Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, was a guest of Channels Television programme, Politics Today, where he spoke about a range of issues bordering on security of lives and property, transportation, the menace of Okada riders and why the Amotekun corps is less active in Lagos than other Southwest states.

You had a meeting with some of the security chiefs in Lagos and assured Lagosians that all is well. What proactive measures are you taking to check the capacity of the elements that want to infiltrate the state?

Security is seen as the bedrock of any good governance, because what we preach is that we want to ensure that we save people’s lives and property, and this was one of the things that we campaigned on. If you look at my THEMES agenda, the last letter, which is S, is security and governance. So, it is not something that we just woke up to; it was something that we thought of, something that we dreamt, and we knew what to do with it.

However, to answer the question is to look at the security architecture in Lagos. I was opportune to be the first interim chairman of the Security Trust Fund, and I was part of the board for four years when it was set up that in 2008. Therefore, what you see in Lagos, outside of the regular Lagos State Police Command, is that our government has been able to strengthen the Rapid Response Squad (RRS).

We have about 2,500 men in the RRS. We also have between 500 and 600 men in the task force, apart from the fact that we have access to two or three MOPOL formations in Lagos. Lagos also has over 15 Area Commanders and about 110 Divisional Police Officers (DPOs). Therefore, what it means is that in that small space of 3,650 square kilometers, you have this whole gamut of security architecture.

Therefore, we have three layers of interventions in Lagos; the regular police in the event of day-to-day issues that everybody wants to relate to. However, when you have tactical interventions, men of the RRS are usually the ones that you see coming out first. When it has to do with a direct intervention from the Governor’s Office, you can also see the men of the Task Force.

In the last three and a half years. We have also been supporting all the security architecture in the state, not only the police. We’ve given them over 260 vehicles in the last two and a half, three years. We have also extended similar gestures to other security outfits like the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Navy and the Nigerian Air Force under OPMESA.

We also support with equipment because we know that security is not something that is cheap. Hence, it is not something that we are starting today. It is something we have started since day one. We are not waiting for anybody in ensuring that we do what we need to do in Lagos to make sure that they are motivated with the required equipment to work with as well as logistics support, wherewithal and access to me.

Therefore, that is what has helped us to speak to the issues and deal with it in the aspect of architecture. As I said, what we have done is to come out of the regular police architecture to other security agencies in Lagos, like NDLEA, Civil Defence Corps, correctional facilities, the Nigerian Immigration Service and the Neighborhood Watch that we also have. The entire tripod is now activated to see something and say something. This is to ensure that everybody has a responsibility to ensure that whatever is noticed or you observe in your respective neighbourhood is related to the appropriate authorities.

Those are some of the things that we agreed to two days ago. We need to share information. It is not about one person presiding on all the information. We are also taking it to the citizens, especially via CDCs and our CDAs, so that we could have access to intelligence.

The #EndSARS violence gave Lagos out on how porous the city could be. When we talk about security’s intelligence, what other digital means are being deployed to secure the city?

For obvious reasons, I will not go into details about this. But we are working with the Department of State Security (DSS) which has the primary role for intelligence. They are the ones that comb the nooks and crannies. I get telephone calls, text messages almost on a daily basis that I share with them. We are deploying a smart city intervention in the state. We are about the only one that is doing it aggressively and to date. We are installing close to 2,000 CCTV cameras all around the city. We are turning some of them into traffic management.

We are just building a new data centre for this kind of implementation. However, I cannot begin to give the full details for obvious reasons. We are going to be making this available to DSS so that they can also review some of these things and can have access too. It is a walk in the park, and it is something that the citizens need to be reassured about.

Is the Command and Control Centre at Ikeja still there?

Yes, it is still there.

I have had to report security at some point in Lagos, and I have been taken on a tour of that facility. You can almost see the whole of Lagos on one screen. That was years ago.

I built that facility when I was the chairman of the Lagos State Security Trust Fund (LSSTF). Therefore, I know everything that was put in there. We need to retool a few things, which we are currently doing. Some system needs to be changed, which we have done. We have actually changed the orientation and the location of the place. However, beyond even all of that, in our ministry, we are building a new data centre that will specifically be for security. It is coming to the system already. We have shipments of about over 21 containers that arrived about two months ago. All those deployments are happening gradually, and we have spent a lot of money. We are not just waiting for anybody to help us.

Is this from security votes or the budget?

