At Next Level, We Will Increase Opportunities For Nigerians To Live Better Lives
Channel: Prof. Yemi Osinbajo
Date: 28/03/2019

Speech Delivered At The 11th Bola Tinubu Colloquium In Abuja

"We are here for the 11th edition of the Bola Tinubu Colloquium. This is a yearly development gathering where we try to question and interrogate some of the difficult questions on economic and social development, not just in Nigeria, but also across the world.

We do it in celebration of a man who has spent the last thirty years of his life in creative and catalytic public service. He has from his days as Governor of Lagos State, provided clarity of thought and pioneering vision in all aspects of governance.

He is not a lawyer, but there are few Nigerians who have provoked so many legal controversies and constitutional challenges, resulting in several landmark judicial rulings, especially in the area of federalism, and what today is loosely described today as restructuring.

Many of us know, of course, that he is not an engineer, but a lot of his vision is what is responsible for what we see today in Lagos. The BRT, the Lekki Industrial Zone, even the Eko Atlantic Project, a private project which he initiated as governor of Lagos state and of course, the reform in the tax system in Lagos.

Today, Lagos earns more in Internally Generated Revenue than 31 States of Nigeria put together. That reform began in 2001with the very innovative way in which he reformed the tax system and created an independent system – the Lagos Inland Revenue Service. Several African countries and States of Nigeria have engaged the LIRS as consultants for their own reform efforts...

Let me say a word or two about the Next Level. As you know, the expression Next Level itself is our political campaign slogan in this last election. And what we were saying was simply that there was a next phase to what our country has seen. There are many who will say that there were many things that were promised in 2015, which have not yet been realized. I think the best way of putting is to simply say that our country, for the first time is experiencing the type of leadership that is bound to lead us to where it is that we are purposed for ourselves as a government.

In my view, the honest leadership, leadership with the integrity of our president, President Muhammadu Buhari, is a very important component of getting anywhere at all in all of our development plans. I had said before at the last colloquium that Nigeria’s main problem is not the lack of ideas, it is not the lack of projects and programmes. It was most of the time, especially with the leadership in the past, it was a lack of integrity in leadership and corruption, in particular, was the reason why we were finding it difficult to make progress.

I explained that that’s why we earned $383billion in four years, 2010 – 2014, the highest ever in the history of our country, and yet Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was not done. Lagos-Kano Railway and all that is being done today, not done then. We cannot point to a single major infrastructure project that was completed in the 10-year period, despite the high earnings, including power.

So, a government coming after so many years of waste must be a government, first, that emphasizes fiscal prudence, a government that emphasizes integrity in public finance so that it would manage the little resources to achieve the maximum that can be achieved. And that is what President Muhammadu Buhari set out to do. As I keep saying, the president has never claimed to be an orator. He just gets things done.

It was under President Muhammadu Buhari that three of the four refineries that we have today were built when he was Minister of Petroleum Resources. 3500km of pipelines were built by him as Minister of Petroleum Resources in a three-year period. So, there is a track record, not of talking, but of just getting things done. And this is what we have seen in the past four years. That is why we were able to set aside money for the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. And that is going on at present. That is why we opened up the first phase of the Lagos-Kano Railway that was commissioned a couple of weeks ago i.e the Lagos-Abeokuta-Ibadan phase of that project. The Itakpe-Warri Railway, now completed after 35 years of being on the books.

We now have that light rail from the airport to Idu here in Abuja, same as several other infrastructural projects. Mambila Hydro has been on the cards for 40 years. We have just put together resources to begin that project and we will complete that project.

For us, infrastructure is critical at the Next Level. You cannot have a situation where you have the kind of power situation we have today and expect transformative progress. 

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Oluyemi Oluleke “Yemi” Osinbajo is a Nigerian Lawyer and politician who is the current Vice President of Nigeria, in office since 29 May 2015.

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