When Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu took over office, he placed premium on T.H.E.M.E.S, which represents Traffic Management and Transportation; Health and Environment, Education and Technology, and Security, all targeted at making Lagos great. Precious Ugwuzor reports that under his health agenda, this administration has immensely invested in the upgrade of public health facilities to enhance access to quality healthcare
Upon assumption of office as the governor of Lagos, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu set out to transform the fortunes of the commerical nerve centre of the nation. To do this, he pegged his vision under T.H.E.M.E.S, representing Traffic Management and Transportation; Health and Environment, Education and Technology.
Wrapping up his first tenure with eyes on the second tenure, one question keeps popping up; has he lived up to the billing so far?
To those in the know, the governor’s giant strides in all sectors of THEMES testifies so, especially in the health sector where he has immensely invested in the upgrade of public health facilities to enhance access to quality healthcare.
Quality Healthcare At the center of the state’s public health policy is the provision of unhindered access to healthcare delivery without financial constraint to the residents. The commissioning of four Mother and Child Centers (MCCs) at Eti-Osa, Igando, Badagry and Epe amply demonstrates the administration’s resolve to enhance residents’ access to healthcare.
Also, the state government through the Lagos State Health Management Agency (LASHMA) has inaugurated new centres at Ikorodu, Ikotun and Epe. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of Lagosians have been covered under the Health Insurance Scheme.
It is pertinent to add that the government has established several Triage and Oxygen centres. The construction of the New Massey Children’s Hospital in Adeniji Adele, Lagos, a seven-storey, 150-bed hospital, the largest in West Africa, is huge boost to the state.
Also, there has been comprehensive renovation of public health facilities like that of Ebute-Meta and Harvey Road Health Centre, General Hospital, Odan and Isolo, Infectious Disease Centre, Yaba, among others.
At the last count, about 1,417 residents successfully had pediatric eye surgery, adult eye surgery, pediatric surgery, dental surgery, orthopedic surgery and Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) surgery through the initiative.
Also, the government set a roadmap for the comprehensive upgrade of infrastructure in the state-owned health facilities following approval of the plan by the Executive Council. Although this roadmap is being executed in phases, its primary goal is to revamp health facilities across the state’s primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare system and build a resilient healthcare system.
Approval has also been given for the construction and equipping of 1,500-bed Psychiatric Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre at Majidun in Ketu Ejinrin.
He also constructed a four-storey Faculty of Basic Medical and Clinical Sciences Office Block at the Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM), with plans for the renovation and upgrade of some facilities at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH).
Also, in partnership with the private sector, the government completed and handed over an oxygen plant at the Mainland and Gbagada General Hospitals.
More importantly, the governor placed premium on the blueprint designs for Comprehensive Health Center, Primary Health Center and Health Posts as part of the move to rejig their operations and service delivery, as well as help in adding bed capacity to Lagos State’s healthcare infrastructure.
The continuous improvement in quality of health service in the state through the blueprint is a core mandate of the Sanwo-Olu administration, thus moving the state a step closer to achieving universal health coverage and address the issue of brain drain, medical tourism and patient welfare.
Most importantly, the state’s response to the COVID-19, which has been commended locally and globally, helped to prevent the pandemic from spreading more rapidly across the state and also from wreaking havoc on the entire country.
The response strategy put in place by the government efficiently curtailed the pandemic and limited fatalities. EKO TELEMED, a tech-driven platform through which the government managed the spread of the virus, yielded efficient results in breaking the cycle of community infection.
The Sanwo-Olu administration has, no doubt, demonstrated that the restoration of public health facilities remains vital in its ‘Greater Lagos” Agenda as it recognises, and rightly so, that health is wealth and this explains its numerous innovative and people-centered schemes that are carefully designed to change the face of public health in the state.
Easing Traffic and Toll on Health
Beyond these, the governor also recognised the toll traffic takes on the health of citizens. This is why the Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu administration made Health and Environment one of the cardinal programmes of its administration.
To this end, the state employed 1,300 Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) officers to manage traffic, deployed traffic lights and CCTV cameras in strategic places in the state.
Also, after due investigation, the state of the roads was identified as one of the causative factors. These critical state roads, and several others owned by the federal government had fallen into disrepair across the length and breadth of the state.
