Lagos State People’s Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial candidate, Jimi Agbaje has said that he doesn’t have a godfather and it is time to remove Lagos from the bondage of vested interest hampering service delivery to the people.
While speaking during the weekend at a press briefing, he said “They said they didn’t make you governor in one place because you cannot be bullied or forced to do things you don’t want to do, then on the other hand they now said you have gone to another godfather, so its now a case of saying I ran away from one godfather to go and work with another godfather, but such an issue didn’t arise. I don’t have a godfather in the way that they have put it.
“When it was time to choose my running mate, nobody chose her for me. The issue of godfather hampering whatever service delivery is not even on the table. I want the people to believe me that it won’t happen.
“We have a vested interest that is affecting the social, economic and political life of our state. You cannot have any big project in Lagos unless you take into consideration vested interest and we are saying that it is time to remove Lagos from this bondage.
“The properties acquired by the vested interests, the ones we can take back, we will take back, those ones that had been acquired illegally and cannot be properly accounted for, we will take back.
“The ones we cannot take back and had been done in a way that the people have been shortchanged will be addressed. That is why I said the election is about continuity or change.”
He also added that his administration will provide low cost housing by partnering with the private sector, he said “We have more slums in Lagos because eight years ago, there was a budget of $200 million loan from the World Bank to revive specific slums like Badiya and others. If you go to those places, you can’t see any result.
“Don’t we have the formula right to reverse the slums even with the money that comes in? We are saying that we can have low cost housing by partnering the private sector.”
He berated the poor implementation of the Bus Rapid Transport( BRT), he said “The replacement of Molue buses with BRT buses is a good initiative but the poor implementation is killing the project. For example, BRT is gradually becoming another Molue bus.
“If you move round Lagos’ major roads, you are likely to notice broken-down BRT buses blocking the traffic flow to cause more congestion. A megacity cannot grow with poor transportation system.
“The light rail project would further assist the easy transportation of our people and our government shall complete the project.”