagoons are also rising because of tidal movements.

This creates what engineers call a tidal lock—the drainage channels cannot discharge efficiently because water levels in the lagoons are already high. Water then flows back into the drainage system.

Eventually the tide recedes, but if drainage channels are blocked with refuse or illegal structures, flooding becomes much worse. Our responsibility is to keep these channels clear, and we have been doing that consistently. The second issue concerns how we live. Climate change is real.

In recent weeks, Bangladesh experienced devastating floods that claimed many lives. We have seen similar flooding in Ghana, Freetown and China. Lagos faces three major climate threats: high rainfall; rising sea levels; and extremely high temperatures. When temperatures become very high, they generate stronger cloud formation, resulting in even heavier rainfall.

It is similar to what happens in Europe and North America, where unusually hot summers are often followed by extremely cold winters. These are realities we must confront. We cannot stop the rain, but we can change how we manage our environment.

On waste management, the challenge is straightforward. Waste has to end up somewhere. Our landfills are reaching capacity.

The long-term solution is to convert waste into valuable resources. That is exactly what we are doing. We are constructing facilities that will process about 4,000 tonnes of waste daily out of the approximately 13,000 tonnes generated each day. At the same time, we are working with private-sector partners to further expand our waste-to-resource capacity.

That is the sustainable solution we are pursuing. But we are not there yet because, if you don’t convert the waste, those wastes must go somewhere. It is becoming difficult.

We found another landfill somewhere in Badagry. We found another one outside the state. You know I talked about land in the state becoming a problem. But imagine taking waste all the way from Ikeja to Badagry. The turnaround time is difficult.

So, the solution, ultimately—and there are a lot of solutions we have thought about—is to increase the conversion rate of the waste. We must make sure that we use the waste for what it is meant to be used for. Hopefully, that is going on, and it helps us because we are also able to get carbon credits.

If we are able to do that, then we must also build transfer loading stations. Some of them are moribund, but we need to build more. What that means is that at a transfer loading station, the volume of waste is reduced by about 30 per cent. So, what eventually gets to the landfill is about 10 per cent of what comes into the transfer loading station. But these things cost money. They require enormous amounts of money.

As a people, we always hear, “Government is borrowing money.” Yes, governments all over the world borrow money. How did they build New York? Through municipal bonds. They incur costs, but we don’t see it because the infrastructure is already in place.

How do you build a country where you have very young people? Where will they live in another 20 years? You must have the resources to build that future.

There is something called constructive borrowing, and there is destructive borrowing. As long as you are borrowing to build massive infrastructure that enables the economy to grow, that is constructive.

But we also have people who deceive us. For example, when the President was building the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, I heard members of the opposition, like Mr. Peter Obi, speaking against it. It pains me. How can Nigerians talk like that? When you are building infrastructure that allows somebody to work in Ondo State and live in Lagos, or vice versa, why would anybody oppose that? If you are able to move from Lagos to Calabar in five hours, why would anyone be against it? I don’t get it.

So, we must also change the narrative about our country and how we fund infrastructure. The reality is that we need a lot of money to build it. It wouldn’t make sense to keep increasing taxes. If we continue taxing people, where will the money come from?

Lagos previously promoted waste-to-fertiliser projects, but many of those initiatives appear to have stalled. What happened, and what lessons have informed your current waste-to-energy approach?

I think they ran into problems because those were Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects that we executed with private companies.

Like you said, we believed in PPPs, but I think the company encountered structural problems and could not deliver the capacity we expected.

At a stage, they expected us to bring in some money, but we said that was not our agreement because that was not the model. Although, with hindsight, perhaps that should have been the model. At the time, we believed the private partners should fund the project while government would provide the land and other support. So that was what happened.

The new model is better. They are now building waste-to-energy solutions, and interestingly, they have been able to make the model work in Ghana. Whatever the difference is, the law passed in Ghana was a national law. Ours is a state law, and we cannot make laws that affect another state. Hopefully, others can learn from our experience.

Despite being Nigeria’s economic hub, Lagos continues to seek higher Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). Why is increased revenue still necessary, and how do you intend to expand the state’s revenue base without placing excessive burdens on residents?

I do not believe in increasing Lagos’ Internally Generated Revenue simply because our responsibilities keep growing as a state. When you build infrastructure, you must also maintain it.

For example, we now have a new Massey Children’s Hospital. We have new general hospitals. Those hospitals require maintenance. They require equipment.

Then people say Lagos is rich. Yes, we are doing well, but it could be better because if you compare us with other cities around the world. The City of New York has about eight million people. Lagos State has about 24 million people—that is three times the population. Yet our budget of about N4.4 trillion is roughly $3.2 billion. The budget of the City of New York is over $100 billion. The New York Police Department alone had a budget of about $6 billion in 2025. So, it is all relative.

I remember when I became Commissioner for Works. In 2014, I prepared a budget of about N260 billion because these were the roads we needed to build. In Lagos, when we move people or cars, we also move water.

If you go to the drain beside Wemco Road, I have been inside it. The drain is taller than me. People actually had to push me out.

That drain carries water coming from Agege. If it is not that deep, flooding becomes a challenge. On many roads, drainage accounts for about 40 per cent of the construction cost. It has to be solid.

When we prioritise projects, we look at roads with heavy traffic, roads leading to markets and roads leading to schools. But at that time, the Lagos State budget was only about N490 billion.

So, the governor asked, “How do we fund all these projects?”

Eventually, we got about N68 billion for roads. At that same time, the Federal Government budget for roads across Nigeria was about N22 billion. Lagos alone got N68 billion, yet it still was not enough. So, when people say Lagos is rich, yes, we are rich, but we need to be richer.

The way to achieve that is by growing the economy through infrastructure. Take the Badagry-Sokoto Highway being built by Mr. President. That is about a 1,000-kilometre road. Along that route are about 64 farm settlements and dozens of towns that have remained underdeveloped for years. Building those roads is not just about moving cars. It is about unlocking economic activities across the country. When that happens, government revenues increase, and you are able to do more.

There was once strong advocacy for granting Lagos a special status because of its unique national responsibilities. Why has that conversation lost momentum, and do you still support the idea?

It has not gone down. It is simply political. We are the only sub-national government in the world that does not receive federal funding for infrastructure on the scale that Lagos requires. Look at London. Look at New York. Look at Caracas. In Caracas, the Venezuelan government funded infrastructure completely. I went there. I saw it. I asked questions.

Even in New York, the Federal Government contributes significantly to major infrastructure projects. They are currently building a tunnel linking New York City to Long Island. The Federal Government is funding it because they understand its economic importance. Do we do that here?

Creating a special status for Lagos is an economic necessity for Nigeria’s development. But you have to convince people across the country.

With limited land available for farming, what is your administration’s strategy for agricultural development? Also, what is the future of the Imota Rice Mill and other agricultural investments?

We must focus on our comparative advantages. Water is one of them. Fishing is a sector we must continue to develop. We simply do not have the land to grow rice on a massive scale.

That is why we must work with other states. That is also why we are implementing the ₦500 billion agricultural project. If farmers produce, we guarantee to buy. We are procuring about 2,000 CNG trucks that can travel from Lagos to Taraba and back without refuelling.

Our off-takers will go around and tell farmers, “As long as you produce according to these quality standards, we will buy everything.” Unlike the current system where farmers wait months before receiving payment, under this arrangement, once you offload your produce, you are paid immediately. We then handle distribution. That is why we are building a logistics hub that can store rice and other commodities while enabling us to track supplies.

For example, about 3,000 cattle enter Lagos daily. Our veterinary doctors do remarkable work. If an animal is unhealthy today, it is isolated and destroyed so it does not infect others. But the challenge is that we cannot always trace where it came from.

With the logistics platform, we will be able to trace every shipment back to its source, monitor diseases better, and respond quickly. Middlemen may lose some of their role, but ordinary consumers will buy food at cheaper prices. That is the objective.

Nigeria continues to experience a significant brain drain in the health sector, with many doctors and other medical professionals relocating abroad. What policies would your administration implement to strengthen the healthcare workforce and improve service delivery?

A – Well, as someone who also “Japa”, I look at it from that perspective. What we need to do—and it is part of our master plan, is to make Lagos the human capital of the world. We must train more doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals.

That is why we are establishing the new University of Medicine and Allied Sciences. Given our Constitution, we cannot stop people from leaving Nigeria as long as they are not breaking the law. So, our solution is to increase capacity. Today, LASUCOM graduates only about 300 doctors annually. That is far too small. If we have the capacity to graduate 1,000 every year, then let us do it.

If you recall, Indian doctors sustained the health system in England for many years. Eventually, many returned home. The same thing can happen here. Some people will leave. Some will stay. Others will eventually come back. But first, we must train more. The same applies to nurses, pharmacists and other medical professionals. The same challenge exists in the IT sector.

We must train more people because Nigeria is a huge country, and we can also serve the global market. I remember when I was Head of the IT Applications Group at Merrill Lynch. I had about 80 people under me.

One day, my Managing Director said he wanted to cut the workforce drastically. I thought he was joking. He explained that the minimum salary for a software developer in New York was about $80,000.

When you added office space, insurance, taxes and other costs, the company spent close to $200,000 per employee. He said the same work could be done in India for about $20,000. Business is business.

