Lagos and safety of public infrastructure

Infrastructure development is critical to achieving human capital development in any society. The economic impact that infrastructure improvement has on nation-building cannot be over-emphasized. The growth of any country’s economy hugely depends on the status of its infrastructure.

The dearth of needed infrastructure in a given society places serious limitations on human capital development. This is why the advanced nations of the world commit huge investments to infrastructure development.

J.F. Kennedy, a former President of the United States of America, USA, once put the relationship between infrastructure development and economic prosperity into a proper perspective when he affirmed that: “America has good roads, not because America is rich, but America is rich because it has good roads”.

Across the world, the provision of crucial services is still far below the required expectations, as almost 1.6 billion people have no access to power, 1.2 billion people lack access to safe and potable drinking water and 2.4 billion are faced with the challenge of insufficient medical facilities. Ironically, the infrastructure budget of many developing countries is dwindling.

According to the World Bank, every 1% of government funds spent on infrastructure leads to an equivalent 1% increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which invariably means that there is a correlation between any meaningful inputs in infrastructure development which reflects on economic growth, and indices.

Hence, the value of infrastructure cannot be underplayed. Infrastructure development has in recent times assumed a pride of place in Nigeria’s strive to achieve social and economic progress. Consequently, governments across the country are placing a high premium on infrastructure as the central point of their administrations.

No doubt, the prosperity of a nation depends on the state of its infrastructure. It is because of this that the Lagos State government set out to invest N550.689bn to develop and maintain its infrastructure in 2024.

According to the State’s Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Ope George the total amount of N550.689bn budgeted for Infrastructure represents 24.28% of the entire budget and is part of the ₦1.315trn Capital Budget for the year.

While highlighting some of the infrastructure targeted with the Budget, the Commissioner said there will be the continuation of ongoing transportation projects, such as the expansion of the rail network, road construction, and completion of the Blue/Red Line and other metro projects within the State.

George said the Budget will also address the development of affordable housing schemes and urban renewal projects in improving the housing deficit in the State by injecting a total of N55.924bn representing 2.5% of the entire Budget.

He listed some of the social housing projects including the completion of 444 units of building projects at Sangotedo Phase ll, the Completion of 420 units of building projects at Ajara, Badagry Phase ll and the Construction of 136 units of building Projects at Ibeshe ll, among others.

According to him, there will also be a focus on some special projects, and continuous progress on major infrastructure projects like the Lekki-Epe International Airport, the Omu Creek, and Blue and Red Rail Lines, stressing that most of these projects would be prioritized.

The Budget, the Commissioner said, was also designed to ensure the completion of the front-loaded and ongoing infrastructure like Massey, Omu Creek, Opebi-Mende Link Bridge, Stadia, SCRPS, Lekki-Epe, Lagos Badagry Express, etc., as well as the commencement of the Fourth Mainland Bridge that will connect Ikorodu to the Island.

The implication of the foregoing is that the State government is investing massively in infrastructure development for obvious reasons. It is, however, important that Lagosians take ownership of this laudable project by ensuring that they are not vandalized.

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Over the years, it has been discovered that one of the banes to infrastructure development in the metropolis is the vandalisation of public infrastructure. Lack of civic sense is widespread in our society. People urinate and defecate in public places with reckless abandon. They vandalize and steal public property with impunity. They damage road medians as if to prove that it is not needed.

Blockage of drainage systems with refuse when it rains is also a common phenomenon. Similarly, excavation is done indiscriminately and carelessly on the road. The list of anti-social and unpatriotic attitudes of our people is endless.

Yet, we blame the government whenever the consequences of our actions stare us in the face.

What is, perhaps, even more intriguing is that it is often the same people who perpetrate or keep silent when public property is vandalized or stolen that are quick to condemn the government whenever the effect of their conduct bounce back on them.

Shouldn’t it be clear to everybody when public light cables are vandalized that long days of darkness have been courted? What do we expect when in contravention of environmental law we build structures on drainage channels and indiscriminately dump refuse inside street drains if not flood? It is perhaps a tragedy that we allow our lack of civic sense to harm ourselves.

One major way to safeguard public infrastructure is for everyone to be vigilant and report vandals to police or community leaders for punitive measure(s) to be meted on culprits. It is only when everyone realizes that public infrastructure is meant to serve the public interest that the trend of vandalisation could be reasonably contained.

Under whatever guise, no one has any right to damage, steal, or buy public property.

Steel companies in the state have been fingered as buyers of this vital property from hoodlums’ in the name of excavators. Painfully, buying and selling vandalized property is usually at a ridiculous price while the effect is at an exorbitant price.

A state like Lagos, which has many needs to use its scarce resources can ill afford to waste such resources on replacing vandalized property by the same citizens it is working hard to serve.

Ogunjobi is an Intern with the Features Unit, Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos.