I am happy to report that after more
than three months of Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode as the Governor of Lagos,
Nigeria’s foremost state, the conspicuous point that has served as the
identity of the government is compassion for the masses of the deprived
citizens. He has peeped into history and discovered that a government is
bereft of an abiding relationship with reality and posterity if it does
not go the extra mile to empathise with the needy.
He made this clear on Day One of his
coming. After he had acknowledged the sacrifices of the generality of
the residents of Lagos, including the political class and the elite in
ensuring his election, Ambode made a solemn statement to announce his
commitment to what has since entered the record book as his philosophy,
as it were. He spoke of an unbreakable bond with the common man. It was
the landfall of what has thereafter been known as compassionate
governance.
Ambode declared: “The challenges you
face today as a state, are good enough ingredients to bring out the best
of all of us…we shall implement creative ideas and concepts… I
therefore invite you all to join hands with me, to offer new ideas that
will pull more resources to cater for the poor and needy among us. This
will be a compassionate government.”
I have seen this at work both in the
most abstract aspects of administration and in the most ordinary areas
of government under Ambode.
Observers have taken note of the display
of a sympathetic tone in the governor’s move to bring investors to
Lagos. He has done it with panache by first setting up an Office of
Overseas Affairs and Investment (Lagos Global) domiciled in his office.
He kick-started the mission on the second day in office by meeting the
President of Namibia, Dr Hage Geingoband. He unveiled the opportunities
that abound in the State of Excellence. Since then, the governor has met
several local and foreign investors, including the richest African,
President of Dangote Group of Companies, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, and
businessmen from Dubai, United States of America, Europe and Middle-East
countries.
It is a demonstration of affinity with
the governed when a governor thinks outside the box to personally
supervise a mission that would bring business to the state so that there
would be plenty of jobs for the citizens.
A practical show of compassion for the
governed translates into evolving a government with human face. In only
100 days, Ambode’s administration has revealed many times over that his
is indeed flowing with a milk of human kindness.
Let me take you on a journey of a few but memorable and outstanding ones.
Ambode wasn’t in Lagos when there were
fatal petrol tanker blasts in parts of the state. But if there is a
crisis and you are a man of your word, and a sincere feeling for the
masses is your watchword, you’d abandon what you are doing wherever you
are to share in the grief of your people when there is a crisis. And so
Ambode, a man of steely integrity, took the next flight from Abuja to
Lagos and rushed to the scenes of inferno at Iyana Ipaja inside the
rain. The other incident took place at Idimu, where he expressed deep
sympathies with the victims and promised generous donations to comfort
them and help them get back on their feet.
That wasn’t all. The Lagos State Chief
Executive set up a meeting with petrol marketers and tank farm owners
and instituted a fact-finding committee to look into cases of fuel
infernos with a view to putting a stop to them.
In some of these cases, we have seen
Ambode intervening on occasions of fatalities. But he has also done it
to stop death. Consider the case of Mrs. Ruth Uche, a mother of three
sets of twins. Ambode stepped in to avert death which would have come
through neglect and lack.
Before Mrs. Uche’s plight, Ambode had on
his second working day in office intervened to save the life of the
2015 baby of the year, Miss. Oluwajomiloju Goodness Ogundimu who was
diagnosed with a heart defect that required surgery. Today, baby
Ogundimu is hale and hearty after a successful surgery in India.
I am not through with this governor who
has a burden of compassion to bear. Once, Ambode was coming from Ikoyi
heading for his office when he sighted an accident scene. Rescue work
was going on to save the life of a woman whose car had overturned. Not
for Ambode the routine excuse that state duties in the office demanded
priority attention over a dying citizen. He stopped his convoy and
promptly joined in the operation to help one of the residents whose
sacred vote and tax are sustaining him and his government in power. Talk
of a compassionate leader!
A most touching demarche of Governor
Ambode has been the N11 billion to settle what the state had been owing
elderly retirees. This large sum was approved at a most critical period
when most of these superannuated citizens felt used, abandoned and
neglected after meritoriously serving their fatherland.
His government has also addressed a
critical area of the population, namely the youth, who are the embryo of
tomorrow. Realizing that it portends danger to have the society’s youth
roaming the streets when they should be in school or productive
enterprise, the governor last week issued a policy declaration that his
administration will work out strategies to take away youngsters from the
street. He intends to put them into productive use. In his words, he
will unleash them to develop their potentials in all areas of human
endeavors. Why should a nation’s strength as represented by the youth
waste?
I believe that when an administrator is
this passionate about the foremost roles of the youth; he is only a few
steps away from bringing down the crime level in the society. He is also
on the verge of meeting the food security objective of the society
because these virile young men and women are the foot soldiers for the
agrarian and economic revolution of their fatherland.
Looking at the future has not taken the
governor away from today’s security challenges these past months. His
sincere mien as a trustworthy governor has made corporate bodies and
individuals to raise more than N1billion to support government’s war on
crime. An on its own, the government has acquired 100 new power bikes,
10 armored tanks and, wait for this, helicopters to police Lagos from
the air!
Ambode desires a compassionate watch on
Lagos and so he has made provision for 100 new squad cars for the
Special Operation Service (SOS) which will be unveiled soon.
Linked to this is Ambode’s push for
congestion-free Oshodi-Apapa Expressway. After receiving hundreds of
calls and text messages on the pains experienced by motorists and
commuters as a result of the activities of the petrol tanker drivers on
that route, Ambode moved to the scene by road. He painstakingly tasted
the trauma of the citizens, staying long hours in the gridlock. It has
paid off as the palliative measures he came up with have eased the
congestion to some extent.
Having studied Governor Akinwunmi Ambode
at close range in the past three months of his administration, I can
safely submit that he believes he can’t achieve his lofty goals without
erecting compassion as the substructure of whatever he hopes to erect as
the superstructural architecture of performance. Government without
compassion is barren rule!
For a governor that has consistently
shown through his actions that he was elected to serve the people in the
way he moves around traffic- no siren and there is no tainted vehicle
in his convoy- and the security aides have been told from day one not to
harass the citizens, it is only logical to say that the state is on a
sound footing for growth and development.
–Aruna is the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Ambode
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