Some of the affected roads included the Ojota stretch of the Ikorodu Road, Motorways-Kudirat Abiola Way, Apogbon highway, Babs Animashaun Road, Agric/Ishawo and Ijede roads in Ikorodu, and the Lekki-Epe expressway from Abraham Adesanya to Eleko junction, among others.
Sanwo-Olu identified these bad roads as the major cause of the problem of the traffic jams, and, on October 13, 2019, declared a state of emergency. The governor engaged eight construction firms to immediately begin work on fixing the roads “considered critical to the reduction of traffic congestion in the state”.
He added that while the highways were being renovated, the Lagos State Public Works Corporation (LSPWC) would be carrying out repairs of 116 inner roads across the state. Over two years later, most of those traffic jam hotspots have all but disappeared, while more roads have been completed and commissioned.
According to data published on the Lagos State Government Official Website in April 2022, the roads include 34 roads at Kosofe, Somolu, Victoria Island and Ikoyi, 384-capacity multi-level car park at Onikan, three network of roads at Oniru, Victoria Island (Adeola Hopewell, Idowu Taylor and Afribank/Churchgate Streets), Ikoyi network of roads – Mac Donald road/Lateef Jakande Roads, Milverton Road and Thompson Avenue in Ikoyi, Eti-Osa Local Government as well as the Ijede Road Phase 1 in Ikorodu.
Others were the 1.4 km flyover and dual carriageway Pen-Cinema Bridge, Agege; Tedi-Muwo Link Bridge, Lagos-Ogun boundary roads in Alimosho and Agbado-Oke–Odo access roads. They also include 31 network of roads in Ojokoro Local Council Development Area [LCDA], Completed and commissioned the 13.68 kilometers Oshodi-Abule-Egba BRT corridor.
The data also showed that the state reconfigured six Junction/Roundabouts – Allen, Ikotun, Maryland, Lekki and Ajah (under Traffic Management Intervention Plan (TMIP) and did 110 palliatives and 361 sectional rehabilitations on Roads across the State, while rehabilitating 650 inner roads through the Lagos State Public Works Corporation (LSPWC).
One key road infrastructure that undoubtedly solve major traffic conflicts in Ikeja and environs as well as serve as a legacy project for the Sanwo-Olu administration was flagged off on January 27. It is the 3.89-kilometre-long Ojota-Opebi link Bridge which will open into Ojota axis in Kosofe, taking traffic from Opebi U-Turn and dropping it at Ikorodu Road via an intersection that will be constructed under Odo Iya Alaro Bridge at Mende.
The road will be supported by 276 metre-long deck-on-pile bridge and 474 metre-long mechanically stabilised earth-wall approach sections.
The carriageway, which is a new connectivity, would create an easy exit for commuters leaving Ikeja-Onigbongbo axis towards Ojota and Maryland. The project was initiated to proffer permanent solution to inadequacies of Opebi Link Bridge and the Opebi U-Turn, and to ease pressure on overburdened routes within Ikeja, with the objective to reduce travel time along the corridor.
It is one of the ongoing major road projects amongst which are the Lekki-Epe Expressway, Agric-Isawo Road, Ikorodu, Bola Tinubu-Igbogbo-Imota Road, Oba Sekumade Road, Ipakodo, Ikorodu, Itamaga to Ewu Elepe town, Construction of 22 Bus Shelters and Regeneration of GRA, Ikeja.
Focus on Inter-modal Transportation
Governor Sanwo-Olu is also focusing on Inter-modal transportation, for instance rail. It acquired 10-car intra-city metropolitan speed trains for the 37km Lagos Red Line project, compensated 263 residents affected by Red Rail Line project right of way, completed the 380-metre-long sea crossing bridge component of the Lagos Blue Line Rail spanning Mile 2 to Marina, flagged off the Lagos Red Line Rail Mass track sharing with the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), on April 15, 2021.
For road transportation, Sanwo-Olu launched LagRide with 1,000 units of Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), commissioned four Bus Terminals – Mafoluku, Yaba, Oyingbo and Ajah, completed 78 bus shelters/bus depots while 22 are ongoing, reconfigured six Junctions/Roundabouts – Allen, Ikotun, Lekki I & II, and Ajah.
The state also delivered 14 new BRT stations, launched 500 units of First and Last Mile (FLM) buses as alternative means of transportation in addressing the security threat constituted by commercial motorcycles, popularly known as ‘okada’, injected 560 high-medium capacity buses for standard routes
For water, LAGFERRY now operates on 21 boats, eight of which were inaugurated by the governor on February 6, 2020, while seven new ones were added to the fleet on June 22, 2021. These resulted in LAGFERRY ferrying over 500,000 passengers between February 2020 and March 2022 and moving 41,040 trucks from Mile 2 terminal between January and December 2020 while creating 284 jobs.
The state has in the last three years constructed or is constructing several jetties, including the ones at Apa, Badagry, Isalu, Ajido, Badagry, Ilado Amuwo Odofin, Ilashe, Amuwo-Odofin, Ito Omu Epe, Offin, Ikorodu, Takwa Bay Eti Osa, among others.
HousingMan, they say, is a product of his environment. This saying is one Sanwo-Olu lives by seeing that he placed premium on housing. On July 24, 2021, he rewarded Nigeria’s only individual Olympics gold medallist Chioma Ajunwa with a three-bedroom flat at the Babatunde Raji Fashola Housing Estate, Iponri.
The reward came 25 years after former Lagos State Military Administrator, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, promised Ajunwa a house for winning the long jump gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
The house was one of the 132 home units (88 home units and 44 home units of three-bedroom apartments respectively) competed by the Sanwo-Olu administration.
Others include the 480-unit housing project in Ibeshe, Ikorodu, 774 housing units LagosHOMS, Sangotedo Phase 1, 100 housing units in Ikate, Lekki, 360 home units, comprising 120-units home in Igbogbo, 252 home units, Idale, Badagry and 120 units Courtland Villas, Igbokushu, Lekki, among others.
Social Interventions
Health is wealth, they say. But to take care of one’s health, finances come to play. Thus, to boost residents’ livelihood and businesses, the administration gave 1,050 rural women intensive training in boosting outputs in agricultural production. At the end, the beneficiaries were given equal access to markets.
The state also supported 2,704 residents whose means of livelihood were disrupted by COVID-19 pandemic, supported 18 outstanding students from the Skill Acquisition Centres with N100,000 each in 2019 and rescued 48,000 households from poverty through various social intervention programmes under which women got cash transfers and acquired skills.
Added to this was the Medium and Small Scale Enterprises (MSME) Programmes of the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) under which the state supported 3,673 businesses with N1.156billion, backed 1,835 businesses with N939.97million and saved 10,005 direct jobs, 40,020 indirect jobs via the MSME Recovery Fund, an intervention programme to cushion the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and End SARS protests on businesses, initiated the N5billion EduFund in partnership with First Bank and EdFin MFB, set up a N1billion fund targeted at businesses in the tourism, hospitality, entertainment, arts and culture sectors – both loans and grants and introduced a N1billion Agriculture Value Chain Fund targeted at businesses that operate within the Agric value chain among others.
Justice and Security These two are as interwoven as they come. In this regard, this administration completed three Police Posts in Ise, Elemoro and Ilashe, Christopher Olatunde Segun High and Magistrate Courthouse, Badore, Ajah, provision of standard Police interview room with recording equipment at the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja, construction of Combined High/Magistrate Courts, Igando and Imota, as well as the stablishment of Forensic Toxicology and Chemistry Section and Enhancement of Security and other sections of Lagos State DNA & Forensic Centre: Phase 2 by Turnkey Project.
Also, given that the state witnessed an anti-police brutality protests of 2020 which resulted in the destruction of public and private property, including 27 police stations, the Igbosere Hight Court, among others running into N1trillion worth of damages statewide, the state government is gradually restoring the lost infrastructure, enforcing law and order and restoring confidence in law enforcement.
Governor Sanwo-Olu on June 10, 2021, donated 150 vehicles, four high-capacity troop carriers, 30 patrol cars, and two anti-riot water cannon vehicles to the police as part of efforts to strengthen security responses across the state.
As of April this year, the state said it had donated security equipment worth billions of naira to the police, including 180 patrol vehicles, 200 patrol motorcycles, four high-capacity troop carriers, two anti-riot canon vehicles, 1,000 security gadgets and commissioned the Emergency Security Regional Centre, Epe, among others.
Essentially, his clear-cut vision to boost the fortunes of the state through T.H.E.M.E.S is gradually paying off with the residents better for it.