That was when outsourcing took off. I asked whether we could move such operations to Nigeria. At the time, concerns about internet fraud prevented it.

India also had electricity problems until they decentralised power generation and dedicated thousands of megawatts to technology parks. Today, much of the world’s outsourcing goes there.

Nigeria can achieve the same. We speak excellent English. We are closer to Europe. We are also strategically located. We simply need the right attitude and the right skills. Even if companies generate their own electricity initially, that is acceptable.

Today, if you call British Airways customer service, the person answering your call is probably in India, not London. That is the direction we should be heading.

Housing remains one of Lagos’ biggest challenges. What is your vision for delivering affordable, sustainable housing, particularly for young people and low-income earners?

It is important that we begin to think seriously about how we build houses for vulnerable people and for young people coming up. Today, government subsidises housing by about 35 per cent. But the question is: Is that sustainable?

If you build one estate today, how do you finance the next one? How do you finance the one after that? That is the challenge. People talk about low-cost housing, but there is no low-cost cement. That is the challenge before every state government. We must find a sustainable way forward.

They say it takes the average African about 17 years to build a house. During that period, people mortgage their children’s education and even sacrifice their health because every available income goes into buying blocks, cement and building materials. In the process, everything else suffers.

As the Yoruba say, “A kì í ko ilé ká má rà oúnje,” meaning we cannot continue building houses while neglecting other essential needs. That is why mortgages are important, just like health insurance. In most developed countries, especially in the United States, the biggest investment in a person’s life is their home. People refinance their homes to pay their children’s school fees, finance vacations or meet other financial obligations.

In Nigeria, however, people simply build houses with cash over many years. We must move towards a sustainable mortgage system.

That is also why we started building structures that would allow proper credit evaluation. We need to know people’s credit history. Through a credit bureau, we should be able to say, “Mr. Adeola borrowed N10 to buy sheep, repaid the loan faithfully and is not a debtor.” Once we know that, we can confidently grant him a mortgage.

Those institutional structures are critical. As I said earlier, we need organisation. If you cannot organise what you have, you cannot measure it, and if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it.

As a people, as a state, as a country and even as West Africa, we need to be better organised. We are not organised enough. If we become organised, many things will naturally fall into place. It will require a change of attitude, and it will not be easy because people are accustomed to disorder. But we must organise ourselves if we truly want sustainable housing.

Lagos has several informal settlements, including Makoko. As the state pursues urban renewal, how would you balance redevelopment with protecting livelihoods and preventing the emergence of new slums?

The issue of Makoko is somewhat different. What happened there was that people kept expanding the settlement beyond what had originally existed. We engaged the residents and reached an agreement with them that certain encroachments would be removed. There was even an agreed date—December 24, 2020—but for one reason or another, the exercise did not take place.

However, I believe your real question is broader: How do we develop as a nation while addressing poverty? The real challenge is how to move people out of poverty.

I remember when we were dealing with Badiya years ago. Some people had written to the United Nations and other international organisations. The governor at the time informed us that a UN representative wanted to visit the area.

When we got there, we saw heaps of refuse, and on top of those refuse dumps, people had constructed what they called two-bedroom apartments. The visitor from New York was completely shocked. She asked, “Is this why we came all the way from New York? Do people actually live here? Would your own people live here? Is this a livable environment?” She simply could not believe what she saw.

It is therefore the responsibility of government to rescue people from such conditions because, whether we like it or not, if people live on refuse dumps, their health will suffer. That, in turn, places enormous pressure on public health facilities.

But our objective is not simply to demolish settlements. The real objective is to educate people and lift them out of poverty.

This brings me to another issue. Whenever we discuss projects such as the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, many politicians and public commentators often mislead the public. The question is: how do you build a nation when the necessary wealth has not been created?

Take the Russia-Ukraine war as an example. When the war started, the United States began supplying ammunition. Where did the funding come from? Was it originally in the budget? Of course not. Even America did not initially believe Russia would invade.

I am not talking about the politics of the conflict; I am talking about financing. Unless we elevate our economy and create wealth, we will continue discussing these same problems year after year.

I am happy to be speaking with journalists because I remember vividly that when I was in the university, I read Newswatch magazine regularly. I recently looked through some old editions. One edition, dated December 21, 1987, discussed economic intervention policies and how to make them work. Sadly, many of those policies did not produce the desired results. Another edition, dated February 13, 1989, carried the headline “Food Beyond Reach.” More than 35 years later, food remains beyond the reach of many Nigerians and the naira continues to lose value. Another edition from August 22, 1988 focused on the “great exodus”—Nigerians leaving the country in search of greener pastures. That phenomenon is not new. I remember when I was at the University of Ibadan and many professors at the University College Hospital left for Saudi Arabia. We trained them, yet they ended up building Saudi Arabia’s healthcare system.

