Agbaje promises to deliver 150,000 housing units by 2018

Lagos State People’s Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial
candidate, Jimi Agbaje, has promised to deliver about 150,000
housing units by 2018 through fostering partnerships with the
private sector and promoting sustainable and effective building
methods if elected.
Agbaje, who disclosed this at the weekend while addressing
newsmen in Lagos, said his goal was to effectively deliver
sustainable units to address the problem of inadequate and
unaffordable housing by using it as a means of creating jobs
for the people.
He regretted that out of 36 states of the federation, Lagos has
remained the worst in terms of obtaining aprproval for
construction permit to build houses, saying the current
administration has neglected low cost housing in the state
and failed to develop the slum areas in the state through
provision of low income housing and housing for the poor.
He added: “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.”
According to him, over N4 trillion received by the present
Lagos government in the last 16 years was not commensurate
with the achievements expected of a global megacity.
As part of his goals, Agbaje said he would develop fishing and
fish processing hub in Epe and Ikorodu to jumpstart an ocean
economy, adding that that would involve the development of
Marina seafronts with supporting logistics and other
infrastructure.
Agbaje said his administration would make provision for 5 per
cent of the state procurement budget for young entrepreneurs
and recent graduates of all educational levels if elected.
He added: “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.”
However, the PDP flag bearer promised to reverse all illegally
acquired properties in the state by some vested interests.
While describing vested interests as the bane behind the
implementation of several policies of government in the state,
he expressed his determination at ensuring that the political,
social and economic life of the state does not growl any
longer under the bondage of vested interests if elected as
governor.
Said he: “In Lagos, you may find good programmes on paper
but you will see that the implementation is being affected by
vested interest. Anything that Lagos does has to be in the
interest of what I call vested interest. So, if you look at the
light rail, the BRT is not working again because there are
vested interest factors involved.
“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 that is affecting our state and we are saying that it is
time to remove Lagos from this bondage,” he added.