It is from the budget. It is a two-layer because we can also deploy the infrastructure for other things. Technology, for example, using it in school. Once a fibre is there, what carries it can be not only for security, it can be used in hospitals, it can be used in schools and it can be used to ensure that government services are running.

We are building the architecture, we are building the backbone and security will be one of the users of that barcode. That is how it works. That is why it is on a budget.

You placed a ban on okada (commercial motorcycle), and security is one of the reasons. Are you sticking to that, stretching or extending it further? Do you see any more danger in the use of Okada in Lagos?

The only land border I have is with Ogun State. The other one that I have is the Atlantic Ocean. We have a joint Commission where we do things around fiscal planning approval, transportation approval, and security issues. However, to speak directly on the okada thing, we have seen tremendous improvement in the areas in which it has been banned. In fact, people have written to me to commend me. Not only are we seeing a drop in issues around security, traffic, robberies and so on, we do not see people being maimed or limbs being cut in hospitals again. These were things that terminated people’s lives unexpectedly. Therefore, we have seen tremendous improvements in that area.

Do you have the statistics to support that?

In terms of rate of mortality in the last two months, at the peak of it, we were seeing about 550 Okada related accidents per month in January-February. Now, it has come down to 100 direct accidents that we have seen from our hospitals. It has significantly gone down. One thing we have told the RRS is that we need to have a lot of pin down positions, because it is easy to maneuver and do all sorts with Okada. Therefore, they do a lot of pin down and pedestrian monitoring. They just need to park and walk around.

You have been criticised as perhaps the only governor in the whole of the Southwest region to downplay the role of Amotekun security network, which some said has worked very well in other parts of the region. The reason, according to speculation, is because of politics. Would you be considering activating the security outfits?

It is a great initiative. It is a great idea and I was part of it. I gave them, even the template, in terms of the Law. We have the Lagos State Neighborhood Watch. These almost 7,000 men have been trained and energised. They are working on a day-to-day basis in the state. It is not about the color of the uniform. It is about efficiency and effective security thing. We believe that almost 7,000 of them are working closely with the Nigerian Police Force.

I get important information on a weekly basis in almost all nooks and crannies. You know, they escalate these things to the Nigerian Police. And that’s one of the things that has helped us to be able to directly intervene and meet some of the things that you probably also would not have been aware of, because I get the report on a daily basis.

Now, it’s interesting that you have clarified that, because a lot of people will say oh, I mean, he’s basically talking politics…

They are like my brothers and we both conceived it. And as I said, we thought of it as a boundary intervention. That, you know, the issue there was something happens in Ekiti, you run into Ondo. We said okay, let us set up something where you can police the border patrols. We are not throwing away the police. In fact, I am borderless with Ogun. We are closer to Kara and Mowe than Abeokuta. We do the interventions actually. The last time we had a broken-down truck, it was handled by our own LASEMA. Just this morning, at 4:35, in Sango Ota, there was a massive 40-feet truck that slipped off. It was LASEMA that sorted that.

How do you detect if there is an infiltrator that is coming into Lagos, for example. There was a time that we were alerted that there is a truckload of possible infiltrators?

One of the things that we did at the last security meeting is that we have actually pushed a physical stop and search into Ogun State because there is no place on the express route where they can do anything.

How much of registration of residents and citizens of Lagos do you have? How can you digitally identify people?

Three weeks ago, we launched the LASRRA card. This is like the highest digital citizens card in the country. We launched it three weeks ago.

How much of that do you have on your database?

We have about six million Lagosians out of over 20 million registered in the data base.

How long do you think it can take to capture all of Lagos?

It is something that the people also need to come up to. That is why communication is key.

Would it come to a point that you will have to enforce that?

We will enforce it to the extent that you may not be able to get some government services.

The reason why I’m asking is because you talked about CCTV. In other climes, the CCTV camera picks your face, they are able to go through a biometrics check and identify where you reside, who you are, your crime, background and all of that. That’s one of the reasons why I’m asking when you’re installing the CCTV cameras, how do you then process it?

One of the problems that we have in this country is that data resides in so many places. Technology is the same everywhere. So we don’t want to begin to knock on people’s doors and say I want to take your picture and know if you have it even if it is in, you know, passports, you know, registration, as simple as that you in your registration in the bank.

We can have access to some of these things, and they can reside in a database where security can have access to some of these things. It is, just as you said, these agencies are not speaking to each other deliberately or lack of knowledge. So, it rests well with you and I to ensure that we escalate this and will bring them to sit to each other and say this is what we need to use this for. NIMC are working with us, I must commend them.

