Lagos world listing: An indication of Sanwo-Olu’s extraordinary leadership, By Babajide Fadoju

A beautiful environment sets the mood for every celebration. While there is a special environment for any kind of event, a serene and well designed locale will always be the dream of every tourist who wants to enjoy the most of their times celebrating a variety of occasions, the new year celebration for instance.

With Lagos staying agog with parties, celebrations and concerts through the festive period; CNN, the premium global television network of best cities in the world for new year crossover celebrations.

The story of Lagos is so compelling such that CNN couldn’t pass over the city in the list, stating that “Lagos is the centerpiece of Nigeria’s New Year’s Eve celebrations, which are marked in culturally and religiously diverse ways.’’

It is no surprise that Lagos State has made the list of the top 20 best destinations in the world for New Years Eve Celebrations this year, especially with a multi-dexterous leader as His Excellency, Babajide Sanwa-Olu, piloting the affairs of the state as her governor. And indeed, it has been said that when power is handled by those who know how to combine experience and expertise to achieve giant strides and massive developments, the proof of success becomes an open secret for everyone to see and imagine how far a leader could go for the betterment of his people.

For the very first time in history, Lagos has made the top 20 best destinations in the world for New Years Eve celebrations, topping Venice, Las Vagas and even London in the listing. By every indication, this historic feat is possible as a result of the commitment and hard work of the Sanwo-Olu administration in the entertainment and tourism sectors of the state. More so, if Lagos hadn’t exhibited verifiable evidences that earned the needed confidence in the security architecture of the state, such listing would not have been possible. Needless to say, His Excellency, Babajide Sanwa-Olu, has taken Lagos to the world map through his numerous giant strides in different sectors of Lagos State ever since his emergence as the Lagos State Governor in 2019.

Like a man intentional about the progress of his people, Babajide Sanwa-Olu ascended the leadership of Lagos State Government and immediately fired from every cylinder, breaking new grounds with the actualization of his T.H.E.M.E.S. agenda which has served as the template for driving his administration’s development agenda.

In 2019, Sanwo-Olu campaigned with the THEMES agenda on the basis of which Lagosians gave him a mandate. He had during the campaign revealed that Project T.H.E.M.E.S. is an acronym for six strategic developmental philosophy which are as follows: Traffic Management and Transportation, Health and Environment, Education and Technology, Making Lagos a 21st Century Economy, Entertainment and Tourism as well as Security and Governance. No one thought that this could be achievable. But defiling all ioata of doubts, Babajide Sanwa-Olu got to work with his team and like magic, he created what we know as Lagos today, a state that can comfortably stand the world ranking for many criteria, starting from his many efforts to control the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic which placed Nigeria as the fourth best country in the world that effectively and impressively curbed the spread of covid 19 Virus according to the World Health Organization, to placing the Lagos State University in the 799 position out of the total global entries of a thousand and fifty (1050) universities in the world, the best in Nigeria and 15th best in the whole of Africa, and now to placing the entire city of Lagos as among the top 20 best destinations in the world for New Years Eve Celebrations this year 2023.

The truth is that Lagos State is the Centre of Excellence today because a leader like Babajide Sanwa-Olu is piloting her affairs as Governor. Without mincing words, His Excellency Sanwo-Olu has successfully impacted every sector of the state. Talk of the agricultural sector, the Educational sector, transportation (rail, road, water), infrastructural development, Job and wealth creation in form of grants to business owners, monthly payments to 4,000 unemployed youth, top notch health care programs and facilities, 24 hours help line for security and fire emergencies, cleaner environment as well as active investment in sports development.

It would interest you to know that most of these projects were funded through internally generated revenue (IGR) which is majorly sourced from taxes. According to the National Bureau of Statistics report at state level for Half year 2021, Lagos state has the highest internally generated revenue in the country with the country’s capital following closely behind. In 2021, Lagos state topped the chart.

In the agricultural sector, governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu introduced the Agricultural value chain enterprise Activation program with a major aim of proper sensitization of men and women of different age groups on the economic benefits of agriculture. Through this program, over 12,000 women and thousands of youths were trained in various agricultural practices and has positively impacted the lives of many youths thereby giving them a means of sustenance and livelihood.

In addition to this, Governor Babajide Sanwo-olu’s administration has made it a continuous act to ensure that both employed and unemployed women as well youths become self dependent and employers of labor. This singular act drastically reduced unemployment rate and also decreased the rate of insecurity in the state. How else would Lagos be considered safe enough to comfortably play host for tourists from all over the world, and eventually being listed as among the top 20 best destinations in the world for New Years Eve Celebrations?

In the Education Sector, Babajide Sanwa-Olu remains a trailblazer! He began the turn-around in this sector by successfully increasing the 2020 budgetary allocation by 65 percent and giving his full support to programs like the Eko-Excel initiative- Excellence in Child Education and learning tagged “Leave No Child Behind”, followed by the recent certificates collected for the two new Lagos state universities at the NUC in Abuja and also his great investment in capacity development. He created an avenue to effectively equip the managers of tertiary institutions in Lagos state and produce beneficial materials, ensuring that they all attended a Higher Education Business Government collaboration conference at the university of London thereby creating a foundation for more growth of the Educational sector. Certainly when these kind of novel initiatives and developments are in view, the commissioning of various school infrastructure projects leading to the completion of over 1,000 projects across 970 schools in the state within the space of three years seems common to a man in the league of Babajide Sanwa-Olu who is bent on building a model city-state like Singapore out of Lagos State.

One would wonder if Lagos would ever merit the listing as among the top 20 best destinations in the world for New Years Eve Celebrations this year if there are bad roads and transportation systems in the state. The transportation sector is of course one of the priorities the Sanwo-Olu administration takes pride in reforming. Starting with the construction of over 51 major infrastructural projects in just three years. These projects include the Pen Cinema fly-over, Lagos-Ogun Boundary roads, ramp and road networks, phase II, Lekki Oniru traffic circulation projects, network of roads in Ikoyi, Somolu, Ojokoro, not forgetting the construction and rehabilitation of 301 inner roads in the 20 Local government areas and 37 Local Council Development areas, the Oshodi-Abule Egba BRT lane, the Eleko junction to Epe concrete pavement and many more. Blue line stations have been built at Festac, Alakija, Trade fair, Volkswagen, LASU, Okokomaiko, Mile 2, Alaba, Iganmu, National Theater, with a possible extension to Agbara in Ogun state and about seven stations concurrently being built. These have in no small measures redefined mass transportation within and outside Lagos state, making it easier for both Lagosians and tourists to move around with ease and in safety.

Lagos State has made it to global listing a lot of times all thanks to the energetic and visionary Sanwo-Olu who clearly from every indication is an eagle yet to even perch.