At a Newswatch Summit, Christopher Kolade made a profound observation. He said the archives of Nigerian history teach us that if we think the present is bad, things can become even worse if we fail to act. That statement has stayed with me.

Our fathers complained about these same issues. Today, we are making the same complaints. Do we want our children to be saying exactly the same things 30 years from now? They will, if we continue doing things the same way. This is not about emotion. It is about what works for the country and how we break the cycle of poverty.

I also remember when we invited Dr. Liu Thai Ker, who served as Singapore’s Minister of Fiscal Planning in the early years of that country’s development, to Lagos. While flying over areas such as Badiya in a helicopter, he laughed and said, “This was Singapore.” He later showed us a book titled “When the Caterpillar Came.” In the book, the grandson of one of the early residents said he wished his grandfather had lived long enough to see what eventually emerged from the transformation that people had initially resisted.

That is the mindset we must adopt. We must be determined. It is not about emotions; it is about changing this country for the better and ending this cycle once and for all.

Some residents have expressed concerns about the scale of ongoing infrastructure projects, security, and the rapid pace of urbanisation. How do you respond to those concerns?

Take the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, for example. Many people do not appreciate the scale of that project or what it entails. To construct that six-lane road, nothing less than 14 million cubic metres of sand was required. Procuring that volume of sand, by itself, created economic activities. Think about the quantity of steel that was needed. Steel producers across Nigeria are operating at maximum capacity because of projects like these, creating jobs and stimulating economic growth. Unfortunately, many people do not ask these questions.

The bigger question is, how do we improve people’s quality of life while also providing better housing? As I have said before, we must develop our State, but development cannot be achieved on the back of poverty. No nation has ever become prosperous by allowing poverty to flourish. We must confront poverty while pursuing development.

Lagos continues to attract thousands of people from across Nigeria and neighbouring countries. How would your administration manage this growing population while maintaining security, infrastructure and public services?

There has been a significant influx of people into Lagos from different parts of the country and even neighbouring countries, particularly through our borders. There are also perceptions among some people that Lagos is “no man’s land.”

However, what is important is that Lagos must remain secure. Today, we have invested significantly in security technology. There are drones that can be programmed to cover distances of up to six kilometres and return automatically. We have different layers of surveillance and intelligence gathering.

If you come to Lagos and engage in criminal activities, we will find you. That is why I believe we must build a comprehensive identity management system. Lagos should become a model in this regard. If you do not have the required identification, you should not be able to access essential public services.

It is similar to what obtains in other countries. In the United Kingdom, people have the National Health Service (NHS). In the United States, there is the Social Security system. From the moment a child is born, the child is entered into the national database and given an identity that follows them throughout life. That is the direction we must move towards.

Everything should be biometric. If someone commits an offence in a market or anywhere else, law enforcement should be able to trace that individual through an integrated database.

Security is a responsibility we must take seriously. Whether the threat comes from within Nigeria or from outside the country, if anyone comes to Lagos with criminal intentions, we must have the capacity to identify and apprehend them.

I am not worried about our ability to achieve that. We simply need to continue investing in security infrastructure and build on what we already have. Naturally, I will not disclose all the security capabilities available to us. There is no reason to tell criminals everything we have in place.

You are widely regarded as a disciplined and results-oriented leader. Some people believe that, under your administration, Lagosians may have to adjust to stricter standards of order and compliance. How do you respond to that perception?

The truth of the matter is that we all have one goal. Every distant Nigerian wants Nigeria to be there. And nobody, you say, wants to be a chairman of a local government, of a governor, a president to fail. All of us want to succeed. The challenge is, when the pressure comes, hopefully, it will not consume people. For me, as I said before, let us be organized. So, we build roads, let’s use it for what we built it for. When we say this is a market, then let it be a market, so I know that, oh, if I want to buy this, this is where to go.  We must be disciplined as a people—even God said it, so we have to be disciplined. For me, I think that we have the blessing of God. We have everything to be a great country, so you must do whatever it takes to get to that. If not, God will ask of us.

It is on record that you stepped aside for Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu in the past. Now that you have secured your party’s governorship ticket, how do you reflect on that decision, and did you ever doubt that your time would eventually come?

My spiritual belief is that it is God that chooses leaders, but we don’t know God’s plan, so we must wait. But if you are canvassing that, “Oh, I want to be the candidate of the party.” If the party says no, it shouldn’t be a fight. To answer your question, I tried. I gave it everything that I have. Of course, you must try. You know God made it happen. I’m grateful for that, but I must justify their confidence.