You are spending a lot of money on rail services in Lagos. The question is how secured will those be now as a proactive measure? What happened on the Kaduna Abuja bound train that was attacked in March where over 60 persons were attacked by terrorism and abducted. In your development of rail service in Lagos, the question is: are you considering measures to protect the roads from attacks?

Coincidentally, today, I have been on the road. I went on a red line inspection. I started the journey from Agege and all the way to Ebute Metta. Six stations for bridges overpasses, and the crew of Channels TV were with us on that journey.

So what did we see? We have seen that we are on our journey to have a rail infrastructure already in the process by December is on track. This is different from the Kaduna-Abuja rail. Why? This is an intra-city rail network. It is not an intercity is not a 200-300 Kilometer rail. This is a 30-35 in a city rail infrastructure.

What we need to do is to ensure that inlet of each of your train stations, you have sufficient CCTV cameras and keep records properly. How is your payment system? Is your payment system something that you can track at the back end? As customers, you’re not going to come to pay by cash, on the counter. You must have a prepaid card and the rest of it.

Therefore, these are some of the things in our view that will deter would-be criminally minded people because they will not be passengers as that will deter them. Secondly, the entire rail tracks are going to be fenced up. We are insulating them from possible attacks. They are going to be walled off.

Vehicles are not going to be crossing those rail tracks. We have done bridges in Mushin, Ikeja, Yaba and Apapa road and so that’s the kind of thing that’s also going to happen on red rail. Blue Line from Mile 2 to Orile to National Trade Fair has been walled off completely. We are going to do the same on the red line.

Are you thinking about response across real life such that should there even be a breakdown, because there are talks about reels and trains breaking down and it takes several hours before there is a rescue…

We have the best professionals in this on our payroll already. We even have a team of police officers that are dedicated on the blue light rail corridor, even before it gets started to clean up in order to ensure that there are no miscreants. Remember that there are also cameras that are going to be installed along the routes.

I understand that you got some of the coaches from Wisconsin in the United States

No, we got the red line from Milwaukee. You know, interestingly, those trains were meant to be from Milwaukee to Chicago. So it’s a short haul. But something happened and we’re able to pick it. But the other sets are actually coming from China on the blue line right now. Both of them are ready.

When is the red line supposed to be flagged off?

The blue will be up by December, while the Red Line will be on by first quarter of next year. But the entire infrastructure will be ready for the end of the year. We inherited the Blue Line, but we have actually done a lot more than what we have done in the last five years on the Blue Line as well.

Where does the Blue Line start and where does it terminate?

The Phase 1 starts from Mile 2 and terminates at Marina. Marina is iconic station for the Blue Line. The Phase 2 of it will now push you back from Mile 2 and go all the way to Okokomaiko. The beauty of the Phase 2 is that it is at ground level. There are no overhead. Therefore, it is going to be faster and quicker for us to and the corridor is there to lay the tracks and be able to finish it.

For the red line, it starts from Agbado, which is outside Lagos to Iju – Agege -Oshodi – Mushin- Yaba and Ebute Metta. The Phase 2 of that one will get out to Marina sometime in the future. People talk about Kenya. People talk about Nairobi. So yeah, I’m trying to talk about one in Ethiopia. Go and ask, it is a sovereign that is doing it, not Addis Ababa. We have been very creative in our financing. A lot of budgetary is there, but we are very, very creative.

Also with the Loan. Let me tell you about the loan, single digit, eight-year money, you cannot get it anywhere

Where did you get it from Nigeria?

From local banks. I am extremely impressed with them. We are all stakeholders and they are with us on the journey.

Let us talk about the Apapa gridlock. You promised that you were going to fix it. What happened?

I am looking straight into the camera and I can boldly say that I have fixed Apapa gridlock. NPA has written letters to commend us. All of the major businesses in Apapa have equally written. I get daily video recording of what is happening in Apapa. I have gotten one for today, and I am sure I will get more between seven o’clock and nine o’clock and between one o’clock and three o’clock on a daily basis.

What used to take two hours, three hours now takes them 15 to 20 minutes. But what is the remainder of the problem? The Federal Government is doing the route from Sunrise in MTN from the Mile 2 end and going towards Apapa. That is the portion that has not been completed. I think it is a stretch less than a kilometer. That stretch needs to be completed for you to have a complete cleanup of it. (The Nation)

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