Politics as we practise it in Nigeria is in a class of its own. Our politics is so laced with bitterness, vengeance and acrimony so much so that politicians go to any length to seek revenge from their opponents after any contest.
Already, the Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, even while still in office, is beginning to have the feel of what it means to lose an election in Nigeria. The 2019 governorship election is still a clear five months away, but from all indication, there is no pretense about the fact that he is already suffering the fate of a victim.
Recently, I engaged a colleague who is in the camp of those who believe that anything Ambode is now bad. In the course of the discussion, I asked him what the sins of Ambode are for which he thinks the governor should be publicly executed.
He struggled and struggled to point at anything in particular other than that Ambode stopped the PSP operators. According to him, that arrangement was a way of compensating some critical stakeholders who invested immensely in ensuring his installation, or is it election?
In the last few weeks, we have talked about the hullabaloo generated by the plot to dethrone Ambode. So, doing a similar piece on him again was not the plan for this week but it is difficult to ignore the barrage of half-truths, innuendos and outright falsehood all in a bid to get at the governor that the party bigwigs had rejected. Many of these allegations, it is easy to tell even as an outsider, are all attempts to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it. Truth is that if Ambode had transformed Lagos overnight to another New York, it would not have changed anything, his fate had long been sealed.
What actually prompted this piece was the news that Lagos State House of Assembly is calling for the return of the Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria, known as PSP operators. Recall that the Assembly passed a resolution that the PSP operators should return to their initial waste management function in the state, denying knowledge of a foreign company, Visionscape, engaged by the Lagos State Government to take over waste management in the state from the PSP operators.
Were they completely out of the system? Were they not meant to be a part of the arrangement? I do not have answers to the questions but if the explanation available is anything to go by, the role of Visionscape in the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI) was to manage only domestic waste. The PSPs were to handle commercial waste. The story also has it that because the PSPs were not willing to welcome any new entrant they simply stopped working even before the arrangement could fully takeoff.
The Speaker of the Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa, directed that the Commissioner for Finance should stop releasing money to Visionscape, hinting that the foreign firm’s contract with Lagos State government was without the Assembly’s knowledge and approval.
Showing appreciation, PSPs in a statement released by its spokesperson, Olugbenga Adebola, described the intervention of the Assembly as a welcomed development, adding the Assembly had lived up to the expectation and yearnings of all well-meaning Lagosians.
One is not too keen on the politics, allegations and counter-allegations over the introduction and performance of Visionscape, because the intricacies around the arrangement appear too complex to dabble into. But to completely do away with the company over allegations of non-performance is most unfair.
We must not be seen to be too much in a haste to castigate Ambode and forget so soon that, even the PSP operators did not also measure up before the coming of Visionscape. Their operations at that time left much to be desired. This is not completely about Visionscape’s performance, but the company is only a victim of the war of attrition by the forces that own Lagos against the governor.
With the benefit of hindsight, one can now situate the reason behind the lackluster performance of the PSPs. They operated like our electricity corporations of old, billing people for services not rendered. They sealed people’s home with little or no notice and operated like they were above the law. In some instances, even when the bills are paid, there are no records or reliable accounting system in their offices of payment and getting redress or adequate customer care from them was mission impossible as the bills continue to increase. Even when the refuse are evacuated, they are simply distributed along the streets in their bid to convey them to their dumpsite with rickety vehicles.
Our proclivity for policy summersaults remains one of the greatest drawbacks of governance in the country. There are too many abandoned projects dotting the streets of the country. The very essence of governance as a continuum is completely lost on us. Rather than completing inherited projects successive governments think doing so will give undue credit to their predecessors and so would rather build theirs while abandoning those inherited.
Ambode’s Cleaner Lagos Initiative was meant to take caring for our environment a notch better. Visionscape is a much more modern approach to disposing wastes. Granted that they may have been overwhelmed by the magnitude of challenge that confronted them, it would have been better to find a way of accommodating them alongside the PSPs, rather than out rightly sending them packing. The PSPs would indeed learn a thing or two from cooperating with them rather than celebrating and working for their ouster.
There is also the fact that this might end up sending the wrong signals to investors who have always complained about the volatile nature of our investment climate. An arrangement ought to be put in place to define the operations of all the operators so they can function side by side and give the people alternatives if the old arrangement is not considered good enough. That way, the party stakeholders as well as other private businessmen who have invested in our economy can both sleep with both eyes closed. And also the rules of engagement must be clearly stated for all. The Lagos sky is big enough for all birds to fly. Personal animosities should be set aside while the overall interests of the larger society take preeminence.
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